The first day of our training was awesome. After a long day of traveling, groups from Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Romania, Hungary, Armenia, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Turkey finally arrived in beautiful Dilijan, Armenia. Organizers from Latvia and Armenia had spent months preparing for this training course focusing on working within the European Volunteer Service in the frame of the Youth in Action Program, which will last from today (February 14th) through February 21st.
After a delicious lunch, we all gathered together to play some active name games, followed by a very energetic scavenger hunt that had us running up and down the hallways of our hotel. The name games included activities such as speed dating and information recall. We also used our artistic skills to personalize our mailboxes by drawing our neighbors on them. For the scavenger hunt, we worked in teams, which enabled us to get to know each other better and begin to work as a team before all the hard work starts tomorrow.
After breaking for dinner, we all met again for a new challenge. We all brought our very best hats, and then had to get in front of the group and finish sentence that dove a little deeper. The favorite sentence was “If I had a magic stick, I would…” and the catch was that every time you answered a new question, you had to change into another hat. The most popular hat among the bunch was silver knit hat, with a large silver bow on the side. Watching a grown man share his deep, dark feelings was slightly less serious when could look up and see him proudly wearing such a lovely hat.
After such a memorable (and tiring) first day, we are all looking forward to getting some sleep and seeing what tomorrow will bring.
