It’s a grey day today in Denmark but I don’t care at all, My soul is yellow, green, red and white like the colors of the flags I’ve been seeing during the past 10 days in Hungary. Taking part in H.E.A.L.T.H Youth Exchange has been such an unforgettable experience. I’ve been collaborating and sharing ideas with people from Italy, Lithuania, Denmark, Poland, Georgia and Hungary about a topic that was at heart for all of us. And I felt so blessed to have been a part of this.

Health can be described in so many ways and it’s such a broad topic that 10 days only are definitely not enough to cover all of it. It would be so easy to talk about health in a formal way, mentioning statistics and numbers, but having 35 young people talking about it from their own individual and cultural perspectives – That is a whole other thing. It is a real privilege worth talking about. This is exactly where the beauty of a Youth Exchange lies, being in an environment where non-formal education is the way to go, where creativity is stimulated in all kinds of ways, going from music, to dances, to roleplays. Where there are no strict rules to follow and one is always free to express their opinions without feeling judged – Ever. There is a kind of safety around Youth Exchanges, something magical that makes it possible to deeply get to know others in a time that, in ‘real life’ would maybe not even be enough to learn each other’s names. And, well, believe me, it took us some days to do that too, and hundreds of energisers and games.

We all understood, in theory and practice, what Danish hygge is, not only because we heard about it, but because we experienced it in practice. Not only that, we attended  a Georgian marriage and grasped how proud Georgians are of their wine culture (which is just as much as Danes are proud of beer culture, I would dare to say) and their language.

You all know the emoji with heart eyes, right? That’s precisely how they looked at others when they could say something in Georgian! We enjoyed seeing Lithuanians dressed up in duvets, telling the legend of the Grand Duke and ate their delicious caramel lazy cake. We danced Hungarian folk dances until our feet fell off and realised what the meaning of life is for Polish people, His name is Robert Lewandowski. Last but not least, we all tried to be Italians by using gestures to communicate meaning, appreciated Italian aperitivo and became familiar with what can be defined as a proper need for food – from their part.

And this is only the minimal part of what we got to live during these 10 days in Balatonalmadi. We got familiar with Hungarian (fried) food, with the beautiful surroundings of the Balaton Lake and with the language. I dare you to try and sing a song about birds and spring and twist your tongue reciting “Egy kupac kopasz kukac, meg még egy kupac kopasz kukac, az két kupac kopasz kukac”. We got to try out our musical skills by singing about freedom and our poetic skills by writing poems about it. We were out of breath from running up and down slides in a kids playground, and we let our artistic self shine, while drawing our countries’ cultural dimensions, according to Hofstede’s model. And much, much, much more happened during those 10 days. Strong friendships were born out of common and less common life experiences, because when people’s souls are in harmony, nothing can stop happiness.

For anyone that has finished my story, i hope you find yourself ready to give the experience a try. The experience was a experience i will never forget, and i have made friends for life. 

If Anyone find Greta’s story compelling, and wants to experience a Youth Exchange, keep an eye out for future projects here. 

– Gretta Gattolin, Participant H.E.A.L.T.H Youth Exchange