My wonderful year at Tandem
Hello everyone! My last blog post will be about happiness and my volunteer year at Tandem, because these topics are inseparable.
How do you recognise that you are happy? Is it because you absolutely have to experience something great and new every day? Or are the actual sources of happiness perhaps invisible at first glance and are sometimes taken for granted? Maybe both and maybe it’s individual for everyone. I myself have discovered that I can be happy in two different ways: Either in moments when feelings of happiness fill me for a specific reason or in every moment, as long as I know that my most important source of happiness – my family, friends and the awareness that my life is going in the right direction – are always there. No matter where I am and what I’m doing.
In my experience, you can also recognise your happiness by the fact that you often laugh without having to have a specific reason to do so. You simply feel and know that your life is going in the right direction.
I realised early on that I was happy at Tandem. At first, however, it was about that phase of happiness in which you don’t yet realise how lucky you are. The kind of happiness that consists of inconspicuous and brief moments. Moments in which you realise that you are devoting yourself to meaningful things. Moments in which you realise that you have come across good people who are not only reliable and hard-working, but also friendly and very liveable.
My Tandem colleagues were always there for me, whether it was about business or personal matters. Despite the work, which was sometimes more than enough, they always found time to ask me how I was doing and what was new with me.
When you accumulate a lot of good moments, you experience a transition from happiness phase one to happiness phase two, in which you consciously recognise your happiness and enjoy it to the full. During this year, I have experienced a really diverse range of moments of happiness: these include my everyday life in the office, interesting projects and lots of fun with my Tandem colleagues, numerous trips all over Germany, excursions, karaoke sessions and endless coffee breaks with my friends and acquaintances in Regensburg. Very important and not to be forgotten were and are moments when random passers-by on the street gave me a smile. Last but not least, I must also mention in this category those moments that were not happy at all at the beginning, but which have brought me further in my life and for which I am grateful in retrospect.
I mentally put together a mosaic of all these moments that resembles a flower. I call it the flower of time because I experienced all these beautiful moments not all at once, but little by little. If the colourful stained glass windows in the picture of the flower of time remind you of the Gothic windows of the church on Marienplatz in Munich, you’ve guessed right. When I was at the On-Arrival seminar for the ESK volunteers in Munich, it occurred to me that everything I experience during my voluntary service at Tandem forms a beautiful, colourful mosaic of memories.
My time as a volunteer at Tandem has flown by. I will be leaving Regensburg the day after tomorrow and I still have a lot to do before then. As well as packing my suitcase and tidying up my flat, I really have to say goodbye to all my friends in Regensburg. I want to thank them and my Tandem colleagues from the bottom of my heart for my wonderful year in Regensburg. For all the wonderful things we experienced together and for everything I learnt from them and with them.
One of the many things I appreciate about my Tandem colleagues is their attitude towards other people and their work and their mature approach to finding solutions in conflict situations.
When I was at the Midterm seminar for ESK volunteers in Bremen, we sat around the campfire one beautiful evening and sang together. During a short break between the individual songs, a volunteer suggested that we write a list of our wishes on a small piece of paper and then throw the piece of paper into the fire. According to a legend, the wishes then come true. I also wrote a list of my wishes back then and threw it into the fire. And now I close my eyes and write down a wish on a mental piece of paper: That my Tandem colleagues are always well, and that they maintain their enthusiasm for German-Czech cooperation and the good atmosphere that prevails in the office. I throw the piece of paper into the flame of joie de vivre and say:
Thank you for everything!
And a big thank you to you too, my dear readers. Thank you for letting me write these blog posts for you. I wish you all the best. And as always, stay up to date, because new volunteers will soon be coming to continue the ahoj.info project.
Yours, Mária
A wonderful week in Regensburg: Because small gestures have a big impact
Hello everyone! Have you ever experienced so many wonderful coincidences in a short space of time that it seems as if it couldn’t be a coincidence? I recently experienced just such a week, which I would like to tell you about in this blog post.
It all started on a Monday when I decided to go to a concert of Ukrainian folk music. But I had a lot of things to do beforehand: I had to go shopping and learn since my final exams were coming up soon. To find an appropriate place for learning, I decided for one café in Maximilianstraße. I was so immersed in learning that I didn’t even notice at first that the waiter had come to my table. He offered me a portion of Italian pasta for free as it was left over. I thanked him from the bottom of my heart.
