Isena reports about her time as a volunteer at kindergarden Marktspatzen

"Liebe Isena,
I am glad to confirm you are taken for voluntary service with Friedenskreis in Halle!
Place of assignment: Kita Marktspatzen"
And then, the voluntary service began...

I remember now this line from Eddie Vedder, when he sings "Rise" in the movie dedicated to Christopher McCandless'life: " Such is the way of the world, you can never know..."
And little did I know!

While working in the kindergarten, I learned many things about children from basic tasks like how to change a pampers, until how to insist more when they say "No" for changing their clothes while they go to sleep, how to have a lot of patience, how to be careful with my body language and try not to give them the wrong message: smiling back at them when they do something wrong is like telling them: "Yes, go ahead, you are doing it right!".
Saying "No" to the children is important, they distinguish the right and the wrong. Explaing why shouldn't they do something is even better, but here comes the big challenge: the German language!
How did I manage to communicate with children? Well... I failed many times.
But that didn't stop me.

Their educators speak German and that helps a lot to hear many words, to hear how they sound, to get familiar to the language and a good advice is to speak, speak, speak in German even if it is wrong how you are saying it, it is essential to speak German.

It begins with "Hallo", playing  with the children outside with sand, painting, laughing, looking after them while they play, eating together, washing hands, taking them to sleep, changing their clothes, eating again after sleeping, washing the dishes in the kitchen and at the end of the day comes "tschüss". During this normal day, you learn about your weaknesses, about yourself, sometimes you do it right sometimes not, but it is essential to know that is a process of learning of children, of learning of yourself and in the end... to become a better you.