Workcamp in Bellerive 4

Hi, there. :)


Last time, I forgot to say what was our tasks. Actually, one of the most important thing is 'working' in workcamp!


Bellerive-sur-allier is a small town just next to Vichy. It's not like a countryside, but the population is just around 8,000. The cityhall of this town has invited a workcamp every year for 8 years. I was very impressive that the goverment has been interested in volunteering for a long time and supported it continuously. Because I thought volunteering would be a good way to do a public work, but it's not that effective way on economical side.


Besides, neighbors have already enough comprehension about the workcamp. I guess they get used to welcome it in every summer, so they were very friendly and supportive to us.



Look at these hard workers! :P The city hall asked us to renovate several old public parks. So we changed old benches and trash bins, and even blocks on the path! It's not harder than we expeted, we really enjoyed workig outside. Digging grounds, moving stones, painting new trash bins, and even making ciment... we worked like a professional! :)

Workcamp in Bellerive 3

We spent our first weekend doing special activities. One was making our own t-shirt, and the other was drawing each other's own rabbit. It was first time for me to make my own t-shirt. It was Aurélien's brilliant idea. Everyone really loved making it, and it was the first activity which made us get involved in the group life. Aurélien made our symbol at first, then Young-su made a crossword puzzle with all our names. I'm sure this t-shirt is the best souvenir for everyone from the camp.

And I don't remember why, but suddenly we started drawing our own rabbits. It was very funny because each rabbit reflected each one's personality more or less. My one was a lazy rabbit! You can see an angry rabbit, a hungry one, a crazy one and even a pregnant one etc. Then we put these drawings on our fancy kitchen during whole workcamp.

You can see everyone was so focusing on drawing at kitchen!

These are our rabbits!

Workcamp in Bellerive 2

Writing this post so reminds me of my feeling at the first day I met people at the station. I was a leader of course, but I was also very nervous to meet them. I didn't know their face, personality or motivation, actually anything! Even worse, nobody thought I would be a leader of this camp. You see everyone was in France, and it means they expected a french leader would welcome them! :D I'm very thankful that they trusted me and followed me, though I don't speak french fluently.

In the evening of the second day, there was a welcomed party in the city hall. We met the mayor of Bellerive, our neighbors, local teenagers and their tutors. At the beginning, we're supposed to work with these teenagers as well as to work in a public park. Because they had nothing to do during their holidays and just wandered on the streets. So we're very motivated to hang out with them, and also planned many activities. That's why we had a barbecue party together after we visited a party in city hall. Does it look yummy? :) We ate some marguetzs and shrimps.

Unfortunately, their tutors were very pessimistic to work with us. They didn't have any willing to organize activities for their children. After one week, they just left to enjoy their vacances, and we couldn't contact them any more. It was a pity to work with teenagers. Because we really had a fun the first day we met. Nobody knew it was the first and the last day to see them.

Following is to introduce you the best translator Vincent. He translated what the mayor said almost at the same time in English. You will see how intelligent he is. ;)

Workcamp in Bellerive 1

Hello, there. It's been ages since I wrote the last post! I was in workcamp for 3 weeks, and as soon as it's finished I participated in mid-term training in a row. I was totally tired, but also very happy to join all these events. :)

My workcamp was already finished 2 weeks ago, I still feel like being there. I had so much fun, and of course there are tons of episodes. ;) I'm going to tell you everything!

Voila, Look at this picture. I'm happy to introduce you my friends who I met during workcamp. We were 14 people. Me and my colleague, Aurélien were leaders. When I met him at first, he surprised me saying hello in Korean. He speaks korean well, and even has a lot of experiences about workcamp. He already participated in 22 workcamps before, I think he can publish his stories as a book!

There were two more koreans, Young-su and Hee-eun. They always helped me out and everyone loved them. Especially Young-su showed us his own korean dance. It was incredible even for korean. :D:D And they go university just next to my one, so we could find many common senses between us.