My next stop was the supermarket, where I made a huge purchase. I lugged four heavy shopping bags from the supermarket to the concert hall. The concert was great. I completely lost track of time because of the music, which got under my skin. But I still had to make my way home, which seemed like an eternity with the four heavy bags. “If only someone could help me with the bags,” I thought to myself. And suddenly, out of the blue, two friendly women appeared in front of me. “Hello, do you need help?” one of them asked me – and without waiting for my answer, she took two bags from me. The second woman took another bag so that I only had to carry one more bag. “Thank you, but the bags are super heavy,” I protested, although I was very grateful to the women for their help. However, they were determined to carry the bags for a bit. We had a good chat and after we had said goodbye, it was much easier with bags.
The next day, I experienced some more wonderful moments. When I was having lunch in a kebab shop, I remembered that I had forgotten to take a napkin from the counter. I was just about to get up when suddenly a woman who was still in the queue came to me with a napkin of her own accord. Before I could thank her, she had already disappeared.
After work in the office, I looked for a place to study again. I sat down in a nearby pizzeria to drink a cappuccino while I studied. I’ve been there before, twice in the past week alone, and I have always ordered a cappuccino. Before I could even tell the waitress what I want to order, the waitress came to my table with a cappuccino. Suddenly she seemed a little unsettled, “I hope you wanted a cappuccino,” said the friendly young woman. – “All good, thank you very much! I was just about to order a cappuccino, but you were quicker,” I replied with a smile. Welcome to the world of regulars, where good humour and telepathic connections between guests and waiters prevail.
A day later, someone helped me again. It was once again about a bag story. I go to a Zumba class twice a week at a gym in Obertraubling. To save time, I do my shopping at a nearby supermarket beforehand. This means that I regularly lug my shopping bags to the gym and from there to the bus stop. When I was on my way from the gym to the bus stop, a woman who was at Zumba for the first time that day offered to drive me to the bus stop with my shopping bags. We had a nice chat on the way and she told me about her daughter, who is currently living in America.
Small gestures often have a big impact. A big thank you to everyone whose names I may not know, but who enabled me to experience this wonderful week in Regensburg.
Looking for new friends in Regensburg
Hello everyone! Welcome to my next post! Last time I recounted you my Tandem journeys across Germany. This time I’d like to tell you something about my life here in Regensburg.
Maybe you have ever moved to a new city and have been looking for new friends just like me in Regensburg. This time can be a real challenge, especially if you don’t know anyone in the city. That was exactly my case. After I arrived in Regensburg, I first had to take care of organisational matters – for example, moving into my flat or finding out where I could go shopping nearby. Then I allowed myself to relax a bit. Next, I went to discover the most famous places in Regensburg, such as the Cathedral of st. Peter, the Stone Bridge, the House of Bavarian History and Bismarckplatz. Once, when I was watching the sunset from the Stone Bridge, I imagined how great it would be to share this beautiful moment with a good friend. From that moment on, I tried actively to make new friends in Regensburg.
Internet and WhatsApp: modern friend finders
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Meet.up – nowadays there are many online ways how to get informed what’s going on in the city. Whether it’s a concert, a festival or a hike. Every event like this can be a good opportunity to talk to new people and make new contacts. That’s why I took part in various events such as lectures, jointly organised excursions or city tours – always hoping to experience as much of Regensburg as possible and make new friends. I had imagined that I would make new friends in Regensburg super quickly this way. It didn’t quite work out that way, but I didn’t let that discourage me and just kept trying. After I had spent about a month in Regensburg, I met a young woman on a city tour – the Regensburg Free Walking Tour – who told me about the language café “Um die Ecke”.
Language café “Around the corner”: Where great people and great languages meet
The language café “Um die Ecke” takes place twice a month. There are several tables, each with a small card indicating which language is spoken at that table. One person is the moderator and tries to involve everyone at the table in the ongoing conversation. Once, the main organiser of the language café asked me if I could moderate the Czech or Slovakian table. “Of course, both,” I replied enthusiastically. And so she gave me the “Czech” and “Slovak” cards and I was able to moderate my table bilingually – what a nice language compromise! 🙂 It was really great to see people from Germany as well as from other countries coming round to practise my two mother tongues. 🙂
According to my experience, it’s really beneficial when an event takes place regularly because it increases the likelihood of meeting like-minded people and making new friends. I met a German couple at the English table who I also met up with outside the language café. They taught me the card game “Solo”, which is very similar to my favourite card game – the Czech “Mariáš” card game!
I can only recommend the language café “Um die Ecke”. Not only does it give you the opportunity to practise different languages, but you can also meet interesting people from all over the world. In the beginning, the language café took place in the Alte Mälzerei in Regensburg. There you could also enjoy rock and metal music, as various bands rehearsed there at the same time in neighbouring rooms. The language café now takes place once a month on a Friday evening at the “W1 – Centre for Young Culture” near Regensburg’s Haidplatz. The next date is 19.07.2024 from 18:30.
