Berlin Germany 2015
My name is Nicholas and I am nearly 18 years old and in August 2015, I was in Germany in a small village outside of Berlin called Rangsdorf.
For me it was the third Workcamp with ELIX and for one more time the experience was more than incredible.
The work camp was environmental, and our work was to make the landscape of Rangsdorf accessible to visitors, an interconnected hiking trail network has been under construction since 2005, and is constantly being expanded. Under the expert leadership of a landscape maintenance organization and in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, our team continued this work. We did maintenance, repair, and construction on various pieces of the trail, removing trash, and maintaining bordering wooded and field areas. We also did small tasks including building benches and observation points, signs, or bird houses. Most of the work was done by hand. We also had the help of a forester, a nature preservation organization, and local workers. At the end, we presented our results to the community.
We were an autonomous team living in a school offered to us by the Mayor of Rangsdorf and we were responsible for the daily shopping, cooking and cleaning. We were also given bicycles that helped us to get around the country side and to get to see the nature.
They were teenagers from Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Korea, Spain and Estonia and every one of us had to cook local dishes from each’s country so I managed to try many different dishes.
On our free time over the weekends we managed to visit Berlin several times (Berlin wall, Berlin Zoo, Museum Island), Potsdam, an interesting town with a very big garden with beautiful buildings. We also visited the Schoenefeld Airport and we had a tour of the grounds, the fire brigade and one of the repair stations of the aircrafts. Cycling, swimming, were also some other activities that we did during our free time.
When the programme came to an end I could not believe that the whole three weeks had passed so quickly. I returned to Greece with a suitcase full of memories a list of facebook names of my new friends and a phone full of photos and the thought that I will be able again next year to do another Workcamp with Elix, but this time more exotic and outside Europe, cause I will be 18 and I will have the chance to do it.
It's an unbelievable experience don’t miss it I will definitely not !!!
Nicholas S.
