Arts Lab 6.0: Savanephone Riand - Month 1

In this first month of being here in Târgu Frumos, I have already done a lot of things. I arrived a day before starting the project. I think I adapt really fast to the life here, it took me at least one day to just know that I'm here and that it's my home for seven months now. 

The project started first with the on arrival training, in which we met a lot of different people, from many different volunteering projects in Romania. It was interesting to see how people were all excited about their own project and what they were going to do here. Then we had the launch book, before the first festival. It was my first time seeing Romanian culture and traditions. At the end of this event, I was really intrigued by Romanian culture and I saw how good it is to learn about a whole new culture. 

Before the first festival and the first workshops, we met kids from the art school, we went to see their performances, and this was the moment I knew that people here, especially the kids, were really talented. We presented them the workshops we will make and we invited them to join. One of the kids was really nice to me, she told me that she finds me really cool with my tattoos and everything and that she had to talk to me. I was surprised at how nice these kids were, and it gave me more confidence before doing the workshop. 

The first workshop took place at the first festival we went to, and we had the chance to meet a lot of crafters. It was really difficult to make people understand what I wanted them to do, because there were a lot of children and most of them didn't speak English at all. In the end, the workshop I made wasn't really what they were supposed to do but the results were still interesting. 

Then we had to work on the Jemom museum. It was kind of weird to work on both the folklore topic and the Jemom one, because they are really different and one is sad, the other is happy. So we went to the Jew cemetery in Târgu Frumos, and we saw how the place is abandoned and how everyone doesn't care about it. We had to work on how the cemetery could be improved, taken care of, and everything. I was really focused on this, but we were always switching from the Jemom topic to the folklore one, and to the crafters' things and everything. It was really hard for me to organize myself to do what we had to do because we were doing a lot of different things at the same time, but I think I managed to do everything right. 

We went to Iași for the first time too, and we went to the French institute to interact with people. There I kind of found myself home because they were speaking French all the time. I saw a lot of French books, and I even found a book where I saw pictures and documents about my city in France. 

We came back again to Iași for the night of the museum. It was really fun to do this and we saw a lot of interesting artworks in different places there. We walked a lot but everything was worth it. 

Then we had workshops with the Moldova school about the Jemom topic. I was doing a music workshop with Kristers, and we saw how talented the kids were. We didn't have the same issues as the other groups because we were with teenagers that spoke English and that didn't have any mental issues. But it was my first time working with visually impaired children, and doing a music workshop. I felt a little bit useless there but I understand that I don't have to be useful, and I think I have learned more from them than they have learnt from me. These workshops made me feel like I will want to work again in the future with children with any kind of issues. I saw how important art can be for them. 

We went to Folcloristica, in Tătăruși. It was three days full of people, Romanian culture, dances, songs, and drinks. I really liked discovering this village, it was really beautiful, I enjoyed the nature, the forest, and the people were really nice and welcoming to us. The workshops we did with the kids happened really well, they were just destroying everything and didn't take care of the materials but everything went fine. I will surely remember Tătăruși my whole life. 

In this month I have learned a lot about Romania and its culture. I enjoyed discovering that and I know I will learn more about it. I thought it would be really difficult for me to live with 15 people in the same house, but actually, it went really well. I think the fact that people here are really respectful, kind, nice and organized, helped me a lot to adapt fast here. I get along with everyone for now, and I really enjoy that, no one is judging and this makes me feel comfortable. 

The only difficulty I have is when I have to deal with my emotions and that I can't be on my own, because this is how I deal with it. But except that, I have no difficulties here, I am really enjoying it and I know I will enjoy these 7 months. I am making friends with everyone here and I am learning from Romania but also from people that live with me.

Report written by Savanephone Riand, she's from France and she's one of the 14 volunteers participating in Arts Lab 6.0, a project co-funded by the European Union through the European Solidarity Corps program.