April was the WORST month ever! We all decided to end our EVS project after just one week of this madness, and soon Minte Forte itself will close, and what’s worse is YOU’VE JUST BEEN APRIL-FOOLED!!
Well, madness is not completely inappropriate to describe our month of April, but it’s correct only if it’s used in a positive way: like our whole experience in general, also April was quite crazy!
The month began with a particularly special week in our Organization: the Săptămâna Sănătății Mintale – 10th edition! We had been preparing for it during the few weeks before, and the result was great! Our role in it, apart from the preparation phase, was to take some tasks, mainly logistic, during the various events. For example, we were taking care of the on-line promotion of it and contacting participants for confirmation, while, during the events, we were setting the space, welcoming the people, taking pictures, distributing stickers, flyers and feedback questionnaires, etc.
Two special roles were, moreover, the one of Baru as a living book at the event “Biblioteca Vie – Povești Reale Despre Terapie” and the one of Joana as a speaker at the Sunday’s Conference “Căi spre Dezvoltarea Personală”. Joana presented how the EVS is contributing to her personal development, thus she was implicitly talking a bit about all of us, and it was great to hear her!
During that week as well as during the next ones, we kept working on our daily tasks, like researching, studying Romanian, meeting our colleagues, preparing and facilitating workshops in schools and activities in the hospital,… plus Tina continued with her personal project titled “Soul Expression via Art”, and one day Baru made a personal workshop about voice.
At the same time, apart from the project tasks, we joined some extra activities happening in and out of Cluj: Baru continued going at Improv, then, once, with Gloria, she joined a Language Café, and Tina participated to a one-week training, completely immersed in nature!
And what about Joana? Well, Joana had her 19th birthday, which we all celebrated together, also with the other volunteers of Cluj (with whom we became more and more connected starting from the Mid Term we had in March), and with a very special guest: Ariadna – Joana’s very good friend from Catalonia, who came to visit us especially for this happy occasion!
Together with Ariadna, after the celebrations, Joana also took a trip to Sighișoara, where she met other volunteers we’ve known since our On-Arrival and Mid-Term trainings, marking the beginning of a series of trips we all took throughout the month…especially during the Easter vacations!
Oh yeah, Easter! This was a very special time for us: everybody spent it in her own special and rich way! The weekend between 19th and 21st was the Catholic Easter, and this brought visitors from our Countries to Cluj! More precisely, we hosted Gloria’s friend Filippo and Baru’s friend Zuzana, and we showed them the beauty of our Cluj, making them meet the friends we have here and giving them some glimpses of the activities we do in our project! In the meantime, Joana travelled to Râmnicu Vâlcea, again visiting other volunteers, friends of ours.
And then, right after that weekend, in the time of the Orthodox Easter, the big travelling started, inaugurated by Baru, who went home in Czech Republic to spend one week and a half with her family, celebrating happy time together with parents, sisters, nephews and friends!
Gloria’s turn to leave was not long after: for a week she was travelling with an Italian friend (volunteer in Arad) to Serbia, especially visiting Belgrade and then spending some days in Arad on the way back. Meanwhile, also Joana left, directed to Budapest, with other volunteer-friends as well (One of them was Julia, from Spain, who weeks earlier had also come to visit us in Cluj). All of us had great time, changing the environment and discovering a bit of world.
Tina stayed in Cluj, and of course her environment changed naturally too, as all the others had left, so she used that big space for me-time, which she spent thoroughly and creatively, writing poems and painting!
Quite crazy, wasn’t it?
No wonder why the April-fool at the beginning of this post probably didn’t fool you at all… I mean, do we even have one thing to complain about??
And if you think there was too much of vacations and fun and too little of work in this blog, then wait for the next one, about May, which we will post very soon (no spoilers)!
Pupici, our friends!