We look down from a hill to the Malom-valley,  while the morning sun is getting stronger and stronger, and the sound of cowbell audible. On the left side a piece from the Balaton visible, on the right our host town and its 800 years old red church, down the valley our temporary „home” for the last week. This picture might have remained in many people’s most clever database, namely their personal own memory. Our guide for the forest showed us a lot of things in the short time we had, many important and useful things, plants in the forest which we’ve just passed by. He gave us a bit of his spirit to respect and know our surrounding environment better. For example he told us, that this time the song of birds are not audible because its the end of rutting season and this time they don’t often fly, but rather hop on the ground. In contrary to them, our group will be mostly flying tomorrow, to the four winds, home.

At our last day we made a special emphasis on evaluating and summarizing our past week. We did the evaluation in small groups, with a task to draw and/or write on paper, things concerning a concrete topic (concept of SHG, group roles, leading tools, communication tools) creatively. The associations and symbols were different, but the key words of our past week characteristically came back. The presentation of youth in action became colourful with its interactivity, that those who had experiences in similar things could share with others. At the evaluation, the participants felt mostly development in their social, communication competences, while they valued the learnt things about adult role, responsibility. After it, we revealed our secret friends, with an exciting way.

The afternoon ended with a grill dinner. I was thirsty and didn’t see any available liquids on the table, but before I’ve “moved” for anything, my neighbour Denis took out a Kozel from his bag and gave it to me. I could not refuse my first beer this week. While dinner we continued our few times turned up conversation with Ondrej, mate from Slovakia. It was interesting to reflect on the yesturday night’s folk dance show when the instructor called the ethnic Hungarian dances from present day Slovakia “Upper land” or “North Hungarian” dances. It was interesting to recognize, while it is natural for Hungarians to name these dances in this way (considering the dances’ really old age), these expressions can have really different effect on other people from our neighbour. After dinner, a nice gathering started around the bonfire.

Farewell from the place, maybe farewell from these nice (and a bit chilly here in the valley) summer evenings. Maybe not yet for the Italians and Bruno, probably yes for a time for our mates from the Baltic states. Tomorrow we plan to depart at 9AM to Budapest, to meet an association which uses the learnt SHG method successfully, have some meals together and a farewell party.

Photo: At Miske-cliff (made by Ondrej)