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We only stayed in Prague for a week, but it was an absolutely amazing experience that I will never forget. Prague is a really beautiful city and it is so different from the cities I knew. During that week, I got to make new friends and I met new people with completely different stories and backgrounds than mine.
We went on a historical walking tour and got to see the street art of the city. We went to an urban farm and we met homeless people and cooked a meal for them. And we learned graffiti and archery and went white water rafting. I really enjoyed going to the farm. After exploring it, we got to help and try out the work they do. It was a lot of fun, but farming is actually really hard! Although we didn’t work for very long, it was pretty tiring and I definitely learned to appreciate the fruits and vegetables we buy in the supermarket more.
On the third day of our trip, we cooked the meal for homeless people and it showed me not to forget that I live on the sunny side of life. I have never had to worry about not having enough to eat or not having a place to sleep. But there are a lot of people that are less privileged than me. The people we met were all very kind to us and they were very thankful for our meal. They all came from different backgrounds and each of them had a very sad story to tell. The social gap is very large, even between people living in the same city in highly developed countries.
There is a magazine that is sold by homeless people in Prague. We did a challenge, where we tried to sell the magazines for them, and the money we earned would go back to the charity organization that supports the homeless. We were in a group of five people and we had one hour to sell five magazines.
The street was very busy and we were sure that we would be done very fast, but most people passed us saying they didn’t want to buy one, or simply ignored us. After half an hour, I finally sold the magazine I was holding and it was an amazing feeling. But it didn’t last for very long because most people shook their heads and simply kept walking. To be honest, I don’t know if I would have bought one. In the end, we got some donations which was really good, but we did not manage to sell all five magazines.
My personal highlight of the trip was the white water rafting. I had never done it before and it was a lot of fun. We were six people in our boat and before we started, the instructor told us to all hold hands and stand up in the boat. It took a bit of time, but we managed to do it. Then, the instructor told us to stand on the edge of the boat! While we were standing in the middle, it was shaking a lot, and when I stepped on to the edge, I was half expecting to end up in the river. And if one person let go, we would have for sure fallen in. But we didn’t let go and we all stayed in the boat.
Overall, it was a phenomenal week, full of diversity. We had the chance to see both sides of the city: the sunny side and the not so sunny side.
