So, I started this month with a “great snow mountain lake hike” so I and my friends from the church walked on a frozen lake, we also wanted to dig a hole in the ice and sit around and fish thought it is a great idea but we weren't prepared enough for that...  

This month I learned how to use the machine to cut woods in Zehndi the garden I work in. So by then I moved to new work, same people I worked with in December but in a garden center also another workshop is with clothes where I learned new skills with a sewing machine and I help them to make videos and pictures for the disabled people to learn from the photos and videos and they were all happy by that, I love this voluntary job more than the one before because I speak more German and I met more people

by this month I challenge myself to learn a new skill which is skiing I went to the mountain where Danya the other volunteer is volunteering in ski school there and tried to ski it was very difficult for me I fell many times, and in the end, I said I'm too old for it because I see kids with age 3 and so on skiing so professionally it's amazing but I enjoyed every aspect of it. I ended the month by joining a merch in Bern it was because of the war on Ukraine I know how exactly how it feels to be in war so I send all my support to those people who are suffering wars and I could say also about Palestine who has been suffering in it for 74 years of occupation.  

After my holiday finished in Portugal I came back to the cold weather. And the beautiful city of Bern, also visited Basel it was incredible I was at a point with Germany and France, just in 5 minutes, I was in 3 countries What a feeling with “no borders and no hate” so there is a nice zoo in Basil!! 

So, this month everything feels like new since I came back from the holidays, I moved away from the host family and found an amazing apartment in the middle of town will be living alone with other volunteers, so the house wasn't furnished and had to find all the good things for free on this website tutti.ch getting back to volunteer again in the beautiful garden the month of January ended so fast and I ended it with a trip to Interlaken just to admire the nature. So, life continues with the dashes of the beautiful country in Switzerland as much as I talk about the beauty of it it's not enough 

 HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD OF CREATION … 

I and the cold weather are not friends at all, the weather is getting colder so I have to put a lot of clothes on it's snowing, this month is my birth month I tried to enjoy every single moment in it, it was hard being away from my family and friends but other volunteers joined and made my day, during all of the month I was working but we had Christmas holidays so I finished with working in the Christmas cookies, the garden also the office and I have a big holiday ahead, so I decided to step away from the cold and to travel to Portugal   

I found good accommodation to volunteer during my holidays, I enjoyed my time and meet other surfers volunteer who became my friends and they were professionally surfing and they took me with them and thought me how to surf, so basically, I traveled at the same time I volunteered, “learned how to surf " it was new for me, my EVS gave me the courage to step out and stand for myself and always learn from what is going to happen next  

I can't believe this month is already my 6 month here in Europe, I also think if I write what I do adventures each day this would be a long blog but I will try to make it short every time so it won't be boring, I'm so glad I did all of this … 

Hello again 

Here in Switzerland, they speak French, Swiss German, Italian, and  Romansh so in Bern where I live, they speak Swiss German which is really different than German and you will never find a school where they teach '' Swiss German '' so in this month Me and the rest of the volunteers started our journey with learning German for the rest of our stay, it is really exciting for me to add new language to my brains I already knew little of this and that, but for this year I hope I will end up speaking Swiss German…. 

One month passed I miss my family and friends a lot, but still I connect with them every day and specially the food but in my case, I know how to cook good Arabic food so it's all fine for me, and still my host mother cooks  really good she is like a real Chef, about the month of august in Bern was special because they have all the museums on every Saturday for FREE, so in the first week Me, Danya, Selina and Ben visited one musem we enjoyed it, but we enjoyed more our gathering.  

  So now let's get to the part where I started my volunteering projects, which is one day a week in the office, and 3 days in the week in a beautiful garden surrounded by the river. There is we plant vegetables, to give to the restaurant in the garden. I love the vibes with the team I work with and the plants, I enjoy my time giving life to the plants and see them grow !! my favorite part was harvesting the potatoes, it felt like digging for gold, and after long working day enjoying great meal from what we have planted and gave it to the restaurant. 

In my free time in the weekends, I go to church which is international church from all over the world people come to worship the Lord Jesus there I meet a lot of nice people from different parts of the world also Swiss, and one invited me to her wedding and I was so happy that I had to experience how different the weddings here, for me it was so simple, humble and great. 

So far, I'm enjoying every single moment here, the atmosphere and the weather is really nice even sometimes it rains but still nice, will be great to see what's the month of September is hiding for me.

