sábado, setembro 02, 2006

TCE Action

This week was almost entirely dedicated to prepare the TCE Action day, that took place on Friday, in Lillehammer.
First of all, Sissel gave us a course about the programme, so we could start thinking about the best way to present it to other people. One thing that was good, was that everyone had a lot of ideas: sing and play, drama performance, do posters, leaflets and cans to collect the money, construct a tent…We were getting somewhere! However, my team is composed by 6 totally different people and I knew that we with face some challenges. To make it easier, we decided to have a leader for this action: Andrzej. But it didn`t go beyond theory.
I have a problem: I like organisation. So, if I don`t see that things are in the right track, I just try to put them straight. But it is hard when I have to do it over and over again, sometimes feeling that some people just don`t give a damn. In fact, by the end of the week, I was nervous and tired. We had many discussions and we were getting less motivated day by day.
However, there was something that made us feel like a real team, even if it was only for a moment. In fact, when we had to rehearse the songs, specially one from Zambia called Tiende Pamodzi, we were more relaxed and close to each other. None of us has a good voice, except Roman. But that just didn`t matter. Everyone was doing an effort and that is what is really important. We can`t be good in everything, but at least we can try. And we were trying!
On Friday morning we did our last rehearsal and we went to Lillehammer. We found a good spot in the main street and we started putting everything in place: tables, cakes, info, balloons, cans…And then we waited. There were not many people on the street and, to tell you the truth, I was already expecting that because it was a working day. Once in a while someone stopped, but it was not enough.
We decided to start singing to call people`s attention. The first time was terrible, but it was also funny because some of us were singing in the middle of the street for the first time! So, we decided that we needed to sing more and also play some instruments. It was a good idea because people we paying more attention to us, but it was only that. They just stopped for a while and then left without giving money.
After a while a police woman came. She wanted to know if we had paid to be there. We told her that, as far as we knew, we didn`t need to give any money to be there because that was what happened with other teams. So, she said she was going to talk with her superior and we gave her the school`s contact. Half an hour later she came back and told us that it would be better for us to move to other place because we were making a lot of noise. We told her that we were only going to be there for a couple of hours and that we would spend a lot of time just moving our stuff. So, finally she said that we could stay there if we didn`t make much noise because people from the stores were complaining.
Time was passing by and money was not getting in our cans. We were loosing motivation and we didn`t know what could we do. At some point, I grabbed a collection can and, together with Andrzej, started talking with people that were passing on the street. After some time, Lenka and Peter did the same and I think that that was our salvation!
However, the problems continued to appear. The owner of one store was furious with the noise that we were making and said that we were ruining his business. And then he said that if we didn`t move he would call the police. So, I told him that we were sorry for what had happened and I also explained to him that we were volunteers trying to fundraise money for an HIV project. In the end we made an agreement: we would stop making noise and he would let us be there for one more hour. However, he made it clear that if we appeared there again we would get in trouble.
Fifteen minutes later it started raining. The cakes were getting wet as well as the posters and the info. It was time to go back home.
When we arrived at the school we counted the money that we had: 870 NOK plus 100 SK. It was not much and it didn`t reflect the work that we had to prepare the action. Of course I felt a little bit frustrated, but I can also say that some of us did our best. Maybe next time things will run better because now we have a practical knowledge of how is it to prepare an action. It was hard work and sometimes I just wished to run away to my room. But I also remember with tenderness the image of us singing together the Zambian song Tiende Pamodzi.

posted by Naty Bett @ 7:10 PM