The Third Meeting of the Red Cross Youth Volunteers through my eyes

2nd of April, nine o’clock in the morning I was at the door of Juventude for the grand weekend at DiverLanhoso. We were supposed to leave at 9:30 but, with the early birds and the late ones, we left closer to eleven.
At first sight DiverLanhoso didn’t seem like the biggest extreme park of the Iberian Peninsula (as it’s known to be), but appearances are misleading and I soon changed my opinion. The entrance resembled a summer festival (lol) and the environment brought to mind a scene from the famous horror film “Friday the 13th” (at least at night it did!).

Well, the first activity of the day was the opening session about Volunteering held by Catarina, which helped me to understand better the differences between the concepts of “voluntary” and “volunteer”. I especially liked the human dynamics she did with us - very unique and they left us all far more excited.

After lunch (and a coffee) was the time for the radical activity which for me was, in addition to the training, the highlight of our weekend: Paintball! I had never tried it before, and I have to admit I was a little worried about the safety of it (didn’t want to take a ball of paint in the eye or in the ear), but otherwise I loved it and would like to do it again someday.
A little while after  we had a shower and rested until the time of the Presentation of Projects of the Delegation of Braga and the Youth Red Cross, held by a volunteer from each project.

Following was the dinner, but between there was time for playing the Human Bingo (which Cristiana won). Before going to bed Dulce taught us how to dance Kizomba and Merengue, and we also changed some “sticky notes” with the cyckling team staying downstairs (it was more the girls who were doing that).

On Sunday, after João’s presentation and Carina’s "Game of Healthy Eating", we shared our experiences and feelings about the Meeting: I can say that in my opinion there was no negative points; the weekend was in one word - "Intensel!" and I hope to remember it for a long time =).
Thanks for Carina and for everyone organizing the Meeting, we packed outselves in the vans and returned to Braga to our everyday lifes. But (and I speak for myself) DiverLanhoso hasn’t seen the last of us!
...And that’s it! ;)

Nuno Silva