We are one
Since I was a high school student, I remember myself looking at pictures and watching videos from beautiful places of Slovenia. However, from Thessaloniki, the city where I live in Greece, there are no direct flights to Slovenia and the tickets are really expensive. For that reason it was not easy for me to organise a trip to this country.
It beggining of 2019 when I heard about an Erasmus+ (Youth Exchange) project which would take place in Slovenia. “This a great opportunity to visit Slovenia”, I thought. Though, I realised later that what I had experienced there was much more than just a trip.
December had arrived and our trip to Slovenia was about to start. After a long journey we arrived in Murska Sobota, a small town close to Rakican (the village where the project would take place). We enjoyed a hot chocolate in a small, cozy café and then we relaxed in a great park in front of a beautiful castle, while waiting for the bus (the one that would take us to Rakican) to arrive.
Probably, the natives were not used to the view of seven young tourists with their suitcases strolling around the center of the city. Most of them were looking at us with curiosity. An old lady with a big smile approached us and asked us something in Slovenian. We assumed that she asked where were we coming from. When we answered “Greece” she exclaimed: “Grčija, Grčija, sirtaki (traditional greek dance)!”. We were really excited with her reaction and we started to feel really comfortable. The lady did not speak English and when we tried to explain to her that we came with a bus from Ljubljana, she looked upset. Maybe she supposed that we wanted to go to Ljubljana and that accidentally we arrived in Murska Sobota. We asked another lady, who was speaking English to translate the reason that we were there. The old lady looked relieved after that and offered us many chocolates that she had in her bag. It was a great “Welcome to Slovenia.” From her side! So the reception from the Slovenian people was something more than hearty and pleasant to us.
The venue of the project and where we would be staying for the following days was a real castle. Yeah, I’m not lying, it truly was a castle! We were getting more and more excited. The host organisation welcomed us and until lunch most of the other participants (from Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania) had arrived. Already at the dinner (which was always delicious) we met many of them. The next day, the official activities started. Specifically, we played ice braking and team building games and we had an introduction to the topic of the project. The title was “We are one” and it was related mainly to disabled people (generally I’m really interested in the field of disability). It is noteworthy that there were some disabled people among the participants and thanks to them the project was even more interesting.
The next days we had many activities which were aiming to the confrontation and the extinction of our stereotypes and prejudices. Also, we had creative presentations about the situation of disability in every country – member of the project. Furthermore, we visited a nursery school in Pusca (a Roma village near Murska Sobota). I was really impressed with how organised the Slovenian team and the host organisation were. We even had a daytrip to the capital city of Slovenia, beautiful Ljubljana where we played a treasure hunt game, we interviewed locals and we enjoyed a lot of christmas spirit time.
Of course, the schedule included intercultural nights where we had the chance to meet the other participants’ cultures (information about the country, food, music, dances), and amazing games as “hug killer” (although it never finished) and “secret friend” (I have to admit that I was really lucky because my secret friend was the best! I received many presents and small letters/messages which I keep in my memory box).
But for me the best part of the project was our local visits to two retirement houses (the one was in Rakican and the other one in Murska Sobota). It was almost Christmas and so you can imagine how delighted the elderly people were when they met us. We sung all together Christmas carols, we made cards and we baked a huge amount of Christmas - shaped cookies. What was great for me was the fact that I was using a translation application in my phone in order to communicate with them since they could not speak English. ΙIt seemed that the old people had a good time watching me while I was trying to speak Slovenian and probably they found my accent funny. However, they appreciated my effort and I am thankful for that.
Now you can understand why I mentioned above that my experience in Slovenia was something more than just a trip. We had a great time, we met many people from other countries we made friends and through cooperation we learnt a lot of important things. And as it was proved during the activities that we had at that project, maybe we are different when it comes to language, religion, culture, sexuality, disability etc. but when “we are one” we are capable of achieving everything!!!
To the Slovenian team, the organization (Zavod Sofiz), the participants and the ESC volunteers: Thank you for this unforgettable experience!
Hope to see you all soon!
Nikos Briazis