On the 28th of September it was finally time for us to go to our on–arrival training.
We left our flat early in the morning to travel to Vitorchiano near to Viterbo in Lazio region, packed with pleasant anticipation and good expectations. Although we arrived quite early we were not the first ones, some other volunteers arrived one day before, I think they were too excited to wait one more day so they decided to arrive one day too early! After all the volunteers arrived, all the 60 people got divided into two groups of 30 persons.
Basically the first day was to know each other and let the trainers understand everybody’s level of Italian language by doing a test, which was very difficult. From that day on, we always started with a small meeting in the morning with our group and Italian classes afterwards. Shortly after lunch, we went on with some activities and talks about EVS, our fears, our expectations and the goals we want to set for ourselves. Obviously the days during on arrival have been pretty full, intensive and long but still it did not stop us from staying awake long every night to meet the other volunteers from all over the world and spend more time with them. It is all about deciding your priority’s, our was consequentially not sleep but we enjoyed every moment of our on arrival it was an awesome experience we will never have again so it was good to value every moment.
The concluding part of the on-arrival training – group task was going to be held in the warm and nice city of Viterbo, near to Vitorchiano. Working with group of five people we had to decide a topic and do some kind of research or investigation communicating with the local people of Viterbo. As in every city there is some interesting, romantic tales or legends, our group decided to find out do the people of Viterbo know about the tales of their hometown. We spent almost two hours without any results, but fortunately at the end of our activity time we met a guy who told us the tale of Bella Galiana, a virgin of Viterbo who was a dream for almost all the men of the region, who fought for conquering her heart, but failed one after another. The story is about love but at the same time it’s tragic, because during one of those conquests at one moment the heart of Bella Galiana stops beating, accidently wounded by the arrow.
Summarizing all this together we had a wonderful week of new experience, new people and almost all the moments of this sleepless week were joyful and unforgettable. For sure we can say we found a lot of friends all over Italy with whom we can stay in touch to talk about our EVS-Experience. Now our new task is to visit everybody we‘re missing already. Because, after one week with 60 people around, the flat with just four crazy inhabitants seems to be a very calm place.
A presto
Khacho e Milena
Vicolocortini 