There were three french, Vincent from Paris, Hélène from Limoge, and Saïda from Amien. Vincent was my secret friend, we discussed every subject at every single night! Our discussion was like a never ending story. Hélène and Saïda, they are the youngest. But they really adapted themselves to this group life. Thanks to them I could taste many good french dishes.

Julia and Antonio, they are from Spain, in Granada. They are so energetic, and passionate. Thanks to them we sometimes followed spanish lifestyles, which are enjoying siesta and having dinner at 10 o'clock!

Jethro, he is from Nigeria, but now stays in France. He speaks french and english very well, moreover he has good sense of humor! He made a lot of jokes and the others also made fun of him, because he looked very nervous when he couldn't connect with any technology such as his mobile and internet. His mobile was always switched on and ringing!

There were two turkish boys! Onur and Mehmet from Ismir, they didn't come to the meeting point at the first day, and didn't answer the phone either. So I thought they might call off joining us. But two days later 8 o'clock in the morning, Bomb! They suddenly appeared! They also got along with others and they made us laugh a lot.

Last two people are Natalia and Artem, who are from Ukraine. They are a lovely couple, and so kind. Especially Natalia was always ready to help us in the kitchen. She was such a good cook!

And below is a picture of our house where we stayed during 3 weeks.

We're supposed to sleep outside in a tent except raining day. Luckily we had a big kitchen, a huge dining room and a cute minibus. That's because where we stayed was a school. This building was little bit strange though, there were a fire station, a school cafeteria, and residence in a building. It was good for us having good and safe neighbors at least. ;) I'll tell you more on the next post!

Cultural exchange

Hi ^^ everyone is doing well? Hope so ... last month before the end of EVS project.

This time Haenam team did with students

" EXPOSITION", cultural exchange between France and Korea.

In a word, each team worked in 3 different topic :


선생님team -> Main information about Korea and France

버지니선생님team -> Movie. (부산festival and Cannes Festival)

수경선생님team -> Gastronomy

크리스틴team -> Sport : soccer

School trip

August is a holiday month in Korea.
So the last week of July I went in a school trip with the students and the teachers. Unfortunately, Lucie couldn't join us because she still hurts her ankle ...
We left Wednesday morning under the rain. The first day was very hard, specially because our bags were extremely heavy : we had to carry all our food for 4 days.
Of course it was an organic school trip so we ate only organic food, we tried not to waste water (no shower ... ) and we brushed our teeth with salt.
Wednesday we climbed 3 peaks in Jirisan (Yeonhabong, Samsanbong and Tchotaebong).
So Thursday we went down, it was also quite perilous !
We slept in the beautiful Piagol Valley.
Friday was for sure the most difficult day, we climbed the Nogodan peak (1 507 m). We slept in the top and had a lot of fun sharing a dormitory all together.
Finally Saturday we went down to the valley, we finished our trip with a great bath in the river and a delicious ice cream.
I enjoyed a lot this trip. Sharing difficulties and chatting during the walk made me closer to the students. We laughed a lot and always tried to help each other.
Jirisan is a very beautiful place, I enjoyed great landscapes there.

Mud Festival!

Hello everybody!
Su Gyeong, Chrisitine and me went to Boryeong to experience the Mud festival!
It is presented as the biggest festival of Korea. Mud pool, slide and games. We have done some mud body painting. It takes place in Boryeon next to a beach so after beeing cover with mud it was so good to swim. And the water was some warm too. At night some events were organised. We stay there 3 days so we could enjoy the B-Boy, a hip-hop and electronic party and the slosing ceremony with rock concert and fireworks. Apparently some band were quiet famous as Su Gyeong told us : Crying Nuts, Kim Kyeong Ho...
It was a chance the 2 volunteers from Wando were in holiday at the same time and so we could met them there and have fun together. It was the first time for Su Gyeong and Han Gyeol at the mud festival it was good we could share a new experience together.
Virginie