Last days

Every season has an end and this one feels quite close already.

Last Thursday we had the last creative workshop for Christmas gifts, only that this time we had the opportunity to create them for ourselves. I took advantage of the two hours and a half that we were there and prepare some little surprises for my mother, father and sister. I'm not sure if they'll like them but at least it will be something original that I made myself.

It was quite curious that almost nobody came to this session since it was the only one that we could take with us the gifts we had prepared. Besides regular volunteers from INEX we had this family, with both German parents but with this kid, Julius, who knows German, French and Slovak because of the mix of countries and family heritage he's been experiencing. It was funny to hear her mother explain how he mixes the 3 different languages in only one sentence when he speaks.

Then for the weekend I was with some EVS volunteers in a farewell party with Mariano as a host in Piestany. He lives in a building which is a former hostel and we didn't have a problem of space to sleep. He prepared some pasta al forno, hot wine and a lot of beer and more wine, besides Slovak strong alcohol. It was a nice party, I was glad I got to see this people before coming back.

Also, Sunday morning we had an alternative Christmas market with handcraft stands and a space without money, to exchange things. Many stands were also selling home made sweets or jams. All that with vegetarian kapustnica and cus-cus, all very nice and healthy, lol. Btw, as you can see the meals were prepared manually -or at least heated up in this kind of old fire cooker.

In the afternoon we had also a kind of folk ritual when these girls dressed in traditional costumes, they sang folk songs and melted fruit seeds in the fire and later put it to cold water in order to discover the name of their future husbands. It was very interesting to watch.

Then yesterday we had a Tea Meeting about Mexico by Samuel. He met the organization he made this workcamps with in the presentation they had in a tea house last March, so he also wanted to make his there, in Zamocka cajovna. It was all in Slovak but I was happy to see that I understand almost half of it and also Mirka offered herself to translate for me, which was better :P Also, he had 3 bracelets he made a little quiz to give them away to the public and I had one. He said mine was handmade by a native Mexican Indian, nice!

Then today we had the last meeting of INEX promotional team of the year. New badges design are finished and I happy I managed to do them by myself. I was quite skeptical at the beginning since I don't master Photoshop use, specially when it comes to create starting from nothing, but they turned out quite good in my opinion -and my colleagues. Will see what else is there to say in the promotional team and I wish them the best for next year.

That's all from now. Not the last post, I will write something more but not now. Hugs, hugs^^

Ali