It’s not very usual to have the farewell party before the last day of activities… well, due to some logistic issues we had it three days ago. I’m writing this post travelling back home, it means it’s wednesday 8th of July. Making some basic calculations you can find out that our party was on sunday evening, so the following morning the participants had their final evaluation tasks. I really appreciated their affort to write down their comments, even because at the same time I had to digit at least some words for this report but I stayed stucked watching the laptop for more than an hour. That’s why I decided it was better to shut it off and postpone the job. What I did instead, was to take some pictures of the youthpass ceremony, where I liked this idea of Giorgi to give random papers to random people which then have to deliver each other.
After the ceremony I wanted to ask some impression about the project to Uliana and Dima, both from Moldova:
“The training course which I attended was something new for me, because it was involved a lot of team buildings and group activities. Being present in it didn’t help me only to meet new people and new culture, but I learn some new things by deduction like team work, leadership etc. I came here because I am a volunteer and my next step is to coordinate a project. So this training fit in my goals and it was a nice tool which I can learn new things for my future staff. We played a lot of games in groups which made me reflect about my behaviour in teams, also we were defining a lot of concept, thing that helps us realize how different are the opinions and how to colaborate with people. From other side, we spent a great time together with participants, we discussed a lot about our cultures and about each one projects.”
“These day’s we spent in the project were the best moments of the year in my opinion. It’s very interesting to meet other people from all around the world and especially that they manage to do the same volunteering work as I do in mycountry. I think that we became a family in this project and we were like people from one country not from different. We have had really great time and we learned a lot during the sessions thanks to our great trainers Laura and Giorgi. They really managed to enlarge our knowledge about volunteering in a creative and interesting way. I think that each young volunteer should have the same experience in order to be better in their organizations and maybe to create their own organizations. For sure i will remember this project , somehow it changes your life and the perceptions . Thank you for a great project and for the time invested and hope that we will meet soon in other great events and projects.”
As a conclusion of this serie of posts, I would like to let you know some random consideration that comes from my side. I’ll proceed following my writing instict, which means that maybe you won’t find a logical thread in what you are reading. But logic is often ovestimated!
- There was more or less only a place where to dance (or pretend to dance) in Kobuleti or, due to the fact that we were to lazy to try to find new one, we were going always in the same bar. This was called “Monopoly”… which means that if the name of your NGO is Vicolocorto (you should play the italian version of the board game to understand but, just to give you an idea, Vicolocorto is the first stop just after the start) you know you are in the right place
- Talking about food I have to admit to be pretty confused. I ate some food so delicious that I couldn’t beleive. On the other side I also tried something which was complicated to handle for my sense of the taste and for my stomach too. In the hotel I experienced the feeling of permanent smell of fried, who reminded me my house in Pesaro where, thanks to my hungarian flatmate, it seems to be living in a chinese restaurant. Anyways, me and the other Daniele discovered a place run by two ladies (who both felt in love with Daniele) where I ate absolutely the best food of this travel. The Khachapuri, tipical georgian dish (google it!), was the best I ever tried, and I tried bunch of them; the Khinkali were delicious and the beer costed around 60 euro-cents… I mean, come on, 60 cents??? That restaurant was without any doubt my vices dream!
- The city of Kobuleti was curious. Being a touristic place, in the beginning of July you expect everything is ready for hosting, but appearently a lot of things seemed to be under construction. In the seaside the clubs were open but quite empty even in the weekend, maybe due this local wierd law which forbid to keep the music playing after midnight. For my personal side, it wasn’t a big issue because there I was listening the worst music ever, except the tipical georgean which I appreciated a lot.
- The hotel, a part from the permanent smell of fried food, was very comfortable and the balconies in every floor with the view on the Black Sea were amazing. The view was also on the car-wash in the other side of the street. Guys, I’ve never seen people so busy washing cars! The workers were washing endlessly plently of vehicles, most of them modified like we were in Fast and Furios and some others without bumber (which will be explained later). I can give you an advise: if your working career will go south, take under consideration to move to Kobuleti to run a car washer!
- The participants… well, in the project you always meet interesting and very good people, and you always start to create some friendship and to get use to them but the immediatly following moment you have to say goodbye. This wasn’t an exception. I’m not an emotional person, I’ve never been, but this feeling to loose something everytime I have to leave places and people travels back home with me. And it happens that I spend large part of my flight whatching the clouds and reminding the shape of a face, a smile, or some funny or intense moments which I lived and everything seems so faraway that this melancholy drives me to the most hidden part of myself where I can, at least, feel something.
- Do you remember what I wrote about the logic? Well, let’s change topic so! I would like to describe the driving habits of this georgian guys (because I saw no women driving) but I don’t know if I can find the words. Just try to imagine the chaos, and pour even more chaos on that. Dress the outcome with some random and unreasonable car horns and stir it with the complete lack of interests for the road signs. This is the receipt, than we have to consider the chefs, or rather the drivers! For that I would like to mention a milestone which has the name of the movie Die Hard, precisely in the moment where Bruce Willis was driving in the New York traffic to avoid that a bomb exploded in the other side of the city… well, this is how a georgian understand driving (I’m sorry for stereotyping!)
- I went also to Tbilisi for one day. The city is really surprising! A lot of beautiful things to see but unfortunatly I had not enough time to do that. I walked around for a couple of hours with a georgian friend of a previous project in Pesaro, and she drove me through some wonderful places telling me something more about the history of the city. For being a tourist, it was such a kind of priviledge experience. In the evening I went to the summer festival called Oper Air where the Placebo were playing. The concert was absolutely great and I have still some songs stucked in my mind. There was one of them which always reminds me the time when I was living in Madrid and, when they played it, also due to some reminiscence post project, I had the eyes brighting for tears which for me is a surprising achievment!
- The next day, on the flight to Istanbul, I met Brian Molko (the leader of Placebo) and I wanted to thank him for moving me into feelings, so I approached him very quickly entering in the plane. I don’t know why but when I speak english I confuse sometimes “since” and “until” so, instead of telling that I was still listening their music since the previous day, I told him that I was listenig them until yesterday… which basically could mean that the concert sucked and I won’t listen Placebo anymore! Sorry Brian, my mistake.
- What came again out after this project is that life is a matter of coincidence and timing. Things happen and most of the time we cannot control them. We make choices based on the perception of the present, but we are blind in that moment. Only after some time we turn back to watch the past and we see clearly the consecuences of our actions.
That’s all people. I leave you with a sentence which comes from one of my favourite songs of Placebo: “It seems it’s written but we can read between the lines”.
Ciao
Daniele
Vicolocortini 
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