On Arrival Training – South of France 7th to 11th June 2011

Soon after arriving, and after only being in the office for one day (due to the previous Thursday and Friday being bank holidays), I jumped on a train with another volunteer and travelled 5 and a half hours to Sète near Montpellier right in the South of France. It was an amazing 5 days.  There were only 6 people in our group with a range of nationalities.  Other than me (English) the countries represented were Hungary, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria and Armenia.  EVS volunteers literally come from far and wide J

Our on arrival group with our trainer :-)

The five days were made up of a whole bunch of different exercises designed to build our confidence linguistically, discover other cultures and learn about France and the cultural differences we may experience.  What I found most rewarding was when I managed to prepare and deliver presentations in French; something I had previously been very afraid and nervous of doing.  We also met the volunteers who were on their final training near the end of their volunteering.  They were all speaking French to each other like it was no bother…Even those who had been beginners when they had arrived!  It gave me that extra motivation to really try hard with my language learning J

Games on the beach with the other volunteers

Sète turned out to be a beautiful seaside town, as we were able to discover it on Friday when we had all the afternoon to explore and to try and answer a quiz about the town.  I just wish we had more time because the things we learned from our awesome “formatrice” (facilitator) were invaluable!  On the last night, all the volunteers (the 6 of us and other 25 or so on the final training) had a mini party on the beach, which was great fun and fab for morale.

The wonderful town - very picturesque!

The next day in our group we all did an evaluation of how the training had been.  I decided that it was precious how much my confidence had developed and the facilitator and the structure of activities were top-notch.  All the information we were given and meeting the other volunteers was so important to us, so I just wish we had more time.  The only bad thing was the weather (can u believe it was windy and cold and at times raining!) and the amount of seafood on the menu!!!