MAGIC experience IN ommen

 

      All Erasmus projects have a special property: special people are involved in and the hosts do their best trying to make you feel at home in a different country surrounded by very diverse people. This project was all that and more.

The group spent a night in Amsterdam discovering in few hours nice places, lovely channels, interesting buildings and people, then they were tasked with the daunting mission of getting to Ommen using the confusing- for a foreigner- train, but with the help of the nice Dutch people they managed to arrive in Ommen.

The beautiful town welcomed us with some traditional rain and wind but that didn’t bother us, it was after all a beautiful Dutch weather, and the beautiful boat, actually a house but I’ll explain why it’s a “boat”, was there to protect us and let us sleep well for the first night in the project.

In the morning the specialness or more the MaGiC began with Chatsick and Santa in life jackets and paddles presenting us the rules of the sea and hot to preserve the “boat" and the “deck" (yard) and tell us how things are going to be in the future days.

First we'll have to choose a team by choosing a team leader and we did that by having the team leaders set in different points of the room and give a brief speech about themselves and what they believe and every single one was like the embodiment of a human virtue so it was a hard choice but in the end I was really glad that I chose the leader I did even tho,unfortunately,he wasn’t present all the time because of a cold but the team was just as good, full of fun and beautiful people that I truly felt comfortable with. After the teams were chosen each team got a sticker with a different sign on it and by checking a nicely made board and see the task we had that day, which varied from: breakfast; lunch; cleaning first, second, third floor, etc. But each morning we had a morning circle where we sat in a circle on mattresses and ask different questions or have Jan explain to us what was the program for that day and then do a activity that would help us connect with eachother or help us create a story by exercising our creativity and our writing skills. After lunch we would check another nicely made board to check what workshops we had for that day and where they were held and we woils sign in by writing our names under the workshop.

The goal was to have a live performance on the last day of the project with public and everything and everyone worked hard and helped eachother to make their show entertaining but corona struck and the show was cancelled but thanks to the great minds  coordinating that project the end was just as amazing and much more emotional. We had to tape the pamflets made to promote the show on our back then go around and write compliments on other people’s back while they would write on ours. First I thought it was a bad idea because I thought some people will get all the attention and others won’t have anyone writing on theyrs and that would make them feel worse but I was so wrong, everyone had something nice to say about everyone and it was the most emotional thing ever and something I will remember forever because I’ve framed that piece of paper on my wall.

Unfortunately it had to be cut short and the stress from after the project was over kinda dampened the good memories but because of that last thing we did I would remember forever how some random people can be friends in so short time. Thank you, magic friends!