2008-01-05

20080101 Taize @Geneva

gallery:
...pictures of the city
...people I've meet

I spent New Year in Geneva on Taize meeting. Many thousand young Christians from all over Europe (and some other parts) gather to pray together, sing, discuss, meet,...

Traveling in the bus wasn't something memorable. It was 0k when we stopped in Ljubljana, there was a concert of Oliver Dragojevic on the square. After 16 hours we arrived to school, main organising spot for our country. I decided to participate in the working group. There was an empty place in the morning cleaning team. They said we would be accommodated in the center if we work in the working team. The truth is that I was accommodated in France, but it was nice.

So, just in the beginning I left my bus I went alone to my parish. It was like that during whole event. I was always alone but never alone. Never belonging to a team, so everybody was my team. It was positive thing for getting to know more people.

In the parish I meet some nice Croatian group. They were all from a group of young followers of Franjo Asiski. And they welcomed me immediately when they figured I was alone. Cool! Hope some of them 'll be good friends in the future, I really like them.

5 of us were sleeping in France. Everyday we had a meeting at 22h in the Parish when they drove us to our home. In the evening we talked. In the morning we had some nice cheese and other stuff.

As I said, I had to clean everyday. So again I was leaving my group and heading towards Palexpo. My cleaning team were Polish & Croatian people with 2 leaders from Germany & Italy.


One day I went with "Polish cleaning team" to the city for the tour. Most of the day I spent with them. In the evening we returned to Palexpo to get some food with the others.


As for the praying... usually it was really nice. We sang some Taize songs which sound really cool! The nicest feeling is in the evening on Palexpo in the big hall, when everybody gathers for the praying and for the singing. You can really relax or participate in this celebration of peace.

After morning praying we had discussion groups. I participated only once 'cause that day I didn't have to go cleaning. And that day we didn't discuss :) We gathered, read some letter from Cochabamba. And nothing was happening. Our animator was silent, everybody was silent. Personally I wasn't inspired that much by the letter. So I suggested that we try something else, play some games perhaps. So we had 1 minute session of laughter yoga :) Nice opportunity for me to practice it. And played few more games. Then we ate and went for the regional meetings.

Our hosts were living in France. Man spoke English so I know more about him then on his wife who didn't speak English that well. He was a nuclear scientist working in the big lab with elementary particles. His parents were strong atheists and some children it seems. He discovered Jesus by reading a bible while he was 15 and with 25 he was baptises. His wife & he were really nice to us. We didn't communicate much in total but it was nice atmosphere.

New Year party was extremely unusual. It began in the parish, we were praying and singing. When midnight came we congratulated each other. Then went to some school, walking on the street with torches. There weren't many fireworks and shooting. Nations were presenting themselves in the school. There was some food & non-alcohol drinks to consume, which I did. I was talking to people, just starting to warm up and suddenly some important guy announced the end of a party. It was 2 o'clock!!! Amazing. All the Croats there came gathered in the circle and started singing. After 10 minutes the announcment guy got a bit nervous and it all finally ended. We went home. Believe it or not. What a party. Well, in the paper they said it would finish at 2 o'clock, but I didn't find it that serious.



Need to say that praying there is much more fun. You can get peace if you want, there is Silence room. Also you can pray with the others, a big group of young enthusiastic people. It brings a completely new motivation to be religious. Surrounded by many young nice people. Feels good. Gives hope for better tomorrow.

I'm waiting for pictures from Croatian friends. And my hope is to meet them more so I could really call them friends.

20071212 Jam in Serbia


Participated on event with few hundred people from my student organisation. It was nice to see friends whom I met while traveling around. The event in total was ok but I don't feel the whole satisfaction. I see there many people and they seem to have much fun. For me many moments weren't that funny so I felt stupid sometimes 'cause I wasn't having fun like the others.

Still, there were some very good moments. On the first place friends whom I met before and made friends with some new people who seem really nice. And the other thing was visiting pub "Svrati bato" in the city of Donji Milanovac. There we drank nice vine and ate some fish through the whole afternoon. The city itself is full of mammuts. Suppose that there were some mammut's bones?

About fun...The solution is of course in me. I need to search in my mind those moments when I was able to be whatever I wanted. Sometimes it was during a really hard period but I managed to feel good & do crazy stuff. Need to concentrate more on myself