Thoughts about my EVS experience

Puh, I never thought that eleven months (and one day) could pass by so quickly. I’m now back in Germany for a week, but it’ll still take weeks and months to realize what happened and what it means for me.

I remember the 2nd of October 2015 as it were yesterday. My nervousity and curiosity to go the first time abroad, meet all these cool people and volunteer for almost a year.  When I remember contrary my last day as I woke up, the flat empty, everyone left already and this important chapter of my life seeing to be closed it sets the in a nostalgic state of mind.

During my EVS I met so many people as never in my life before. Of course I didn’t fall in love with all of them, yet every single one was important for me to learn something new. Especially the many volunteers or Romanians I’m keeping in touch with are precious. My flatmates are just awesome in their own individual way. I worked, lived and travelled with them. One of the best things in my EVS was to get know to all the cool people, meet and talk. I have no plenty of motivation to visit them.

Quite tied up with it I definitely enjoyed the international environment. I learnt so much, ridiculous and profound stuff. It’s definetely enriching and helps oneself to develop.

Additionally, I achieved a new view on travelling, seeing it as enriching experience and tool to learn. I appreciate that I met so many people during my trips, all of them different and telling other interesting stories.

I also learnt a lot about myself, my strengths and weak points due to my work. I like explaining stuff, but I am not a very good teacher. I like children, but would not like to do it in a job on a everyday basis. My voluntary service made me braver since I started to run activities I had not done before. In the end I changed my mind and will study now another subject at university than planned before. Mostly due to my EVS.

EVS was a great time to enjoy life and work by meanwhile getting confronted with plenty of challenges and questions. I learnt about myself, made new friends, could experiment a lot, travel a lot and had a very well-balanced and diverse time. The experience is far too complex to be expressed in words. I remind now my EVS time and think about all I’ve done, seen and experienced. It makes me smiling, I feel happy about it. That’s what matters the most.

My EVS experience: a brief stream of consciousness

When someone asks you to talk about an experience that you have had, it’s not easy to put in order your thoughts, feelings and impressions. So, be kind with me if you will find this article a little confused but try to consider it as a Picasso’s painting, where multiple perspectives are put together and allow   the observer to have a 360˚ view. (I know, I used a very “low profile” metaphor).

First of all, I have to admit that before my departure, there was an emotions’ storm in my mind: fear and curiosity for the “unknown” at the same time, enthusiasm for the new adventure and sadness regarding missing friends and relatives. What I really appreciated during this period was the support that I have received from unexpected persons, such as my grandma or some university mates. They encouraged me to do my best and use this opportunity for showing to myself that I was braver than I expected.

And the 1st October 2015 arrived faster than I expected… What a day! I remember that Razvan and Liviu welcomed me at the airport and suddenly I realized that these 9 months would be totally different from the life I was used to conduct in Italy: new house, flatmates (I am an only child!), new language, culture, currency; a lot of changes and all together!

At the beginning it wasn’t easy to cope with all these new things but through attempts, hints and suggestions received from different sources ( for istance: people from Young Iniziative and italian friends that have lived abroad), I managed to survive on my own J

Of course not everything was like unicorns and rainbows, there were bad days in which I was homesick or sad and disappointed because an activity didn’t go as I expected or the results weren’t totally positive. It sounds weird but now I’ve realised that I have to say “thanks” to them because they made me stronger and aware about how to deal with bad mood and find a way to move on. An important role was also played by my mentor Adela, who was always helpful and full of good adivces about “keep negativity away” (and not only about this topic, of course).

Moving to the activities, I really appreciated the non formal approach used in every of them: this method allows you to use your creativity and make the learning process funny and interactive for the volunteer and the audience too. At the beginning it was hard to change the mental approach and think differently: I consider myself a “product” of formal education and setting the mind to something you are not accostumed to, requires an effort in therms of perspective and thinking. Anyway, during these months I challenged myself thanks to non formal education and I tried things that I’ve never done before such as teaching my mothertongue or organising workshop in highschool. Through them I improved some skills and I discovered new ones, such as time management, planning and indipendency. It was the first time in my life that I was totally free: usually everyone receives instructions or suggestions about what she/he has to do in a specific working context; of course all this freedom it’s quite “shocking” at first glance , I felt lost because i didn’t have a path to follow but it made me more responsable, focused and efficient about my work. As the time went by, I don’t feel a fish out of the sea anymore but quite confident about my results achieved here through the non formal approach.

Other skills that I think I have developed are connected to everyday life situations. As I said before, I am an only child and sharing a flat with other people it is not easy at all. Every person has habits, personality and manners that can be totally different from yours. It’s up to you and the others of course to try to establish a nice and tolerant atmosphere in the flat and during the activities, so everyone will feel accepted. There were some moments of tensions or misunderstanding but I think that this experience tought me and my fellows to cope with them, through confrontation, discussion and mutual understanding.

Last but not least, I’d like to spend some words about Bucharest and romanians. Unfortunately, in Italy there are a lot of prejudices and negative conceptions about Romania and one of the reasons that brought me to take the decision to do my EVS here was to touch with my own hands and see with my own eyes the reality of this misterious and almost unknown country. I’ve already knew that Bucharest was called “the city of contrasts” and it’s true: very fancy buildings and degraded areas, luxury cars and homeless people, super modern shopping malls and little local markets. This variety of impressions is also visible in the romanian culture and language, both full of influences from abroad, and I was impressed how close is romanian to my mother tongue and I think that this is one of the reason why I didn’t feel a complete stranger here, beside the fact that the majority of romanians is friendly and easy-going. In addiction some locals told me, regarding my physical aspect, that I could be a romanian!

I think that a lot of impressions and thoughts will come to my mind after my return and probably I will under stand and discover new things about me later. The learning process is like eating: you can say immediatly if the food is good or not but the body needs to digest it to benefit fully from it.

Just one  more thing…. Multumesc frumos Romania!