Spectateur du Monde

First Week Fundraising

Before going to Bergen, I already knew that I wouldn’t forget my time there. In fact, I and my team hitchhiked 400 km, fundraised, clunsed (begged for food in restaurants) and slept in a crypt for seven days. During our stay there, I was the responsible for the team’s economy and also for the shopping.
When we were still at the school, we divided ourselves in 4 groups: me and Andrzej, Raquel and Peter, Mantas and Roman, Lenka and Petr. On Sunday morning, we left Hornjø. It was raining cats and dogs and I started getting nervous.
Jenny and Marco drove us until Dokka, the place where we should start hitchhiking. I opened the door and went to the back of the van to take my stuff out, but Jenny didn’t see what I was doing and started driving. I screamed and ran after her and eventually she stopped. At that time, a car passed by and I got completely wet. Andrzej looked at me and started laughing, I wonder why…
We were in that place for two hours and, during that time, it didn’t stop raining. The biggest problem was that we couldn’t find any spot where we could protect ourselves from the bloody drops. I was feeling very cold and Andrzej gave the idea of started walking, not only for us to get warmer, but also to try to find a petrol station or something like that.
After walking 2 km, we found Raquel and Peter who were also trying to get a ride. They were not very wet because they had an umbrella, but they were tired of waiting. We asked them if they wanted to come with us, but they preferred to stay there. So, we continued walking until we found a church. The parking area was full of cars and we tried to hitchhike again. Nothing…We were feeling miserable and we decided to enter in the church. When we were almost reaching its door, we saw fancy people eating and drinking. So, I decided to ask a lady, just in case, if that was really a church. She answered affirmatively (a Lutheran church) and also said that they were celebrating its new organ.
After knowing what was going on there, I told to Andrzej that we couldn’t enter in the church because we were completely wet and with practical clothes. Just one detail: we were having this conversation in the middle of the rain! However, he told me that everyone is welcome in a church. Those words started making echo in my head. It is true!
When we put our feet inside the place, everyone started looking at us. Then, a nice lady asked us if we wanted anything to drink or eat. Of course! So, we took off our wet jackets, sat on a bench, drank coffee and ate cake. It was such a good feeling to be warm again! After a while, the priest had a nice, but brief chat with us.
The time was running and Andrzej said that it would be better to try to find out if someone was going to Bergen or, at least, in that direction. I explained to that nice lady that we were volunteers who were going to do fundraising in Bergen. However, to get there we had to hitchhike because we don’t have much money. So, she asked in the church if someone could help us and one of the musicians, Anne, said she could drive us until Fargenes.
While she was driving, Anne started making some phone calls, but I couldn’t understand almost anything because she was speaking in Norwegian. The only word I understood was “Bergen”. After making the last call, she said that we didn’t need to worry because she had got us a ride to Bergen. I couldn’t believe in what I was hearing! Anne explained that her cousin’s boyfriend, a lorry driver, was going to that city at 6 p.m. Until then, we could stay at her sister’s house. I felt really happy! In fact, before entering in that church I thought that I would never reach Bergen. However, I met all these nice people that put a smile in my face.
So, we went to her sister’s house and the first thing I did, when I arrived there, was to take a hot shower and change my clothes. When I finished, Anne and Kristen (her sister) had prepared tea, bread and soup for us. What could I say to them? Thank you!!! Then, Kristen turned on the fireplace and we just talked about our lives and plans for the future.
Then, it was time to keep going and meet their cousin’s boyfriend. We said goodbye to Anne and Kristen, our guardian angels, and we started our trip to Bergen. It was my first time in a lorry and it was quite interesting because I was seeing the road in a different perspective!
The landscape between Fargones and Bergen is breath taken, but, to tell you the truth, that didn’t stop me of falling asleep a couple of times. At 10 p.m. we stopped because a lorry driver can’t be in the road up to 4,5 hours. So, it was time for him to drink a coffee and eat something. He was so nice that he even offered us dinner and coffee. I didn’t know how to thank him and again I just couldn’t believe that it was possible to meet such nice people in only one day!
When we arrived to Bergen it was almost midnight. The driver dropped us in the bus terminal and we walked until the church where we were going to sleep during the week. We felt so good for having arrived to our destiny that there are no words to describe it. We had done it!
In the city, our daily routine consisted of waking up at 8.30 a.m., having breakfast at 9 a.m. and preparing our lunch packs, start fundraising at 10 a.m., having lunch at 1 p.m. and clunsing at 6 p.m. After dinner, we would also try to sell the magazines door to door. Then, we would go back to the school, count our money, take a shower (we could only do it until 11 p.m. because the alarm was activated at that time) and go to sleep.
What can I say about fundraising? I really like to communicate with people, but sometimes it can be very hard to reach them. Some are not interested at all in what we do, others have neither time nor money (“only credit card”) and there are also people that are tired of being disturbed on the street. So, I spent a lot of time just hearing “nei, takk” (no, thanks), but always trying to have a smile in my face and the words “thank you” in my mouth. However, when someone stopped to hear me and help me it was like being in the clouds. Then, I could say what I am doing in Norway and what I would like to do in India. In fact, that gave me strength to hear again “nei, takk”. Besides that, I also tried to find out other things that could put me in a good mood. For example, I like to fundraise next to someone of my team, so I can communicate with him or her, even if it is only by gestures. I also try to challenge myself: “see if you can convince this one to buy the magazine!”
After fundraising, it was time to clunse and to do that we had a good teacher: Sissel, the school’s headmaster. Before doing that for the first time, I thought it would be humiliating to ask for food, but, in fact, it can be done with a lot of dignity. So, during the week, I ate things that I hadn’t had in my mouth for a long time: pita falafel, pizza, seafood pasta and vegetarian sandwich with feta cheese…Nham, nham! The team also asked for bread in the bakeries (it gave us a lot of good things to eat) and, of course, for coffee and tea in different places.
At 8 p.m. it was time to sell the magazines door by door and that was really important for me and also for the rest of the team. In fact, we won a lot of money just by working one hour in the evening. However, to be totally honest, I was not very interested in knocking on people’s doors, but Sissel told us that they were used to that… If I was to do that in Portugal I could start preparing my armour! But, in fact, the Norwegians were, in general, nice to us. They were more willing to listen to us at their homes and that really helped a lot!
I spent six days in Bergen, fundraising in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. The best results that I had were in the beginning of the week, but I always tried to do my best. However, there were some days when I felt more tired and that probably had an influence in my results.
When I arrived to Hornjø, on Sunday, I really needed to rest, after being in a bus for nine hours (we saved some money from the food budget). But, on Monday, I realized how fragile I was after fundraising for a week. During my time in Bergen, I had to control my emotions and sometimes it can be difficult to find the right balance. I needed to take out the bad energies from inside myself, so I cried for the first time in Norway.

posted by Naty Bett @ 9:30 PM