A "normal" week

Project Elea is back

After a week of doing renovations in the camp, we started this week with the program as normal. Actually, after staying here for now for almost 4 weeks, I haven't seen the usual program. There are a lot of activities, not just for kids but also for adults. Every day starts with little school, there is green street (where residents can make their own furniture), there is women's hour (we do sport but also bingo and beauty salon), there is arts & crafts for kids, but we also have arts & crafts for adults. There is a sewing workshop, there is skateboarding, we also have everyday storytime for the kids, one day it is in Farsi, the other day it is in Arabic. On Thursdays and Fridays, we have teen time for the older kids, where we watch a movie or play games, and every night ends with a homework club and conversation club. 

I'm in the team of little school, women's hour, arts & crafts and teen time. Sometimes I'm also doing homework - and conversation club when I have the time. Every day from 2 till 4 is little school, but it is divided. On Mondays and Wednesdays we have the "Kiwis", these are the little kids from ages 3 and 4, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have the Bananas, these are the kids from ages 4 till 7. Working in Little school is really fun and it reminds me of my last year's internship in the daycare. The big difference is that these kids don't have that many toys or the safety of the house that is just as good and organized as it at home. But the kids have a lot of fun and that's the most important part. This week we had a theme, the body. We did a lot of songs like head, shoulders, knees, and toes, but also one song in an African language. Excuse me, but I don't know how to write it down. The kids also draw their bodies and later painted it in with fingerpaint. It was really nice to see, how creative they were and how much fun they had in doing it!

After little school, there is women's hour on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do sports with women, like yoga, pilates, and aerobics. On Wednesday women's hour is actually for two hours and we do arts and crafts, music, drinking tea, dancing, and bingo. The women love doing bingo and we give them some nice presents. On Tuesday only one woman came, but on Wednesday it was more popular and we did outreach for the next day, which really helped, cause on Thursday even more women came. Hopefully, this will continue and grow, cause it is important for the women to have a safe place where they can express themselves and have fun.

Arts & crafts are pretty popular with the kids. Because the weather is good here in Greece, we could do it outside. We always come with an idea, that the kids can craft. But hearing and seeing their own creativity and fantasy is also very important. We want them to be busy with all kinds of materials but also that they have fun. So we never push them in making something they don't want. Unfortunately, I cannot always join in arts & crafts because I'm also joining women's hour as we don't have many women volunteers. 

Thursday evening we had a great game for the teenagers in teen time. we created a scavenger hunt throughout the camp. We had 5 different stops that the kids had to guess with the clues they got. At every stop, there was a different game, like math, English, science, mime, and sport. I was with another volunteer in the mime game. But we waited for a very long time before the kids showed up, so I think we made the clues a little bit difficult. But it was very fun to do so. At the end of the scavenger hunt, we had a big game which they all had to play together. They had to find words in the books and make a quote out of it. The team who did this the fastest won! We also got the winning team a price, headphones and a fidget spinner. They are still very popular here. 

At the end of Thursday evening, when we wanted to leave the camp, there was a problem at the gate. A lot of people from outside wanted to go in, which was not possible as they were not residents of the camp. So they closed the gate in order of the police and nobody could go outside or inside. Half of our team was waiting outside, while the rest was still inside. Kids were crying because their parents were outside or vice versa. It was a little scary to be there, waiting on the inside. People were climbing over the gate, yelling and pushing. Eventually, the police came... but that didn't fix it. Everyone was waiting for the gate to open, but they only opened the gate for the people to go outside, not to go inside. I was very happy to be outside of the camp. 

That evening all of the volunteers came to our place, where we had some drinks as a goodbye for a volunteer, who was also our roommate for a few days. It was really fun, but I was so tired, that I called it an early night.

Unfortunately, my time here in Greece is going really fast. Only 4 and a half days left before I come back to Holland. But I'm going to make the best out of those days and enjoy it as much as I can!