I would like to write some words about an Erasmus + Youth Exchange I participated in the summer of 2024. This program is called Back 2 Basic, organized by Cherry International Foundation. It was a 17-day -long exchange in the beautiful countryside of the Netherlands.
I found this opportunity on the Discord server of the Erasmus Students Network. In order to apply I had to fill out an Introduction Form, where I had to write about my motivation, share with them my personal information, (gender, ID, g-mail …) and they also asked about my diet, allergies and restrictions. After a month I received an e-mail from the organisation and in it, they confirmed my application and chose me as one of the representatives of Hungary. So I booked the bus tickets and traveled to Groningen, where I met my teammates (they traveled by plane) and from there we traveled to Orvelte together!
The accommodation itself was a remote but well equipped house, 10 minutes from Orvelte. 10 different countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, North Macedonia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Finland, Netherlands) came together each with a team of four or five to show something from their culture, improve their social skills, learn about the beauty of differences and make new friends abroad.
This was my first ever Youth Exchange, so I had no idea what was going to happen and because of this, I had basically no expectations. “If I get home in one piece, and without embarrassing myself because of my underdeveloped english skills, I’m good.” – was my way of thinking. Little did I know that this exchange would change my life forever. So many things happened in that two week period, I don’t even know where to start.
The typical days started at 9 o’clock with breakfast. Then we had an energizer (the purpose of which was to wake everyone up and ready for the day) and a group activity (most of them were games, where we had to compete with each other in some way in different teams) until lunch.
1-2 hours to relax time, then came the afternoon activity or workshop. The goal of the activities was to improve our creativity, social skills and teamwork. My favorite activity was when we had to resynchronize a scene from the Barbie movie. I had a lot of fun making it and also to see the end result.
And then, we had the National evenings. Every night, we had a different national team who made us food and a special activity for the night which somehow represents an aspect of that country. Me, and my teammates made Gulyás for dinner which was well received by our lovely guests. For the evening activity we made a basic Kahoot to tell them some interesting things about Hungary (in a gamified setting), and we also taught them a Hungarian dance, the famous Ördög útja.
At the end of the day, the facilitators revealed the program for the next day and let us do whatever we wanted (but nothing stupid or harmful of course).But we also had a lot of things to do between activities too. We had cleaning groups, where we had to take care of different parts of the accomodation (this includes preparing the tables, cleaning the showers, washing the plates, emptying the bins etc.) We had a gossip box where you could write gossip from things that you saw or heard. We had the secret friend system, where we had to give gifts to each other, without being noticed. I got one of the organisers and I made a story for her. Every night, she got the next chapter of the story. If we wanted to go shopping, we had to take a bike to Orvelte. Before the National evening, we had to cook for hours to make food, enough for 50+ hungry people (it was exhausting but also really fun).
This is how a typical day looked like, however we had exceptions. We of course had the Arrival and Departure day, where we only had dinner or breakfast and nothing particularly interesting happened. We had a day, when a bus came for us and took the whole group to Amsterdam! There, we had a half a day to explore the city, and go wherever we wanted. This was a great opportunity to bond with and have fun together. We saw some incredible places like the Royal Palace. And we also had the thing that made this program special. Something that was mysterious and feared by most. Something that the organizers didn’t tell us. It came like lightning (fast and unexpected) and changed our lives forever!
I’m very tempted to tell you everything about it but the thing is… I don’t want to ruin the fun and spoil the secret. I owe this favor to the organizers, who made this program what it was. They were not afraid to put money, energy and personality to everything they did. I learned a lot more about myself than ever in my life before. And with this, I shall stay silent!
But, if you want to go on an incredible adventure and find out the secret of this project, go to the next Back2Basic event organized by Cherry International Foundation and find out for yourself!
Csider Bálint