MUCH LOVE 

HALA

BERN>PARIS>NORMANDY>BARCELONA>MADRID>GENEVE ALL IN TEN DAYS!!!!! I never imagined I would be jumping from city to city anyway... 
I love this month and I'm so happy, just as my friends call me "happy flower" I choose to put it in my title for this month, so I decided to do something different this month, as a volunteer you have the right to have 5 weeks as a holiday for the year.  
so, I decided to take one week off and started my trip on a bus going to Paris I was there alone for one day I was super amazed at the buildings and how big the city is... After a long day in Paris, I took the train to go to Normandie it's in the north of France there where I meet my friends who came by car from Spain we spend great time together I have learned a lot of fishing methods and I saw the ocean and how it makes tide all was for my first time in my life, when the ocean makes tide we can see a whole another world under the water, trucks come and they start to work with oysters and mussels they only have 3 hours until the water come back, it was very sweet Atmosphere and after this I didn't finish my trip so I decided to go with my friends in the car driving to Spain so the first stop was Barcelona was super nice with the weather and it beauty, also the people , then I took the chance to go to Madrid there where I saw my friends where I haven't seen them for years then finally I'm back to Switzerland specifically to Geneve also there I have close friend and we decided to go with “free walk tours” in the city I also did it in Bern, it's really great you will get to learn new things in the city you live in, I suggest you to do this when you visit new country you will get to learn a lot. 
This is the end of my trip and I'm back in my city Bern in my trip didn't cost me much because I was always looking for an easy cheap way to travel in. 
the weather is changing so fast autumn has so many vibes with the colors of the trees and the falling leaves you can see everywhere you go every day I open my house door and go outside I'm so happy to see all this beauty I never get tired of it  
something else I met a Palestinian family that will be in Bethlehem soon they are from Jerusalem and they lived in Switzerland since the wars were happening, they invite me for lunch every week I see the hospitality in their blood as every other Palestinian. so, I continue my work in the office and the garden now we are preparing the garden for winter and there is a lot of work for this month we harvest pumpkins also its the end season of tomatoes and green beans and quince._cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
and this is how I end my month with a great training which was preparing volunteers before going to volunteer so yes, that's all  
Much love and goodness  
Hala Gharib, 

My 3rd month was really filled with great adventurers and some risks but beautiful ones.  

  One day after work I decided to swim in the river, many people told me it's dangerous and I should be careful that so many accidents happened in it, so I took the risk after my volunteering program I swam in the river the weather was really sunny and nice, at that time the water was shallow and I was hitting rocks while going down the river it was really dangerous, I thought I was about to die !! but finally ended up with bruised legs all over, and that's all about it from now I learned that I should not swim in the river for a long distance or when the water is shallow ...  

  Many lakes are around city Bern and swimming pools, mostly public places are free entrance, beautiful one that I went with Ben and Selina is Thunn lake we spend very nice day there before the summer time ends, I enjoyed every single time I went either to a pool lake or river. 

Day by day I'm more in love with this dreamy place every time I visit new place, it feels like a piece of art, during my first week of the month I had to experience the real Swiss tradition so I went with my host family to visit my host father parents. the grandmother didn't speak English but she was so sweet welcoming us and she made a lot of food for us, I felt like home with her, because back home everyone Is just like super welcoming and hospitable, and they live in a very nature famous place called Kandersteg. 

Since I do 2 volunteering jobs the second one is in the office which is once a week and one day, so one day I went to 3 hours faraway place called St Gallen to represent my sending organization and how it functions ... 

Also, I was part of a team called `` Iam a changemaker '' and I participated telling my life story to teenagers, And I also had to encouraged them for their future life plans. They were so impressed to meet a Palestinian and many teenagers engaged and were interested, so they asked a lot of questions about my country and so on. 

So, this is my last favorite part of the month which I finally met most of the EVS volunteers, there is 30 volunteers all over Switzerland from different parts of the world doing this program.  we went to '' ST Moritz '' on training program together so I shared with others feelings, experiences and they knew what we are going through because we are making almost same things which is '' volunteering '' it was a worth time training with great people that I met and we will continue this great journey together. I'm so glad and thankful that there was a training like this and we had to meet new volunteers. 

Hello again 

Here in Switzerland, they speak French, Swiss German, Italian, and  Romansh so in Bern where I live, they speak Swiss German which is really different than German and you will never find a school where they teach '' Swiss German '' so in this month Me and the rest of the volunteers started our journey with learning German for the rest of our stay, it is really exciting for me to add new language to my brains I already knew little of this and that, but for this year I hope I will end up speaking Swiss German…. 