Another way to make new friends is the language courses offered at the University of Regensburg. One of the many things I appreciate about my volunteer service at Tandem is the opportunity to attend language courses at the university. Not only I was able to improve my language skills there, but I also made some friends. I have met other great people throughout Germany, for example in Nuremberg, Berlin, Altenhof and Leipzig, where I have recently travelled.
Chance meeting of destiny
“Chance meeting of destiny” – that’s what another friend of mine and me agreed on in relation to our meeting. The fact that I met her a few weeks ago was a coincidence because, for once, I took a different route home. And our meeting was also one destiny itself, because it means a lot to both of us that we became friends. I was walking home through a park that day and was on the verge of tears because I was going through a difficult time in my personal life at the time and felt incredibly lonely. Suddenly I heard someone singing in the park. I looked round and saw a young woman sitting on the grass. I hesitated for a while to go to address her, but after a few minutes I plucked up the courage to speak to her. And that was a very good decision. She told me that I can to sit with her and sing along if I like. Besides singing, we talked a lot. And then it turned out that she was my neighbour – she lives just two blocks away!
Sometimes random passers-by can become our friend. And sometimes difficult moments lead us to wonderful experiences that would otherwise never happen.
You can read more about other wonderful moments in Regensburg in my next blog post! 🙂
My travel diary: With Tandem out and about
Bärnau: Tandem autumn meeting, 20.9.-22.9.2023
Just three days after my arrival in Regensburg, I took part in my first business trip with Tandem. Every September, the colleagues from the German and Czech Tandem offices meet at the planning meeting to discuss their projects and plans for the coming year. This time, the meeting took place in the small, picturesque town Bärnau. Bärnau is located in the German-Czech border region and is known for its button factory and button museum. Unfortunately, we did not have time to visit these places as the programme was pretty tight. However, we were given an exciting guided tour of the Bärnau-Tachov History Park – an open-air museum. Among other things, we learnt how people built houses out of wood and stone in the Middle Ages. We were also able to try our hand at transporting stones from the quarry to the building site using a wheelbarrow. That was quite exhausting. It was easy to imagine how strenuous it was for people back then to spend hours working with their hands to build a house.
During the meeting, I got to know all my colleagues from both Tandem offices.
Klingenthal: Advanced language animation training, 18.10.-22.10.2023
In mid-October, the focus was once again on a small town in the German-Czech border region. This could be seen from the bilingual headlines in the restaurant and incoming orange messages – sometimes “Welcome to Germany” and a few metres further on “Vítejte v Česku (Welcome to the Czech Republic)”. No other place could have been more suitable for this meeting. The language animators from the Czech Republic and Germany met here to complete an advanced training course on language animation. As a volunteer, I had the task of taking photos of the events. But that was not so easy, because at the moments when the best pictures would have been taken, I was completely immersed in the language animations and the general events. In my experience, that’s what language animation is all about: breaking down the language barrier, having fun and forgetting about time! 🙂
Munich: On-arrival seminar for volunteers in Germany, 6.11. – 12.11.2023
25 different countries, 25 volunteers, 25 life stories: This is what our on-arrival seminar looked like. The aim of this seminar was to get to know the other volunteers who, like me, are doing voluntary service across Germany through the European Solidarity Corps. A really varied programme was prepared for us. We took part in various workshops on topics such as solidarity and individual and European values. There was also plenty of free time so that we could discover Munich and enjoy it to the full. During the day, we visited places worth seeing such as Marienplatz and the Olympic Park. In the evenings, we took advantage of Munich’s great club scene and visited a disco club and a club with rock music.
At a seminar, we made posters with pictures and texts to depict our homeland. I experienced one very emotional moment when I saw the poster of a volunteer from Russia on which he described his home in St. Petersburg as a home in the middle of nowhere, because Russia under Putin’s regime is for him no longer his home. A volunteer from Belarus expressed something similar with her poster, depicting Belarus as a country where there is no more freedom of expression because of the autocratic regime.
I was particularly touched by the way these two volunteers from Russia and Belarus showed their disapproval of the war in Ukraine and their solidarity and friendship with two volunteers from Ukraine. It reminded me of my grandfather, who once said when I was little: “Človek nakoniec vyhrá” (Man will win in the end) – in the sense of humanity and love.
This week in Munich turned out to be seven great days with great people that I will carry in my heart for a long time.
