First week(s) arrival.

Believe it or not, my plane landed EARLY in Greece...

I'm living in Ekali, one of the richest areas in Athens, located in the northern part. Not exactly near the city centre, but easy to reach using public transportation.

The first week I had the time to get to know the neighbourhood, the organisation, the staff and now the children.

All the people i've met so far are nice and very friendly; the director of Zanneio, the EVS-coordinator (Patty), my mentor (Poppy), my fellow volunteer (Aurelien) in fact everyone in the orgisation.

It can be quite difficult somethimes to communicate without having a language in common.

For that I have greek lessons. I've learned the greek alphabet and a few words but at this point I cannot make whole sentences. I'm very motivated to learn of course because I like to talk and the children in the organisation often forget I cannot understand a lot of what they are saying. Somethimes the children teach me the name of objects and vegetables when it is time to eat (thank goodness they can be very patient).

It is the first year the Zanneio foundation started an EVS-project. In this moment there are two volunteers (including myself). Saturday there will be 3 volunteers and in january the others... (5 in total) Some people working in the Zanneio foundation have allready good experiences with the EVS-program and are familiar with it.

The volunteers will live in a flat especially put together for the EVS-project(s), it is located on the property of the organisation. Allmost everything is new; 8 hours of IKEA -shopping results in a very nice livingroom and working area with the most colourfull curtains ever seen in my life!

The flat will have 3 bedrooms, bathroom, storage, kitchen, livingroom + workplace (with internet connection). I have to admit, all this is more than i've expected. Off course on the 3rd of octobre we'll have a party to start the project...

In case you want to send me something; my adress is:

Zanneio Foundation (TO: JANA)
Thiseos 131, 145 65 Ekali, Greece

I also have a greek phonenumber but I can't remember at this point, give it to you later...

At this point I haven't seen much of athens or greece. I've been to Voula, to the beach linked to an other project in athens (pikpa) where there are a lot of nice volunteers as well and a great mojito party afterwards. I've been to Ekali (ah yes I live here) ,went walking up a mountain, went to a local market. I wen't to Monasteraki to see the area, shops and acropolis, went to Omonia and went to Victoria/Kipseli Where Sofie (fellow belgian EVS-volunteer) lives...


In short:

+ the project,
+ people involved in the project,
+ party's,
+ new experiences...

- musquito's!!! (only for writing this, I've got bitten)
- traffic (Belgians drive cars slowly very slow)
- QWERTY keyboards (aargh!).