Narendi's Exchange Stories in POLAND

Narendi Muhandri, 21, AIESEC LC Bandung

Industrial Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology

“Enter Your Future” – AIESEC LC Krakow, Poland

It is said that there would be a workshop on 16-17 May 2011, before the project started. I came here in Krakow on Sunday afternoon, 15 May. I got picked by Marina from LC Krakow. I asked her about the workshop but she doesn't know about that. She just said that there will be another Aiesecer will come with other EPs and will tell me everything. I was the first one in this project come to the dorm. I lived in a room for 3 people and when I came, there were other EPs from different project, kindergarten. All of them are girls. While I was waiting for my project mate, we had a nice talk in my friend's room, about our country and its culture. Finally, I had a roommate from Ireland at night, Declan. I also met another Aiesecer, Aga, who told us that our OCP will come the next day and tell us all the information.

Monday morning, me and Dec still clueless about our program. Therefore we decided to take a walk around to look for internet cable. At the afternoon, our OCP came with other EPs and took us for integration meeting at the city centre. We went to some club near the main square. Most of the clubs here are located underground. It is also said that Krakow Main Square in the city centre is the largest in Europe! 

On Tuesday we went to Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny W Krakowie (UEK) for our
workshop. It wasn’t workshop as I expected before. At that moment, there were only five people attended, from Brazil, Hungary, Georgie, and Me & Dec. Three Aiesecer gave us presentation about Poland, Aiesec, and LC Krakow. They told us our schedule for the next two day at school. First day was for country presentation, and second day about communication and time management.

After the workshop, we went to other side of UEK, where bungee jumping area located. At that time, there was Juwenalia. It is a week of student festival that consists a lot of activities, music performances, and carnaval. Bungee jumping area is one of the program. It was not in any kind of high building, nor bridge, nor river. The bungee jumping held at the campus area, in a crane! That was not many people accepted this challenge. Only me, Iza, and Dec who were jumped.

On our first day, we got accompanied by Irina from Aiesec. The name was Gymnazium no.9. The teachers were very welcome to us, even mostly they don’t speak english but they’re really try to communicate to us. We started our presentation by give them trivia quiz about our country. Each of us told two facts about our country, and the students have to guess which one is true which one is false. Then we presented our country with some videos, and close the session with questions. Surprisingly, my first question I got was “who is your God?”….. I thought its more about Indonesian -,- After that, we asked them to make a small group discussion about our country and they have to tell us about Polish as well. But still, because the students don’t speak english well, and maybe they’re shy, so not many students involved.

On the second day, we’re supposed to talk about communication and time management. Second workshop we had was quite short, and we decided to create our own workshop for the students. And so we divided each three of us preparing material and the games.

We began our class by Sasha’s presentation about Ukraine. He didn’t make any ppt, he just talk some things about Ukraine, because he thinks Poland-Ukraine is so similar so not much to tell. But, he brought traditional Ukrainean clothes. We wanted the students to be surprised, so after he presented, we asked him to go out class and change his clothes into Ukrainean clothes. While he was changing, we created a break-ice game, “Tik-Tok.”

We played the game in a circle. First person have to give the “pen” (or whatever thing) to the next person. The next person should ask first “what is this?” and give it back to the first person. The first person will answer “this is tik” and give it back again to the next person. The next person should give to the other next person, and so on.

The “tik-tok” game is created to start “communication” as well. We talked about meanings, portion, body language, and eye contact. We also showed video about body language.

For tima management game, we asked someone to make a paper plan. Then he will ask some other persons to create the same paper plan by his order. We counted paper plans that have been made in some time. The next part, he will start to make the paper plans in first step, and the other persons will continue in sequential. The aim of this game is about efficiency specialization. Flavio was the one who gave this idea. Maybe because he studies Industrial Engineering which we learned about that :D After we finished our class, we were invited to play the basketball with them.

At night, the Aiesecer asked us to watch some Polish Concert, still part of Juvenalia, so everyday will be some events at each university. Before we go to the concert, everybody bought drink first, since its not allowed to drink during the concert area. And we played some drinking game, which is called “Bitches bitches”. We had our nickname, clap your hand, and then you call another nickname, and then continue.. The one who missed the tempo or call wrong name or who didn’t realize been called, should drink *nangkep ga?* the game called “bitches bitches* caused you have your “dirty” nickname which is held to make the game fun and funnier :p

Still about juwenalia festival!! On friday there was this parade for all students in each university. They wore unique costumes and made parade to the city centre, and then there’s some concert in the main square. Kostumnya macem-macem dr yg superman, pirates, roman emperor, naughty nurse, ghosts, or some japanese/some other cultures. We had friday as day off so we fortunately able to see this :D

After seeing the festival for a while, I went to say my Friday prayer. When I report myself (lapor diri) to KBRI, they gave me some contacts number of Indonesian people around Krakow. So I texted mas Anggana, who’s worked here and live with his family to ask how to say my prayer. 

