γεια σας & hallo!
My name is Clara Bredow and I am a short term volunteer in Kryoneri, Korinthias.
I am from Frankfurt, Germany and I am doing a “Gap Year“ before I start university. Spontaneously I have been given the opportunity for an European Voluntary Service, for which I am very grateful. I have only been here for one month and I have already experienced so many new things. I live together with 3 other Germans in the beautiful Hostel Elisson, where we spend most of our free time together.
Directly on my first day, the greek lessons started. Learning greek is definitely challenging, but also a lot of fun. For me learning a language with different letters is something I have never done before, but wanted to do earlier.
Our typical work day starts with office hours. I am working on the Filoxenia website and often have meetings with the IT-expert, who explains me how to edit the website. Before my time here I was never really good or interested in IT- “stuff“. I am really thankful to learn new things and thus to widen my horizon.
In the office, we also work together sometimes and create an „Escape Room Game“ for the kids from the village. We try to include some history facts into the game. I think they will enjoy playing it a lot.
Our office is in the Youth Center of the village, which also has a bar. Since Covid it was not in service. I cleaned the bar and bought new coffee and co. Twice a week I have bar-hours after the office and offer free drinks to the youngsters.
Two times a week in the afternoon we have tandem lessons with kids from the school in the village. They teach us Greek and we teach them German. I like the concept of learning a language in this way. We try to make these hours fun and play games to learn the numbers or colors and listen to traditional German or Greek songs.
During other afternoons I worked in the garden around our hostel and cut the grass or collected walnuts that will be send to a production.
Another activity I really enjoyed painting the stairs of the youth center in our village. It was definitely more work than expected but to see the results made us all happy.
Last weekend we joined the Korinthian hiking association and hiked to a cave, where a jewish family hid from the nazis during the second world war. The story really touched me and it made me happy to know that the village of Kryoneri was supporting the family.
My time here is half over (unfortunately) but I am sure I will enjoy the last weeks very much.