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Minsk, Belarus
So we've just finished from spending 2 weeks volunteering in Minsk in Belarus. It's been so much fun!!!
So we were staying at the Minsk Medical school accomodation, with belarussian medical students included. I'm not going to say that it was nice, because it really wasnt. The bathroom flooded everytime you had a shower, the bathroom had crumbly plaster and moudly walls. The toilet sometimes smelt of fish adn the seat was detached. Saying that all the students were friendly to us, and some of the group got really friendly with the students!!!
The only night we went for a night out. Demar a student at the accomodation took us to a club in an underground shopping centre, called Time. And wouldnt you know a British DJ was playing, the Herbaliser, it was awesome. And was fun watching the Belarussian dancing, you have to face the DJ and dance in lines and it helped if you had your eyes closed like the locals! Though theres nothing like getting back at 4am being locked out and having to wake up a grump belarussian woman who loved to shout at you in Russian.
We also frequented some of the many loud and incredibly annoying parties at the accomodation, and met some lovely polish students while dancing like idiots and getting rather drunk.
So the orphanage in Novinki where we were volunteering at, is massive, and we were only working within a small unit with younger disabled children. Some of the children nicknamed the "munchins" were active kids that loved attention and being naughty. Then the rest of the children were bed bound spending the entirity of their days staring at a white ceiling, being manhandled by carers and having their nappies changed twice a day. And I absolutley love my time there. The children were so inviting and you got attached to them so quickly, it was so sad to leave them. But we had fun taking them on a trip to the shops, Sasha one of the children allocated to me like to eat anything and everything and also jump out of pushchairs and try to climb through church basement windows. Playing with the Munchins was fun, but I really enjoyed playing with the bed bound children, taking them outside, on walks getting out of the room they were cooped up in and giving them some kind of stimulation.
While we were in Belarus we also went to a museum of Belarussian trades and lifestyles. Which was fun and provided lots of free food, and moonshine vodka, it was a gd laugh apart from the continuous rain.
What I've learnt from Belarus is that the people are friendly, the children in the orphange are incredible and the weather changes so quickly!
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