RED ONION EVS I Niki is in Thailand

Latest news are about my long awaited holiday.
It was basically the best part of the whole thing so far. I have collected all my days (and some extra with working on holidays/weekends) and took a nice 2-week-long trip around the central and northern part of the country.

This land is crazy big, just to say the very obvious. Five times as big as my home country it was a challenge to get from A to B (eventually traveling 23 hours, what) and there are a lot of points, for sure.

Started in the capital, went to the north, countless temples, breathtaking views, good food, sightseeing, cycling, trekking, back down to the seaside, swimming, sunrise, sunset, infinite number of photos - really an amazing time.

Niki

RED Onion EVS I Niki is in Thailand

Hi all again, here comes a short summary of what I have learnt so far. Short, as explaining would take ages or well, you know the other option… Try it yourself. 

July was obviously THE month of learning. So I began at the basics: how to get up really early and learnt to go to bed again, really early - also, how to exist in degrees varying between 30-40. All. The. Time. Basically, I had to re-learn how to sleep. 

 

Another basic step was food. People were surprised when I told them I like spicy - and then I was surprised what they actually mean by spicy. However, I adapted and now I can tell by the looks of the food if I (or anybody I know at home) could eat it. About ingredients: even the things I know are a bit different here. When they told me that the little green tomato-like balls are eggplants, I thought it must be a translation error. Or the famous morning glory, which I'm pretty sure was named by some foreigner with hangover. But Google is my friend and helped me to confirm that they were right. Turns out I knew even less about plants than I thought...

Cooking here is just like what you expect from master chèfs - throw everything you have at hand to a pan, add some soy and oyster sauce (and of course chili) and done. Put it on some rice and enjoy.

Oh and never forget that ANYTHING can be fried - even ice cream.
Let's see some other aspects, though: I have learnt to trust Thai people - try going home from ~350 km, on a 13 hours trip only by relying on 2 stickers on your T-shirt and let me know the result. Extra conditions: do not speak a single word of the local language and expect no-one to speak English. Here it was like: putting us here, sending us there, and then voilà, we're at home. One useful tip though: know how to correctly pronounce the name of the city you're going to.

Same goes if you're on a walk and just get tired of walking - you can count on someone to ask you to sit on the back of their motorbike in 5 minutes. If you are in such a small village like me, then you don't even have to say where you're going, they would know just by looking at you. The only other blond European in the district is a man, who's been living here for 15 years so there was no space for confusion. 

Language in 10 words: 5 intonations and no space between words in writing. If I know one thing, it's that “ka” is the most important word. Or at least the most used. It means please, okay, agreed, correct, good, thanks, no problem and so on and so on…
Unfortunately the different tones do not make any sense to my Hungarian ears so even when I'm trying to repeat what they say I don't succeed. Or when I do, that's totally by accident and I never know how I got that one right. Long story short: it's really unlikely that I'll be working with my Thai language knowledge after getting home. Sorry, bosses.

And a quick glance into teaching: kindergarten is a playground. For teachers.

And now something I'm still learning: how to let go of everything that's not positive. Stress? Nope. Hurry? Nope. Plans? Nope. Problems? Nope. Timetables? Nope. Anything not happening as you agreed/thought? 5555.

Niki Solymosi

Red Onion EVS I Niki is in Thailand

Hello all, first news flash from Thailand!

I've been here already a month, I cannot believe it! So far it has been a journey of surprises, shocks and a bit of sun sickness. Let me introduce you to the highlights of the month regarding my daily work. Teaching is really a difficult job (shout out to all the people doing this for a living, you are SUPERHEROES) and add that barely anyone speaks English here, not the kids, nor the teachers. However, people here just love you, whatever you do, which eases even your (claimed) failures. In school, the first shock came when students stood up in middle of class and went out to play or started running around in the classroom without any question. On the first day I tried to imagine what I would have received for this at their age at home... On the second day I tried not to reach the point where they get bored - day 27 and still trying. Not sure who developed more so far, them or me.

After all I'm also learning: the nature and interests of different age groups of kids, my own limits, coping, patience, improvising and how to be useful while having fun. I have to admit, it's not easy but well, no one ever said it would be.

And the strangest thing so far? To get used to being called Teacher, like all the time, just <Teacher> for kids, parents and even for people on the street. From dawn to dusk you can hear <Teacher> from every single angle around you, sometimes even in your dreams.

Niki

Red Onion in Bali! Training course in Bali, Indonesia

We have arrive to the next stage of RED ONION project: 8 countries come together for a week, to have a training about volunteering, mentoring, coordinator, intercultural learning, and to discuss the next steps ahead.

We learnt a lot of things about problem solving and project management, so there will be a lot of upcoming things around red onion - it is worth to stay tuned ;)

The participating countries (Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal and Hungary) are going to send their volunteer to each other organization for doing volunteering during the next 6 months.
Our Te Is volunteer is Niki Solymosi who travelled to Hatyai, Thailaind for 6 month EVS project, she is going to rule our blog nowadays :)

For appetizer here is a lovely video about the training course made by the hosting organization of the project Dejavato

Felhívás! Önkénteskedj Thaiföldön / EVS in Thailand

Szeretnél valami igazán izgalmas részese lenni 2018-ban?
Ha 18 és 30 év közötti fiatal vagy, jelentkezz!

Nemzetközi projektünkre keressük leendő lelkes önkéntesünket Thaiföldre angol nyelvtanításra egy civil szervezetnél 2018. júniustól decemberig.

Jelentkezés és további információk itt: https://goo.gl/forms/svNlg675wJYAJyTn2

További infókért keress bátran a bianka@teisfoundation.hu címen.

Jelentkezési határidő 2018. március 22.

Red Onion Jobshadowing

We are happy to announce that Te Is is a part of an other beautiful project from 2018: Red Onion.

RED Onion (Recognition of non formal education, Empowerment of Young people and
Development of Youth Work - Onion) is a 24 months project coordinated by YUPI
organization in Portugal, in close partnership with Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland,
Vietnam, Thailand, India and Indonesia.
"Onion" represents many times a symbol for the Diversity issues, a concept that we
understand as transversal to our project and that we want to integrate in our working
culture and raise awareness for the added-value of diversity for young people.

During this 24 months we are going to keep you updated what we are doing, since there is many things going to happen - jobshadowing, training, networking, volunteering, capacity building and many lovely things.

It has started with a kick-off meeting in Portugal, where all the partner organization came together to set up goals and start this intercultural adventure. From Portugal youth workers from Indonesia, India, Thailand and Vietnam travelled to Hungary, to start their jobshadowing.

Te Is Foundation has hosted a 4-day study visit from 2nd of February till 6th of February in Budapest.
During these days we have visited Kompánia Alter Youth Center in the outskirt of Hungary, we have inspired by Crunch Budapest and with the wide variety about their work, how to advertise sustaintable education by innovation, art, networking, and in business. We have visited the European Youth Centre in Budapest, where we learnt about the Council of Europe, the Youth Departnert, how they work, and we have received many useful tools. Last bust not least we have visited to New Generation - Budapest Youth Center and H13 the Student and Entrepreneurship Center in Budapest. These days was interesting and we learnt but the four youth worker, Manoranjan Mishra
Kharisma Rosandrini, Parin Charoenchanaporn, andVu Duy Kien has already contiuned their jobshadowing journey to Czeck Republic to our lovely partner organisation Genesis.

These days was really inspiring for Us and I am very interested how Red Onion contiunes. Interested? Stay tuned!