Wonderful and Challenging

Monika Hemming, volontär på Berget.

Monika Hemming (längst till höger) med Michael Goldhammer (längst till vänster) och Bergets föreståndare.

My name is Monika and I was a volunteer in Berget for 10 weeks. The Bonifatiuswerk from Germany sent me to Rättvik and I’m really thankful for that. The program from the Bonifatiuswerk is called “Praktikum im Norden”. Young people from Germany are send to different places in the Nordic countries to work as volunteers and to help, where help is needed. About half of the participants are send to Sweden and in my case, I was sent to Rättvik, together with Michael. For me the 10 weeks I was allowed to live and work at Berget were wonderful, but also challenging sometimes. One example is the silence. If you have been to Berget once, you know that silence is a big part in the everyday life. In the beginning that was very challenging for me, especially because I love to talk and meet new people. After a while I got used to it and then I even learned to enjoy the silence. We, that is Michael and me, were being part of the “Praktikum im Norden” from the Bonifatiuswerk. We had a lot of curious colleagues, who are volunteering at other places in the Nordic countries. Part of our program is, that we visit each other to see and learn about the different places we work at. Our first three guests work in Marielund and in

St. Eugenia in Stockholm. They visited us after I was in Rättvik for 4 weeks. By then, I had learned to enjoy the silence, but I still remembered how hard it was for me in the beginning. That’s why Michael and I decided that we want to talk about silence with our guests before they start to dive into the experience. We also planned to reflect on how the silence felt for them and us. Because they really loved that we did those talks, we continued with it, when the two other groups came to visit us. The picture above shows one of the methods we used for reflecting on the silence. Everybody in our group took a sticker of the same colour and stuck it on the poster. We divided the silence into positive and negative feelings (y-axis) and into intense and not-intense feeling silence (x-axis). That was the orientation to express how the silence felt for us. After we stuck the stickers, we took time to talk about it. Even when I was there 9 weeks and the last group came to visit us, I really enjoyed pondering for myself how I felt about the silence at that specific time. I also think it’s good to see that most of the time, the silence felt positive for everyone. It shows as well, that silence can be felt differently for different persons and situations. Looking back on my time at Berget right now, I sometimes miss the silence. I would never have thought in the beginning that this would be the case at one point. I also miss all the amazing people living there. That’s why I’m sure, that I will come back and I’m so thankful for all the experiences I made and the people I met.