From Turkish Kebabs to LOTR Concert: My Unforgettable February Journey

Hello everyone! I will talk about my adventure on this month. Since I mentioned before, the museums are free on last Sundays of every month. Therefore we decided to go to the museum in Vilnius for our new volunteer Aydan. It was mesmerizing to see all paintings and museum again. I guess I will visit all museums again and again when it is free!

Next week, there was a Turkish Kebab Workshop. I showed them how to cook Turkish Kebab. I chose chili sauce for kebab since there is no our tomato sauce which is called salça. They really enjoyed as you can see them in the photo and in the end of the workshop they wanted me to write the recipe for them. I believe when they went to home, the prepared kebab for their family! Also new volunteer Aydan helped us.

Next Monday, we went to Širvintos High School with Aydan in order to promote Širvintos Youth Center. We made a debate with youngsters. There were two tables such as "agree" part and "disagree" part. They needed to choose their side when the statements were read. After that, the groups have to choose a leader to defend their opinion. We chose statements about living an abroad as a foreigner. It seemed that they liked the activity. After class, the principle clarified that she wanted us to come on every Monday! Personally, I was walking in the air when she offered it. In other words, I was bursting with happiness. Because I miss being in a class with the full of students and being teacher as well.

Here comes "Crazy Hat Day" for English Speaking Club. We brought lots of materials such as cardboards, little toys, buttons, glues, scissors, glitters, necklaces, bracelets, newspapers, magazines to make hats. I showed them how to make a hat by using cardboards and newspaper. We created a lot of creative hats together!

On Wednesyday in Gelvonai, we made the same debate that we made in high school. After the debate, we gave them a cardboard. They had one mission to complete. They had to draw the youth center in Gelvonai and themselves. the aim of this activity was to learn how they saw themselves and how they located themselves in the youth center.

On Thursday in Musninkai, we cooked the most famous Lithuanian pink soup which is called "Saltibarsciai". It means cold soup because they mostly eat it in summer. We bought radishes, eggs, onions, potatoes and green onions. I didn`t expect this soup delicious. It was too tasty that I ate 3 bowls of it. After delicious soup, we explained the same activity that we did in Gelvonai. They drew the youth center and drew themselves.

Another Monday, we visited to High School again with Aydan as principle recommended. We played "Wheel of Fortune" with them. An English word was written on the board with out letters. There were 4 teams and each team spinned the wheel. They needed to guess correct letter to gain points. After activity, we promoted our future activity to invite them.

There is a traditional celebration in Lithuania to scare away winter! The people wear "scary masks" and they gather in the center, dance and make a campfire. We had a related workshop in the youth center in order to help youngster for their scary masks. Our lovely Jelena showed younsgter how to make a proper scary mask and I also cooked pancakes with local volunteers Sophia and Rugilė while the others were prepating their masks. Later they used their masks to attend the celebration in Širvintos city center on 13 February.

I attended an Erasmus+ projects as a volunteer to help our lovely bosses Živile and Serdar. There were 27 participants whom live another countries. The title of this one week projects was "Contact making seminar on youth work: Step forward". The participants who were playing a big role in their organization attended the project.

Here comes the most exciting part of this month! Finally I did something that I always wanted to do since my childhood. I went to an official Lord of the Rings concert! I saw that The Lord of the Sound orchestra would come to Vilnius to play Lord of the Rings soundtracks one month ago and of course I bought the tickets from the first seat! Can you imagine how I felt in that moment?! I am a huge LOTR fan since childhood. I read all books and watched all movies when they are published and finally I went to LOTR concert! Thank you IYACA and Širvintos Sport center to make one of my dream come true!!