One month passed I miss my family and friends a lot, but still I connect with them every day and specially the food but in my case, I know how to cook good Arabic food so it's all fine for me, and still my host mother cooks  really good she is like a real Chef, about the month of august in Bern was special because they have all the museums on every Saturday for FREE, so in the first week Me, Danya, Selina and Ben visited one musem we enjoyed it, but we enjoyed more our gathering.  

  So now let's get to the part where I started my volunteering projects, which is one day a week in the office, and 3 days in the week in a beautiful garden surrounded by the river. There is we plant vegetables, to give to the restaurant in the garden. I love the vibes with the team I work with and the plants, I enjoy my time giving life to the plants and see them grow !! my favorite part was harvesting the potatoes, it felt like digging for gold, and after long working day enjoying great meal from what we have planted and gave it to the restaurant. 

In my free time in the weekends, I go to church which is international church from all over the world people come to worship the Lord Jesus there I meet a lot of nice people from different parts of the world also Swiss, and one invited me to her wedding and I was so happy that I had to experience how different the weddings here, for me it was so simple, humble and great. 

So far, I'm enjoying every single moment here, the atmosphere and the weather is really nice even sometimes it rains but still nice, will be great to see what's the month of September is hiding for me.

MUCH LOVE 

HALA

In this blog I'm going to talk about my first month for me in Switzerland / Bern 

I'm Hala and this is my first time me stepping in Europe, I will write about my long journey and how I moved from country to country,  

Oh, Switzerland finally, mountains, lakes, chesses milk, chocolate, watches, many trains and obviously PEACE .... the country of peace, which is a lot of conferences is happing in here also this country never been in war, so when I arrived, I really felt what is peace because I'm coming from a country that never knew what peace is. ‘’the occupied Palestine’’ 

And now this is how my story begun and how I reached here to Switzerland  

In March 2021 I applied to EVS program which means ‘European volunteering service’ I was patiently waiting for their respond, if I could do the program or not … almost after a month they have send me an email saying that I have been accepted!!!! 

And from then I started with the prosses of traveling , the never ending one as a Palestinian , so I waited for the visa until it came and about a week I traveled, my journey was super long and tiering if I start speaking about the suffering of a Palestinian traveling I would never finish ‘any Palestinian would understand what I'm talking about’ but anyway I will make it short so it all started from my town Bethlehem then Jericho – Jorden ‘’3checkpoints’’ - Jorden airport since we don’t have one – Turkey – and finally Switzerland !!!!! And in the train to the capital because I will be living there while I was in the train, I was amazed by the beautiful landscapes each one is better than the other, I can't describe more. The first day when I arrived, I forgot all the tiredness and I went on a tour in the old city of Bern with Selina who she welcomed me and stayed in contact with me the whole trip, that I will be living at her parents' house.  

Days passed, each day coming was more beautiful than the one before, I was exploring the beauty of nature and the city, I was super shocked by the high prices and how everything is expansive even 1 apple is like 5 shekels and then I knew that Switzerland one of the rich countries in the world from then I learned how deal with my money but it wasn’t big problem because the program provides food, living and transportation.  

From then the project started and it was about budling walls in the mountain of alps and the project called ‘’Building walls breaking walls’’ it's about connecting the nations together and they do this project in some countries of the world. 
In my first week when I went up to the mountain it was really hard I thought I loved mountains and I'm used to hike back in my country , so on then I discovered I have to go up for 2 hours on stairs it was very long way and heavy , but when I reached to the top I forgot all the tiredness after I saw the amazing views and I meet really incredible wall builders, and we got to build together as group with different diversities and talk about many things in life , many days I had to cook for the whole group , so I obviously cooked Arabic food such as , maklouba , mujadara and shakshuka …  

One of my hobbies is to make videos so I will link the YouTube videos I made each week for me in the mountain...  

In the end of each weekend I used to go down from the mountain and spend the week at my host family they have really nice small house next to the lake we used to go there when the weather is good and enjoy it, 4 weeks and then we had finished this project , and in the end of the month I had 1 week off so I decided to go to Germany, so easily I traveled I didn’t need any papers only bought the train ticket HOP I'm in Germany I visited my uncle after 9 years I haven't seen my cousins spend inedible time with them and I also visited one friend of the family , this was my first time in my life I travel to different country without anyone asking me where I'm going, why, how and which all these none sense questions. 

And that’s how my first month were for me in Switzerland I'm so patiently waiting for the upcoming second month for me...