Don’t be surprised if you won’t do your prayer in a mosque. Since the population of moslem here quite small, tempatnya juga kecil. They said, maybe the population of moslem is not that small, but the people who say prayer regularly is small. Jadi yg gw temukan adalah 25 orang saja utk sholat jumat!! They keep saying “assalamualaikum brother” to every people.

We said our prayer in some building, quite near to the main square. So I was cabut bentar dr festival utk sholat ini. Ruangannya underground, dan klo dibayangin cuma semacam musholla di GKU Barat ITB dgn ukuran lebih besar. Somehow I feel more alive whenever I meet indonesian people or moslem people, it means I’m not alone here :”p

At night, there was this “Night of the Museums” in Krakow. We can only pay 1zloty (3ribuan) to go to the all museums around at night. So around city centre there was a lot of people queueing to enter museums. Quite surprise, we don’t have this kind of events in Indonesia, yes? And even we have this, how will our people be participated?

Minggu malemnya, sang ocp dtg ke dorm. Tiba-tiba bilang, krn bsok snin ada 2 cw dr China dtg, dia minta ada 3 org cowo yg pindah ke flat biar si cw-cw ini bs tinggal di dorm dan bisa integration sm kita. Setelah perdebatan panjang, ni cowo-cowo ga ada yg mau pindah, tmen2 dormmate jg gamau ada yg pisah, akhirnya dikasih lah kita ga pindah dan si cw2 ini yg dpt di flat. Cw cina ini dtg ke dorm ga dijemput, trus yg seharusnya jemput dia jg kyknya gatau klo she supposed to live in flat, not dorm.. Akhirnya mlm dia beres2 pindah ke flat, trus ngomel deh krn kondisinya lebih jelek dr dorm. Sebenernya sih macem kosan di bandung yg rumahnya udh dr taun 90an, kondisi kmrnya debu dan berantakan sampah jg, cuma di HongKong lebih bagus kali ya dan udh liat dorm jd cukup mengeluhkan kondisi kamar.

Di minggu kedua, sekolah kedua ini suasananya beda dr sekolah pertama. Klo sekarang kita ga terlalu diperatiin sm guru-gurunya, entah ga bisa bhs Inggris apa gmn, makan juga ditinggal aja kita. Trus krn anak-anaknya udh lebih gde, sekitar SMA, jd kita nyiapin materi baru. Ada yg kasih presentation skill, job interview, sm CV.. Ini sih kita improve aja krn kan ga mungkin dikasih game yg sama.. Makanan di sekolah-sekolah selalu menyenangkan dan dinanti. Kita dpt 2 dish, set pertama soup, set kedua heavy meal. Cuma krn sering ada babi jd kdg-kdg gw cm makanin potato and saladnya.

Akhir weekend kedua ada Reception Weekend, jd EP dr LC LC lain pd ngumpul. Acara pertamanya jumat mlm ke klubs. Di sini akhirnya gw ketemu sm Monica, EP yg di LC Lodz. Sabtu jam10an harusnya ada city quest di city square, cuma krn mlmnya abis party ampe pagi, jd pada ga ada yg bangun paginya, haha.. Akhirnya gw sm temen2 project join acara dinner di traditional polish restraurant. Judulnya sih dinner, pdhal makan jam3, and btw, org-org sini klo ngomong maksi juga seringnya dinner.. Ternyata city questnya memang batal, setengah group peserta reception weekend yg tinggal di hostel pd kabur ke salt mine ga bilang2, jd anak LC sini sempet bete jg.

Abis makan itu gw sempet mampir bentar ke hostel mereka, ngumpul2 ngobrol2.. Mlmnya ada party on a boat for Aiesecer. Tp ini boatnya ga jalan kok, cuma mangkal di sungai di Krakow sini. Minggunya kita ke Oswieciem / Auschwitz, concentration nazi camp, around 1.5 jam by bus from Krakow. Berangkatnya sempet ketinggalan bus, jd nunggu sejaman dulu busnya, trus kesiangan sampe, krn tournya kelilingnya lama, beresnya sore, kita ketinggalan bus (lagi) buat balik ke Krakow. Akhirnya nyarter minibus buat balik krakow malem.

