Our last AI team-days in July

This event deserves a separate post - on 28-30 July me and my team sailed away in the Dutch sea (well, water before the North sea). IT WAS THE GREATEST TIME EVER!!!

We had a real boat, with 4 sails, for 26 people, and it was more than a hundred years old. REAL SAILING BOAT!



I have never boarded anything bigger than a small motor boat or a tourist barge before, and that week-end was a great experience for me.
Imagine - you set up the sails, and wind fillls them, and sails move like living and how they are moving on ships for hundreds years before you; and the boat flies faster on waves; you stand on the front, and the sun, and the breeze in your face!


We swam, we stopped (the engine on our boat broke and we had to have other ship helping us; it was a boat with Germans having a bachelors party, and of course we had with them water fight, using waters guns and other forbidden weapon such as buckets).
We ate "furiously" as Tom says (he was btw THE cook of the journey), stopped on a city called Horn for a night, walked in the city - beautiful!





Spend a night talking under the starts, and the next day - lying on the sun, sailing, drinking in the attempt to finish all alcohol before we get off the boat, lazily talking, swimming




Things I'll keep in my memory - sails up in the sky, filled with wind and sun, our talks and just silence when you just feel others and don't need to talk anything; water and other ships on the horizon, when it seems that there is no any timing now, as it have been, is now and will be always, this sea and people and we, my team, then and there.



It was a great time, very relaxed and chilled, and it seemed we are on the same wave - with the ship (obviously :)difficult otherwise :) and with each other.
Thank you darlings :)

When you get to the sea on your ship, it's just that, and no much need for anything else…

I know, I got one more dream now - go around the world on a yacht!
Watch me in some time :)

Things I was doing in July

As once Tom-the-great-blogger told me, why to write about events that passed long ago - I try to do it now, as they are not yet covered by the curtain of eternity, but only a few weeks. My blog is the place where some people know how I live, as I'm soooooo bad in writing emails...
So this long intro is to tell about some cool things that happened to me and that worth mentioning :)

AI transition party, 14-16 July

Well, main thing to say - it was strangely fast, realizing that this is it, this is our transition, "end" party time. The location helped - it was same as last year, and it seemed both - as just yesterday we have started, and now it's over - and at the same time it was a whole life in between. Fast and furious, and everything for us.


It will be the other, later time when I start summarizing y experience in AI and with AIESEC in general - at our transition party I felt it's time.
It was a good time, and it's a good time to leave.


Anya&Pita wedding in Lisbon, 23-24 July

Yes, I've been in the most Western part of Europe! (well, not counting Iceland)
This great event gathered many people whom I happened to know from alumni meetings, and it was great to be there as a part of community. The wedding was amazing. Pita gathered his all teams, Anya brought parents and friends from Kazakhstan.
The ceremony had a catholic wedding in the beginning and a reception in the historical suburb of Lisbon - beautiful location, with hills covered in green and topped with castles.



"Just married" had a ride in a horse cab - to be aligned with the location :)
The band, organization of guests, tables, talks - everything was great. I think I have now an example of a wedding to be :) We had time to talk with everyone - there were 4 generations of AI teams, and many more other alumni. I suspect Pita has planned his wedding well in advance to have the re-union of his teams there hehe :)

Funny thing that made me a star for 5 min - toast of Anya's parents I happened to translate from Russian into English so it could be translated into Portuguese. It was spontaneous for me and very nice, our couple even got a double star certificate named "Anya and Pedro" as their wedding gift. Can you imagine that somewhere in the sky there will be a star with your name?..

And it seemed to me my "translation" made more impression than anything else about me :) I heard compliments even afterwards and I suspect this is what I'll be remembered more as Sveta than for anything else I did on AI hehehe :)

Was great to meet Anya again, and her family and friends - I knew them from times I stayed with Anya in Almaty. This wedding was a moment, when I felt that some of my lives - russian and international - finally have been crossed! And it felt best :)

I personally think that Anya&Pita's story is one of most romantic I know that happened in real life. Not only I'm saying that as being a cupid (cupidess?) of theirs (guys met at the national conference in St.Petersburg I invited Pita to chair when I was MCP in Russia) - amazing is that fact that they made their story happen over continents and countries, my admiration and wishes of ever happiness to them!



Great was the next day in Lisbon too - with another bunch of AI alumni I went to a beach near Lisbon, and well, this was what I needed then :) Sun, waves in the ocean, lazy, sand, sun, chill…


I got healthy burned, and after a great dinner in a nice restaurant Nuno organized for us, I happily flew home.

Only thing I regret - that I didn't have more time to see Portugal and Lisbon (had to hurry back to Rotterdam for a final week in AI). But anyways, from my limited experience - I think people are nice :)

By the way Lisbon is much chipper than many of capitals - for example metro ride is just 70 cents! (versus 2.40 in Holland)
Food is good! And Lisbon has many places I'd like to go - typical small hilly streets of a European city, with ceramics on walls;


Forgotten churches every third street; seaside promenades, and streets and streets more...



