Hello friends!

First of all I want to apologize for without having written on the previous week. Nothing new to count on this week. More office work and in Cáritas on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday was the only day of the week we did something different. Like every Thursday from 16:00 to 17:00, we carry out our radio show. The central theme of the program was “The vegetarianism“, and given that my colleague Gioia is vegetarian, we were able to have different points of view on this mode of supplying, and for some people, lifestyle. Due to our limited vocabulary on some occasions and to technical problems arising in the broadcast booth, we can say that our program has progress margin. But we are, and if someone is interested in listening to the program, here is the link to the page: http://mycyradio.eu

On Friday, as the previous Friday, Dimitris and I went to play basketball at a court near the former Campus of the University of Nicosia. There we met up more people to have some fun and do some sport. Accustomed to do sport in group and to live in rural areas which eases you the practice of other sports, the truth is that it´s been tricky to me to do exercise regularly in the city. Working hours doesn´t help much to set me a time to be more regular and constant. However,  I always try to get some time to be active, and also the fact of going to any site walking or by bike helps.

On Saturday my partners of volunteerism and I started a part of the program of volunteerism called “arrival training“. In this course we met all newcomers volunteers to Cyprus (or who have already been a few weeks, as is our case). The objective of the course was mainly respond to certain aspects of the European voluntary service or “EVS“, acquire a number of concepts and knowledge to put into practice during our experience on the island and to meet other volunteers and to make new friends. This course was held in a hotel in Nicosia, in which we spent five intense days. Fortunately we went to expenses paid, so that we didn´t have to worry more than to enjoy and to learn from the experience. After the long but well spent days of the course, we had time to go out for the city and drink a few beers.

Wednesday was the last day of course and with it came farewells for Limassol friends and “see you later” to the Nicosia ones. And it was a “see you later” because on Friday we met up all together to go out partying on the other side of the city, on the Turkish side (or occupied part, as the greek-cypriots prefer to call it), but that we will talk a bit later about this. On Wednesday, all the group spent the morning in the hotel doing an assessment of the previous days and after eating we went back home to rest.

On Thursday he returned to work and we spent the morning in the office preparing the radio show that my friend Barbara and I did in the afternoon. The theme of the program was “The importance of doing sport and being an active person”. Without many time to prepare the program, we did it quite well, if we don´t consider some small technical problems with mixer to play the music (take note for the next program).

Coming back to Friday, most of it was work in the office during the morning and in the afternoon we had an important meeting with several members of YEU Cyprus. We had to prepare the event we´ll do next Sunday on the beach of Larnaca. An event called “Wet Games“, that although it sounds a bit suggestive, the only thing wet  we´ll have will be sea water. More than three hours of meeting and everything was almost left  organized. In the evening I met my mentor and several friends to cross the border and we attended a reggae party which was held on the other side. There we gathered the new friends we met during the week of training at the hotel. First big night of party in Nicosia for me and a great atmosphere.

On Saturday, finally after three weeks, I could laze in bed and getting up late. Close of the half-day I went to the market to buy some vegetables and back home. Quiet day to disconnect and get a day with some housework.

Sunday I was with Antonia, my language exchange partner to attend an event on ecology and care of the environment. It was an interesting event in which we did some yoga (I didn´t remember what it was that), we learned a little more about the importance of a healthy diet and we listened to traditional Cypriot and Greek music. Good plan to finish the week.

Let´s follow the coming week!