Renovations volunteering camp from 16 to 30 April 2016

Guten tags (meaning good day in German), it was starting from my best friend posting me a VSA Germany volunteering camp on my facebook page. Germany is my dream country to visit and I have heard that German people are very nice. So I decided to apply and I was selected to be part of this camp.

Grafenhausen is a small village on the top of mountain (more than 1000 ft above sea level). The weather is quite vary. I met all seasons in 2 weeks. My first meet grafenhausen was about turning to spring and a week later it turned to white Christmas with a heavy snowing town. The weather up on the top is very good and fresh. Local people usually do farm and agriculture.

There was totally 9 volunteers from many countries - Germany, Belgium, Spain, Hong kong, England, Ukraine and Korea. So Multicultural! Our work was to renovate sculpture park in Grafenhausen. It's included all the wood material, hammer, nail, screwdriver ans etc. We were assigned to change the sidewalk, put the wood work on the top of the wall, paint wood for the bench and new snake for children playground. For me this is my first time full volunteer work and also first time using those tools with woods. It was hard but local workers were very nice and helpful. We worked for 5 day each week on a weekday and it's accumulated for 10 day for this camp. We worked for 6 hours a day from 9:00 to 12:00 and 13:30 pm to 16:30. There was a team going out for work and 2 person assigned to stay at home as a kitchen team each day. Kitchen team need to prepare 3 meals a day and cleaning a house during the day. On my kitchen day, I had prepared some Thai food that such a noodles fried (mama that I brought from Thailand) and rice soup. I’m not good at cooking so it is easier to bring instant food as lobo and knor which you could find various type of food. I had to prepare not too spicy for European and some spicy one for anyone who want to try. 

Town hall and local people are very welcome us as the first volunteering team in Grafenhausen, they invited us to all places in the town such as a museum, town hall, beer brewery factory or even fire department. Local people and the team we were working with also invited us to the local farm and pub. It was a very pleasure for an dinner invitation from the mayor of the town. My favorite place is fire department, the head fireman told us many stories about how they become a volunteer fireman and how they give their breaths and strength to this work. "Einrn Für Alle, Alle Für Einrn" mean "One for all, all for one" could explained all the word Volunteering. 

All the work was done beautifully and we had a farewell drinking and snack on our last working day. Press from the town came to interview and take some picture. I had a mix feeling of happiness and sad from leaving this wonderful place. All tired were all relief after I saw a result of sculpture park.

Teerisara Chongtanavanit