Letters from the European Meeting - vol 1

(No guarantee for more -- sorry in advance if I can't manage to write more.)

Sooo, here we are:
3 volunteers + 2 staff from JVC Britain,
4 (= the whole single community) + 1 from JEV Slovakia,
2 + 2 from JVC Ireland (they also only have one community),
3 volunteers from JEV Germany including the only GUY (Berlin, Leipzig & Vienna -- but as it turned out, there are German JEV groups in Mexico, Brussels, Bosnia, and Romania, as well), and
5 + 1 from JEV France (Marseille & St Etienne -- all volunteers but one who only noticed at the airport that her passport has expired..).

It's a bit strange that the numbers of the participants don't at all reflect the size of each programm(e?)...

There are some language barriers (for the first time in my life, I am among the betters with my English -- no wonder after 8 months of use day and night) but we can overcome it. Strangly for me, those participants who are foreign in their programme, are usually from a country that also has JVC like a Slovak girl in France, or the other is a Lithuanian in Germany (so she's at home now). The Slovaks are pretty shy with their English but fortunatelly their leader is Katka from JVC Birmingham 2005/06.
(Am I totally boring & without any meaning...?)

Today we had some icebreaking & group building, and then the presentations about JVC and the values in our country. Some bits&bobs that may be interesting:

- The Irish community lives in an even more crap area than Ancoats. It's called Ballymun -- it's a towerblock quarter in Dublin. All their placements are there, too.
- The Sovak girls were the most creative by the presentation: the sang a simple song about their days, with two recorders, a guitar, and a piano. The showed pictures and the lyrics meanwhile. They live in a small village near Bratislava, where some Jesuit institutions are working, as well. And they only work for four days, Friday is reflection with two nonnes, and a mass.
- The Germans have three "ordinary" communities, and some abroad (see above) but they meet 4 times during the year all. Those abroad send a letter every month in which they explain everything going on ith them (mostly for the sake of their sponsors). I think this Lithuanian girl is the only foreigner in the whole programm.
- The two French communities meet for a thematic weekend every month (such as community, violence-free conflict resolution, Islam (they meet more Islamic people a day than Christians, they said), and so on. Also, their values are called: service, community, spirituality, and "human formation" (these weekends).

Probably we are the only ones with internet at home.

Now there is an optional mass (well...), and after that there will be social in the sauna. I think I'll finish it for now.

In Vilnius, two hours later then it is written underneath :)