By Alisa Kivirian

First month when we arrived to Romania, we’ve been all put together. Living, working, hanging out. You and 5 random people you have no connection to. By sharing your daily routine and fighting over who left the dishes in the kitchen you get to know the visible superficial side of the person in the first couple of weeks. But how to overcome this basic part and actually grow closer?

For the six of us, me (Alisa the Russian), Lukaš (Lithuanian), Léa (French), Gecki (German), Karl (Norwegian) and Lara (German), our coordinator Irina organised a teambuilding activity about three weeks after we arrived. We went to the nature sight with the facilitator and spent the whole day outside completing different tasks related to building up the trust among each other and trying to successfully communicate to achieve the common goal.

Some parts of the day were extremely tough. For example, going on a slackline turned out to be more of a challenge for me personally than I would expect. Pros: I firstly did it with Karl who I didn’t know all that well back then but after that I felt a stronger bond with him and knew that he won’t let me fall. I mean literally fall, it’s a slack line. Cons: I got extremely scared and burst into tears at one point. Pros: other guys got to know that I’m quite sensitive and cry when I’m scared. Cons: crying on public is low key embarrassing.

Besides this, our patience was challenged. Trying to find a consensus building up strategies and fighting over which way is the best is one of the aspects of working in a team and when the time limit is pressuring you, it only gets worse. But you get to see hidden talents of people who might not speak too much yet turn out to be the best team leaders in stressful situations.

In addition, we have spent a lot of time touching each other. Trust fall, drunk bottle, same slack line situation, hugs to save space while crossing an imaginary swamp. To me (and probably a lot of people) tactile aspect of life is a very important one and feeling the actual physical presence of a teammate supporting you was a big deal.

Overall, I think of that day as one of the best ones we’ve had so far. It truly got us feel closer together, if I may speak from all of us. Oh, by the way, it was fun! Fun is what probable made us feel great at certain points. Always remember to have fun, kids.