Our breakfast was "good“ as usual. We started our daily program at 9:30 am with a warm up program until 10 am. After this, at 10:20 am, a member of Alliance Nationale des UCJG welcomed us and held a presentation on YECA and its partner organizations. We learned about YECA and that it is not only operating in France, but in 125 countries with the same aims: “strive for a better world of peace and justice”.
Hereupon the chairman of Le Rocheton Association held a speech about this large center. Le Rocheton is not only a hosting center, but a social center for youth, refugees, vulnerable people. A presentation on AEF followed, held by Victoria, a German volunteer worker from Le Rocheton, in which she described her work as such and her experiences.
Next was Carl, the director of HQ of OFAJ, who introduced us to OFAJ. For us, It was very interesting to get to know the differences between voluntary work in France, China and Germany.
Last but not least, Catharina (a participant of this French-German-Chinese Youth exchange) explained us the work and aims of AEJ (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Evangelische Jugend).

After those Presentations we build groups of 6 to work out certain questions of a given task. We work for hours on this task before we were able to get lunch at 12:30 pm.

Lunch was “good” as usual.

Once we finished our questions after lunch, we had some spare time in which Hune and Anne played wonderful on their ukulele. At 3:45 pm a “incredible” smelly bus took us to the Castle of Fontainebleau. We had a great look around and took lots of pictures. The gardens were amazing and seemed to be endless. However, the incredible smell of the bus destroyed our thoughts once we got closer and took us out of heaven/cloud 7 back to Le Rocheton. At 7 pm we had dinner.

Dinner was “good” as usual.

Despite our expectations, the presentation of our group work was astonishing and incredible. Simply awesome. We learned a lot about voluntary work and its aims which we all share. But nevertheless the highlight of this day was our phenomenal, gigantic cultural night.
It is hard to describe all the different dishes and snakes that were served. They were brought and presented by every participant and enjoyed by all. It is even harder to describe the impression and emotions we all shared on this very special, well organized day.

Conclusion:

A busy morning; a comfortable afternoon; a very special night.