JouJou

"Hello. I'm JouJou and I'm an alcoholic." This is what I was fist tempted to say when we were sitting in a circle, expected to introduce ourselves briefly. I know - too many American movies seen. But what it actually came out was : "I came here out of curiosity and I'm looking forward to see what this is in fact about. To be honest, I'm a little scared since you told us in the introductory presentation that there is no way out. Now I see you've blocked the window and the door. :)".

The 10 student-trainers from 10 different countries and the 20 Romanian students smiled back. It was something in the air of that parched walled workshop classroom, maybe the smell of various skin colours, maybe the mixtures of religions and beliefs, maybe the just youth.

I don't know if I learned anything completely new. Personal leadership, achieving goals, life planning are common topics that most people have some ideas about. But the novelty consisted in sharing experience. I couldn't imagine that people can possibly bond that quickly and that intense. I continue to believe it's also about the language - you (at least I) express feelings more freely in other languages.

It was much more than that, it was stereotype fighting. Germans don't drink that much beer, Polish speak indeed a lot, Kazakhstan is not just about Borat, Italians admit to be awful at languages, Hungarians ...Hungarians, Russian is not the national language of Estonia and Serbians guys are handsome. And witty.

It felt like I had known them forever or that I wanted to know them forever.