Berlin: German-Czech Youth Meeting, 23.11.-26.11.2023
Have you ever been to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? I have, at the German-Czech Youth Meeting at the end of November 2024 in Berlin. The youth hostel where we stayed looked like the wizard school from Harry Potter. The only difference was that it did not offer magic lessons, but various workshops for young people from Germany and the Czech Republic – for example podcast, dancing or sustainable cosmetics. There were also themed discussions on the mobility of the future or LGBTQ and gender identity. On Saturday evening, three different city tours were offered, during which the city guides reported on their personal stories. They were a refugee from Syria, a former alcoholic and a former homeless person. Despite their difficult life stories, they have managed to find a way out and lead fairly happy lives.
Waldmünchen: Ahoj.info video seminar, 15.3.-17.3.2024
“Our world of the future” – that was the name of the event that I spent months preparing together with Isabelle, the second volunteer in the ahoj.info project, and other Tandem colleagues.
At the seminar, young people from Germany and the Czech Republic used a variety of discussions, colourful collages and short films to express their ideas about how they imagine the world in the future. In their short films, they presented interesting ideas, for example about robots that will drink coffee in the future, just like we do it today. In the evening, we could sit together in a cosy atmosphere and round off the day together.
Rybníky: Spring Tandem meeting, 20.3.-21.3.2024
Just like half a year ago at the autumn Tandem meeting, almost all colleagues from the German and Czech Tandem offices gathered together to reflect the past year and discuss ongoing projects. And I really could not believe that half a year of my voluntary service had already passed!
I’ll write more about my next travels with Tandem later. The next blog post will be about making friends in a new city, so stay tuned! 🙂
Ahoj.info project
Two volunteers, two neighbouring countries, two Tandem offices – these are the key words to describe the ahoj.info project. Every year a volunteer from the Czech Republic comes to Germany and in turn a volunteer from Germany comes to the Czech Republic. This year I am a volunteer at the Tandem office in Regensburg and Isabelle is a volunteer at the Tandem office in Pilsen. We meet at joint Tandem events that take place either in Germany or in the Czech Republic. We also communicate very intensively online. Not only so that we can chat together (although that is of course part of it), but mainly we discuss important organizational matters. Within ahoj.info project man organizes two Czech-German events (a video seminar in Germany and a youth conference in the Czech Republic) and prepares regular posts on Instagram and Facebook.
In mid-March, the video seminar “Our Future World”, which we have been preparing intensively, took place at the Waldmünchen Youth Education Centre. Young people aged 16-26 from Germany and the Czech Republic met to discuss how the world of the future might look like and to implement their ideas together in the form of short films. You can read more about this in my next blog post “My travel diary or travelling with Tandem”.
Our regular social media posts can cover a wide range of Czech-German topics. One of the things I appreciate about my voluntary service with Tandem is that I can freely choose topics in a Czech-German context. Former volunteer Maren wrote blog posts about her life in Pilsen and her travels in the Czech Republic and Germany. I am comparing German and Czech idioms that have the same meaning but are phrased differently in German and Czech. Every Friday I post these idioms in the form of a picture carousel on Instagram and Facebook. For instance, when is something ,,as clear as mud,, (english idiom): Versteht nur Bahnhof (literally in English: You only understand the station), or Jsi z toho jelen (literally in English:Are you deer from that)? And that’s exactly the point. 🙂
As a volunteer, one can also do other activities in Tandem, such as helping colleagues to organise and run events. One can also write short texts about news on the ahoj.info website for the regular newsletter. I think it’s great that one can choose which activities one wants to take part in, and the colleagues in Tandem are helpful and happy to get one involved in their projects.
So far I have described my daily life in the office. In fact, my volunteer service also includes quite a lot of time spent on business trips. Some might find that too much, but there are people like me who feel on the top of the world when they can travel a lot. 🙂 Here is a brief overview of my business trips so far:
- Tandem-Herbstklausur/Autumn evaluation meeting in Bärnau
- Aufbauschulung für Sprachanimateur:Innem/Follow-up training for language animators in Klingenthal
- Deutsch-Tschechisches Jugendtreffen/Czech-German Youth Meeting in Berlin
- On Arrival-Seminar für ESK-Freiwilligen/On Arrival-Seminar for ESK-Volunteers in Munich
- Fortbildung zu deutsch-tschechischem Jugendaustausch ” Gemeinsame Geschichte”/Training on Czech-German Youth Exchange “Shared History” at the Max Mannheimer Studienzentrum in Dachau
- ahoj.info-Videoseminar in Waldmünchen
- Tandem-Frühlingsklausur/Spring evaluation meeting in the village Rybníky
Stay tuned, my next post “My travel diary or travelling with Tandem” will be up soon:)