Second Week 

Dua minggu ke depan ini kita dpt sekolah yg sama, cuma dpt kelasnya beda-beda tergantung guru englishnya. Sekolahnya yg ini cukup gede, smp-sma bareng kyknya makanya banyak kelasnya jd kira-kira satu group consists of 4/3 person dpt 2 hari di satu guru. Hari Senin pertama di sekolah ini, yg berhasil berangkat pagi cuma 3 org, gw Dec, and Flavio, pdhal harusnya 6 org untuk 2 group. Karena memang info suka mendadak juga, jd minggu malem kita pulang dari Auschwitz itu br diemailin lg klo sekolah ini udh pernah kedatangan orang dari Ukraine, Georgia, and China. Alhasil mgkn krn pd capek jg minggunya, senin pagi pd susah bgn org-org dr negara ini. Hr kedua br dtg 7 org deh, pdhal harusnya 6 :p

Senin mlm ada 2 org cw Ukraine di project lain dorm-mate juga, pulang, beres projectnya. Mereka ini biasanya yg suka ngajak-ngajak pergi, tau tempat-tempat jg krn udh lebih lama. Akhirnya beberapa hr berikutnya tiap malem kita pd mendem di kosan aja, bagus jg sekalian istirahat dan hemat :D nah hari kamisnya pas lg break time, si Dec main basket sm anak-anak sini, dia salah jatoh kyknya (wkt itu gw lg di kmr mandi jd ga liat) then he got dislocated knee. Pulang dr sekolah dr dorm kita lgsg cari taxi buat pergi ke dokter. Supir taxinya nganterin ke hospital lumayan dket jg dr dorm. Hospitalnya lebih kecil dr boromeus, dan agak lebih serem sih suasanya menurut gw. hehe. bukan serem hantu, tp kyk lebih rapi boromeus. Naudzubillah, mdh2an gw (and other EPs) sehat-sehat aman-aman aja ga ush berurusan sm rumah sakit, soalnya org-orgnya ngomong polish. Untung akhirnya di dlm ada kayak dokter muda pernah magang di Ireland jd bisa jelasin jg ke si Dec ini. Seinget gw biaya tindakan emergency termasuk gips kaki dan x-ray ga terlalu mahal, 300 zloty apa ya (900rb?) tp obatnya yg agak mahal ktnya, soalnya dikasih suntik buat bbrp hari.

Sabtunya kita diminta isi presentasi culture shock di acara OPSnya LC sini. Gw pilih shift yg pagi, brg sama anak Ukraine + Hungary. Krn mereka dr yurop2 juga jd kayaknya ga terlalu culture shock jg sih, jd gw yg rada diminta ngomong, bentar sih jatah kita setngah jam doang. OPS wkt LCC berguna bgt jadi bahan omongan ;p Mostly wkt shift gw kayaknya peserta MT deh, udh agak gde2 soalnya, and they said mostly go to Asia, kyknya china/thailand.

Selasa sempet diminta VP OGX yg ktemu wkt OPS ini buat dtg di some meetingnya LC sini, presentasi ttg country and @ XP. Wkt itu yg diminta Flavio, trus dia ngajak gw ikutan. Rabunya gw dpt kelas yg sama kyk minggu lalu, krn teachernya ini, Mrs. Dorota udh kenal sm group gw, dia jg semacam koordinator project Aiesec di sekolah ini, jd dia minta kita masuk lg. Nah skrg giliran kita yg dpt presentasi dr kelasnya. Mrk yg presentasi ttg Poland, sama bkin small group discussion ttg personal/country, and even they made us this Poland apple pie, sm kelas ini kasih coklat ke Dec.. mgkn krn wkt itu main basketnya sm kelas ini so they kinda worried about Dec :D

Weekend kita trip to Budapest. Temengw ada yg mau cabut ambil project sports camp di Greece, jd dia invite us to come to Budapest, ber 8 minus Dec + satu cw di flat + 2 aiesecer sini. Brktnya 2 mobil, satu mobil anak Budapest ini satu lg mobil anak Aiesec. Brktnya mampir Zvolen, Slovakia buat maksi sm keliling bentar. Perjalanannya kira-kira 6-7 jam. Sabtunya kita ikutan free walk tour sini sama sight seeing lg. Krn mobilnya cuma ada 1, akhirnya gw & 3 org lainnya pulang naik bus duluan, krn jadwalnya cuma satu jam 7 pagi. Busnya sih enak very comfortable, dpt hot chocolate sm headset krn ada inflight movies (the proposal and 2 lagi ga jelas sih tp trus gw tidur jg jd ga nyimak).

After these second two weeks, still mostly we go to school present our country, cukup berbeda sm TN Form yaaa. We all have different reality from our previous expectation, dan udh jd jokes kita jg, haha. Yeah because it depends on the OCP, the schools, and us as an EP as well.