European Voluntary Service

This is Pekarna's blog for EVS volunteers. Pekarna is a sending and hosting/receiving organisation for EVS volunteers and their volunteers (send and hosted ones) will keep you up to date about their work.

Evropska prostovoljska služba

Pekarna Magdalenske mreže Maribor te vabi, da se tudi ti pridružiš množici prostovljcev/-k Evropske prostovoljne službe (EVS) in odpotuješ v organizacijo po svoji izbiri v drugo državo EU. Smo pošiljajoča in gostiteljska organizacija EVS, ki mladim od 17. in do 30. leta za obdobje največ enega leta uredi vse podrobnosti za brezskrbno in povsem brezplačno delovanje v tujini.
Evropska prostovoljna služba je del programa ERASMUS + Mladi v akciji.

Za bolj podrobne informacije nas lahko kontaktiraš na: evs@pekarna.org



Tuesday 14 July 2009

Mind-reportage

Home again. At Stanica. A place so similar to Pekarna in a way. But so different at the same time. We do not squat this place, we rent it. And we want to change the world surrounding us. Symbolically. And literally as well. We have built an illegal theatre under the bridge of round-about and everybody likes it. Even the mayor does. We are trying to get on well with our neighbours. We have a community around us but we have to deal with homeless, drunkens, nazi people as well. We have just got into this place somehow. Trying to live in mutual respect and peace.

Pekarna is squat. Place where many different groups with various different intentions live nearby. Squat is a beautiful idea. But a squat can be source of many problems. Conflicts of interest, decision-making, common ideology, i/llegality. It's hard to live in this position if you want to change the world. In the eyes of many people, you have status of outlaw, villain, black sheep. Cityhall doesn't consider you to be a partner. It takes lot of struggling to gain other people's respect to you. But it is possible. By hard work. And heart work.

I have been taught to bake a bread. Not directly in Pekarna. But everything is connected to everything else. Before my trip, I thought I wanted to go to hitchhiking trip to Slovenia, maybe Croatia and back through Hungary. I was wrong because I was lying to myself. I didn't want to travel so much. I just wanted to get to the place, stay with the people. Listen, talk, share, feel others' minds and get affected by them. I guess I did it. I have learnt much. About myself, about other points of view. About what's inside a bread.


Talking about the food. Once, a teacher asked us what creativity meant to us. I replied (or maybe I was just thinking about replying) that the creativity is life itself, for me. I "do it" in all possible situations. I mean - you can be creative in all aspect of life - from cutting the tomatoes, through toying with words up to painting (on yourself). I want to use this ability of mine for some higher... thing. That is also one of the reasons I do what I do in my life. And what I am going to do at least for one more year abroad with new people in new environment.

I was feeling lot of emotions at the same time during my days in Slovenia. Some of them, I couldn't even verbalize. Maybe I was looking tired often. And I guess I was. It was that kind of tiredness when you get too much impulses to process in your mind and you have nothing to lean on because you are placed in new environment with new people. And you are just absorbing it all. This can really make wind blowing in your head fast.

And it's so funny when you talk with someone about certain thing you didn't use to notice before. But after this conversation, you start to notice it everywhere. I wonder how this psychological phenomenon is called. It must have some special name, for sure. And I like how these little things create connections between two people. Internal topics that just you and the other person remember. For example that's why now I would say things in this car resembles water waves to me.

We are spending our lifetime thinking, thinking about thinking, thinking about not thinking and then we die - in the worst case. Or better - in some point, we stop thinking and we actually start to do something. Something we believe in and we love. And then, someone tells us "Get a job. Get a proper job." But we adore what we do. So we don't need "a proper job". And we don't need to be "adult" neither. It's okay.

Yes, it's okay. We have ideas and we put them into reality. We are fine and it is so easy to give advices to someone else about how to look at the world without being depressed. But then we realize we should be the ones to follow our own advices. But we do not. We keep doing the same mistakes. We keep looking at the world always in the same way. Anyway, sometimes there are blips of extreme consciousness when the hope appears to us. So we carry on believing it's possible to live in such a mess (without Jesus!).


I got into really deep philosophical writing, ne? It's quite tricky to go to back on earth and finish it properly, with taste, charm and point.
I've spent just a few days in different reality. Now, I am in transition period coming back to my old one. But I try to drag back to that half-dreamy half-real universe where I felt so full. This diary is one of the ways how to do it.
And work works well, as well.

Tuesday 7 July 2009

What's next?

In Pekarna again. Still not as an official EVS but I hope it is just a formality that will go through with no problems.
Anyway, more and more, I see deeper into the organism of it all. Human relations, ideas, discussions about the future, communication with lot of partners and "partners", never-ending fight for survival, fight for better life conditions and mainly fight for the ideas.

Maribor and Pekarna was destination number one for me. I am on hitchhiking trip. Basically it should be holiday for me. Actually it is more tiring than holidays usualy are. I've been thinking much for past few days. About my home-organization Stanica where I work as webmaster/photographer, about Pekarna where I will be a volunteer. And about the way of life I have and share with people I work with. People in the field of independant culture are strange, complicated characters. I would say most of us are still looking for ourselves. We keep trying, searching, experimenting. We are struggling to find what we are meant to do. Nobody tells us. We want to have freedom, we want to express ourselves. And most of all, we want to change the world. But just a few people around us understand why we do what we do. Maybe that's why it is so hard. Because there are just a few of us. And we need to gather, to cooperate, to network. But many conflicts and misunderstandings raise based on diversity of our ideas, personal philosophies and believes. So we split up and get weaker again.

This is what I see, apart from other things. I am thinking about myself in here, as well. What do I do? What am I good at? And what can I learn to do? Sometimes, I feel lot of energy and confidence in myself. That I am able and capable to do anything I want. But other times, I am full of fear, lack of self-confidence and deprivation that I am just unable. This inner fight never stops.

But as my friend would say to me - we should be happy for this creative mess inside of us. We are digging out our hidden powers. Better than being just content and passive about the state of things.