EVS Stories: The memories from the little ones (IV) – by Rafael C.

My name is Rafael and I have been working as a volunteer in Team for Youth Association during almost ten months now, and so during this last period in my EVS, we have been working in summer camps all around the area of Maramures.

At the beginning I thought that the camps would be more or less like the other activities I have been doing: helping the teachers or responsible person of the places I have been working with by preparing some activities for the kids or helping them in those activities. But it wasn’t exactly like that, due to the main role of the volunteers in the camps. In those activities we have been supervised by the teachers, but we had a main role in the planning and execution of the activities. Us being instructors, we restricted the role of the teacher to simply supervision, from the beginning of the day until the end. If I would have to do it again, I would prepare some extra activities because we realized that some days and in some situations we had problem with the kind of activity and other factors like the weather, the place where we used to work, etc. But anyway there is not anything I regret from those summer camps because only to see the face of the kids having fun with every activity we did is like a treasure for me.

From those summer camps I will remember a lot of people, but if I have to focus on someone, I would say I will keep the memories that I got from the little ones, because actually they are the ones I learned more from, not only in the language skills, but also taking count that they taught me a lot about their culture and they have been very patient with us, always trying to understand every word we say and our situation. Mainly I will keep a punctual memory: when I was working with them twisting some balloons for around two hours, and one of the littlest ones he came to ask me if I was tired of that, because he thought we were working so hard.

Rafael Cano Malagón (Spain) is hosted in Baia Mare by Team for Youth Association, in the “Life Skills for Rural Education” project, an European Voluntary Service, financed by the European Commission, through the Erasmus Plus Program.