A dramatic peek into the volunteering life at WSS - Gabi

I woke up, it was dark outside, I had bearly slept because infinite possibilities were presenting themselves before my eyes. I slept in the high-speed train from Toulouse to Paris, and once I arrived there, the noises and the overwhelming density of the city reminded me that I was alone in this adventure. Luckily, I met up with my friends who surrounded me with the confidence that I truly needed. After the two and a half hour long train change, I board the german part of the adventure, direction Mannheim. A family next to me was playing on the Nintendo with full volume, which physically prevented me from sleeping, but I was already mentally too stuffed to be able to rest. Nächste Station, Mannheim Hauptbahnhof, it was there, I was in Germany. The only step that was left was the S-Bahn to Heidelberg. I was warmly welcomed by Flora, the responsible of volunteer communication, then I met the first roommate, Mauro. 

First evening, shopping, not knowing which coffee to buy, only to in the end choose a decaffeinated coffee without knowing. The next morning, breakfast at Görtz, a croissant to not feel too far from home, and discussions with Mauro about the beauty of religious monuments and the role of the military in modern society. In the afternoon, we welcome Alisa, my second roommate. In the evening, naturally, a conversation arrives between us about our needs and boundaries that each one of us has. Vacuum at least once a week, no shoes in the living room. Always clean the kitchen after use. Always talk whenever something is bothering us. 

First week, meals around the table, political debates (sometimes quite intense ones), relativism and communism (at least we’re all viscerally leftists). First night out, a Thursday night, the gig of a DJ that is also a colleague of ours, we meet three girls that we never saw again. One of them gave me a ring. A woman was screaming neo-nazi things in the street, and ran away when someone called the police. Second night out, we meet friends that we still see to this day. We discover Villa Nachttanz, a house that was renovated to be a nightclub and event hall. Mostly, we spent nights there dancing to techno, house or drum and bass. First seminar in Würzburg, we were all lacking proteins. But maybe that made socialising a bit easier, who knows ? We read poems in all of our languages, french, lithuanian, finnish, spanish, italian, russian, latvian, georgian, turkish, danish, hungarian. Two danish volunteers invited us to spend New Years in Berlin at theirs. It was then that I developed a new fear of fireworks. We were trapped between them and it was impossible to feel safe when they combusted on the floor two meters from us, in completely random directions. The next day when Alisa and I visit Berlin, we have to walk around the piles of trash that were lying on the roads. The 2nd of January is a day that deserves an article of its own, I even made a comic out of it. My friends from Albi came to see me in Heidelberg, and that’s when we painted our new roommate, Lennox. He never blinks. Second seminar, in Hamburg, one of the Danish girls was there again, as well as a Turkish friend. Half of the volunteers were Spanish, and three quarters of the music we listened to was reggaeton. Fifteen hours of sleep in five days, nearly a constant party, but still enough braincells to participate in the activities. One of the participants had an allergic reaction to a shrimp pizza, while I, Alisa, the Danish girl, and another volunteer were eating a 121 euro meal involving caviar, flambe cabbage and cocktails. 

But don’t get me wrong, all of the above doesn’t mean that I haven’t worked seriously. The first week we learnt how to do woodcarving. We had no idea of the amount of times we would be working on that technique throughout the year. I collected splinters. I created an underwater world on a wooden plank, which was the subject of our first project : a bench back and a little part of a fence exposing fish, octopuses, jellyfish, a shipwreck, a treasure chest and corals. I was working with Mauro. The girls that we had in our group were very independent, to the point that I was sometimes a bit bored. I was scared that my whole year would feel like that. At least, a colleague reassured us by telling us that he also wasn’t enjoying the project too much and that they weren’t all like this. And indeed, I was able to participate in many stimulating projects with students that were active, interested and sometimes very creative. I would like to elaborate on three projects that were memorable (amongst others). 

One of them was in a Montessori school, where the students had quite different ways of learning and interacting with the school sphere. They were very proactive and independent, to the point where they sometimes refused that we help them. We created with the technique of screen printing around 150 bags with designs imagined by the students. Mauro and me were mainly working on drying and ironing the bags, so that the ink was well fixed into the fabric. Some students were going back and forth to bring us the bags that were just printed, dragging their slippers on the floor. To print, we most importantly had to check that the correct amount of ink was applied, and guide them so that they didn’t spread it or drop it everywhere. At the end, they gave us nice cards with a small text written in our mother tongues, and having had difficulties going towards the students and building connection with them, that really touched me. 

The second one was a project in a small village nearby from Heidelberg, in the middle of the Neckar valley. I took the train to get there, and every morning I was welcomed by a beautiful sunrise within the mountains. At the beginning of the week, I was panicked at the idea of doing this project because the kids didn’t speak german at all, and it was my first project alone. I was forced to speak German, so I did. We painted a big desert-themed mural in the staircase of their school. The kids were quite dynamic and outgoing. One morning, I arrived too early because of the train, during the kids’ math lesson. I got to help (again, in German) one of the kids, which was a really nice way to connect. The result was colourful, lively, and really more inviting than the initial layer of gray paint. We listened to french rap while painting. I worked with Anna, a ukrainian colleague who also speaks French, and we had a few conversations in German where she was able to fill in my lack of vocabulary. It’s the project where I truly understood my ability to adapt in difficult situations regarding languages. 

An other memorable project was in a big private school. It was a huge project, with a lot of participants and different working techniques. There were people everywhere. I was in a group that was doing animation for a video that would be projected inside of a church the last day. We made a video inspired by a Psalm, which was quite based on natural elements, like birds, fruits, fish, mountains and insects. The students were all very concentrated, the only noise that we could hear in the classroom was the tapping of the styluses on the iPads. They seemed to really like me, and I really liked them, and we had interesting conversations. They had never heard of the Nintendo DS, I felt very old. They were full of creativity , one of them was even creating his own animated stories. I also, during this week, ate the best pretzels I had ever eaten. 

While I’m writing this article, I still have 4 months left in Germany. It doesn’t summarize all that I’ve experienced (that would be virtually impossible). However, I tried to capture the wide range of emotions that I felt so that I have some material traces left besides the thousands of photos, my five new tattoos and my multiple wooden objects. I am more than thankful towards the European Solidarity Corps, i.Peicc and Werkstattschule for these opportunities and this experience that is and was strengthening for my abilities and fruitful in its novelties.