Well, as always - I say to myself that I'll be back to this city one more time to live it more :)

First step

When I came home, first thing I did was to re-arrange things in my room and get rid of old stuff - you always have toys you don't need anymore, small things you liked being a child etc. Now I decided not to put them into the storage to gather dust or throw away as I usually did, but to give them away to others who might still use the stuff. There are people who are in less favorable position, and for whom small things can make the difference…

There is a social home in our town for children who don't have parents, and I went there yesterday. This social home is one floor in a school building, and first impression I had when entered - I saw a couple of children who came to open - that they were very polite, which wasn't the exact things I frankly speaking expected to see. I met some left by parents children in our town before, and they are usually people angry with life, but this was not the case here.

But, well, when I went to the room to ask an administrator whom should I give my things - before I started talking, there was impression on her face "My God, what do you want from me". I think people might be tired with the life they have…
And then, you know, when I said I don't want much, just to give things I don't need myself, to children, there was a weak smile on her face, and it was such a nice smile to see. Another tutor came, and it was so nice and sad at the same time to see how they said - so good that people still remember about us and children, and someone cares. I felt a bit embarrassed when started to put things on the table - because the children were standing around, and I felt in a way that it might be pity and offending to them, but no worries, they were just genuinely glad, already figuring out what they'll do with those new for them toys…
And you wouldn't believe, I got lost, I murmured a couple of words "glad that you can use it, hope it helps", weakly smiled and left.
I didn't know what to say, it stroke me how little effort it was for me giving away those toys, and how big was the difference of receiving them for people in the social home…

And when I was already on the street, I was smiling wide - I knew that I did a good thing that day, I make someone's life better, I made people glad - and it was very easy, easier that you think.

How much of those little things that matter much, are around us?
And how easy it is to make a little good change? Very .

I shame myself now for many other opportunities like that one that I had before, for not noticing where my help would be useful. In every place you are in, there is someone who might live better this day, because you do something.
And believe me, you don't need to wait to be appointed a UN Good Will commissioner to act upon :)

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." Aesop

"Happiness is a rare thing and you have to take your chances where you find them". M.Key


BE HAPPY PEOPLE :)

And here I am, back to my blog updates.

It has been a bit busy time in July - AI transition (with party included), travel to Portugal for Pita&Anya's wedding, our last team days with my AI team (we have rented a boat and went sailing as much as you can do in Dutch waters), spent a couple of days more in Amsterdam.

But that's all coming soon (I mean my stories about that), and first things first: I'm at home now.

To make a long story short - I've finished my term in AI and went to Belarus, to my parents house, to spend a couple of months as my vacation. At the end of August I am going to Poland to meet my first MC team (Masha, Dasha, Marek) - "coincidence" but we have our MC re-union at the times of IC :))) So I plan to see some other friends around, say last "bye" to AIESEC at our AI handover session. Then back home for September, and back to Poland for a week-end for Mike Janiszweski's wedding. All in all enjoy being an alumnae :) (well, not quite, as I plan going for an AIESEC internship). And this is precisely my job plan - somewhere around October-November I plan to go on an internship. This is a task to match my ambitions and aspirations with my skills and experience. I believe somewhere in endless pools of TNs there is the one waiting for me :) Searching so far.

So it's been a week as I'm at home.
It is Svisloch, a small town in western Belarus (a couple of dozens km away from the polish border), where my parents live, for 15 years already (we are from other places ourselves - see my 100 things post).

And no, I'm not bored. I'm doing exactly what I wanted badly - not much doing :) 2 days to unpack my stuff, watching TV and movies, reading books, magazines, sleeping A LOT (there has been no day I woke up before 9 am). And at the same time I don't feel quite as on my vacations. Because vacations (as the one I had in Egypt) - it's when you are resting in a place done for resting, and there is only you deciding what's going on after that next swim. Well, home-sweet-home is a different place.
I missed my parents (well, have to admit I haven't seem them well this year - 2 times for 1 day each), and it was good to see that Mom looks great for her 50, Dad is the same Man in the house hehe :) However the thing that hit me - I am no longer used to share my life with other people. I've got independence over last 8 years I has been living on my own, with short visits home. And now there is my family that wants me be part of it again - having dinners when it's time to, not when I'm hungry, doing some work about the house because my Mom needs it… It's not bad, just different for me, but I'm getting used to it. Anyways, it's good to be back to the place where you are taken and loved as you are :)

And things got different in the town. It is no longer a forgotten hole (mind you - we have 10.000 people population) - we've got many new shops (now over several dozens, but yes, still no supermarkets and I don't predict any), a couple of re-building houses, and I even got internet at home in 1 day!!! Yes, this is the biggest development I feel personally - can't believe I'm sitting in my old room with a laptop connected to the worldwideweb :)))

The other big thing - the speed of life is different here. If in Europe I felt myself relatively young in comparing to others (I'm 23) - here I'm feeling much older. Half of my former class-mates from school are married and have babies. I met a girl we used to be friends with before I left for long, and she has a baby 4 months old, she's a mother! For me that's too early (it seems she thinks the same) - but that's the way things happen here.
Oh no-no, it doesn't make me desperate to get married, there is a loooong way to it :) But interesting to be a part of this life - which used to be mine, and which is of my friends.

Seems like a lot of impressions for the first week :)

To be continued