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.

Thoughts after seven months of EVS

After more than seven months here in Romania, Bucharest, the project and the flat the spirit of the first months faded away, normality caught me. It’s time for a little review of my EVS experience.

Activities

In the first place my EVS is about the project. What I’m doing so far and how does it go?
It is still interesting to compare and contrast the non-formal education which I practice now with the formal education which I had to survive for the most time of my life. In the beginning especially it took quite a lot of energy to hold the activities in this non-formal way, though now it’s definitely better. It’s very cool that I can do things in a different way.

Especially in my language club I have the unlimited freedom in the way how to teach German. I can experiment a lot, just after the concept of trial and error. Up to now we did some pretty cool stuff… (let’s not talk about the failures)

 

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Moreover, the flexibility offered by our project is amazing. I only have a few activities fixed in my schedule. I can move the rest as I want. So I can decide on which day I’ll go to the social apartments, when to the abused children center etc. When I’m busy in one area I have the ability to focus myself on this manner and equalize it in the next week by laying the focus more on the others.

I enjoy that our activities combine a lot of cool stuff. The good purpose, flexibility and creativity, challenges and fun. Especially working in the social apartments is pretty cool (I’ll write a post about my work there as well).

People and travelling

I didn’t spend too much time on thinking about my time after EVS and how it’ll feel like. Though there is one thing I’ll miss for sure: The people and the international environment which is so awesome. As I was in school and back in Cologne all the people were very homogeneous (at least compared to now). During my EVS I get in touch with a lot of people with various backgrounds born in different countries. I arrived in this new normality. It’s so exciting, funny and instructive. I’ll give my best to keep at least a fractional part of it after my EVS.

There are plenty of people who travel more, plenty of people are more curious than me in these regards. Nevertheless, if I travel it’s always amazing, because afterwards I can always tell some funny stories. That’s what tempts me the most. For sure, it’s nice to travel to see a Romanian monastery, but what makes it worth an experience is not the monastery itself, but the five km of walking to the destination (with a heavy bag, minus degrees and snows) or hitchhiking, amazing experience.

Besides gathering stories and experiences travelling is also way to challenge yourself and come out of your comfort zone (and still I’m doing it not often enough). Going spontaneously to Moldova, or hitchhiking alone and negotiating then with the driver who wants money (I offered him my sandwich), it’s just exciting.

“Personal development”

A few words about personal development: One of my main goals for my EVS and also for many of the others quite important.

It’s a tricky thing with personal development. You learn a lot, you receive a lot of input without realizing it. Blow on blow things are happening. Always there is something new or different. Basically, in EVS you don’t have time to think. You just live and let things go with all its up- and downsides. So at the end of the month you learned a lot, although you don’t realize it. Little time to reflect and additionally you’re still caught in the EVS bubble and probably only afterwards you’ll realize how you changed. Meanwhile, I’m writing these lines I have no idea how much in learned and only a foggy glimpse in which manners. It’s just a better version of guessing.

The catch for me in this manner is that you’re basically confronted with two facts: 1. You want to develop yourself. 2. You can’t measure really measure the progress (in a serious way). Leads to the very vague and sometimes frustrating situation that you don’t know what you achieved. Some doubts arise; you question the decision to come here or yourself.

Here I developed some sides of mine more than others, I discovered well-hidden ones and almost forgot about the previously most important ones. There are times when you’re satisfied. These are (surprise, surprise) the good times. Unfortunately, the sun isn’t shining the whole year. For instance, I noticed frustrating backdrops and setbacks. Some things of mine changed and now I’m thinking whether these are good ones. I arranged myself more with the situation than seeking for progress (in any areas). With every step, from every attitude, there always up- and downsides, different ways of interpretation.

That’s what “personal development” leads to in my opinion. For any question I had – and answered – two new ones raised up. It’s just a hopping from issue to issue without ever finishing. My EVS brought me the uncomfortable conviction that’s a never-ending process without any final satisfaction which is still hard to accept for me. But hey, I’m one step further. I know it and now it’s time for the next one and figuring out a way how to cope with it. This is also one thing what my EVS taught me up to now: Don’t worry too much. And if you do so, search for alcohol and company (maybe also one of these dubious changes)

Bucharest and Romania

For months, I live now in Bucharest and Romanian. I gathered far too many impressions and opinions (partly reversely to each other) to point all of them out. Bucharest is pretty amazing, although I have to admit that it’s a question of taste. It’s in most parts ugly with ruins or communistic architecture, it’s also like Cologne (not a compliment, nothing get’s finished here), loud and a traffic which can be described from exciting until dangerous. Well, I’m in the lucky position to value the upsides higher than the downsides. It’s a very diverse city, full of contrasts; this is – in my opinion – what turns Bucharest in a very interesting city. The infrastructure is quite cool and this city offers you a lot of opportunities and events. Apart from that the night-life is also a nice one.

As Bucharest is diverse, so is Romania also diverse in a certain way. It’s marked my plenty of influences. I hadn’t thought about it before I came here, that’s what makes Romania so interesting. I don’t regret that I chose Romania as my EVS destination, not at all. It’s so cool, though it’s important (for me) to have in mind that a) I live the first time abroad, so I assume it’s normal that everything is amazing, b) I experience Romania as a volunteer which goes hand in hand with adventures and an unique lifestyle which is to distinguish from a common life here. Moreover, c) I’ll (probably) live here for a limited period, so I don’t worry too much about things I’d worry about if I have to stay longer here than eleven months (for instance my whole lifetime long).

Apart from that I’d suggest everyone to come here and experience the country. You can leave your prejudices at the airport and see by yourself how it is and probably you’ll come again.

I could write now some paragraphs about Romanian and what exactly is so cool about it, but I want to focus on some other, more abstract aspects.

Undeniably, Romania has some, well… let’s not call them problems, but issues someone should take care of whereby we touched the first one: Everyone is unhappy with the current situation. Sadness and frustration about the socio-economic situation is common. In Germany, we say that awareness is the first step to improvement, yet it seems that one step was made, but that people forgot about the concept of walking and stopped then. As I experienced it, there exists a strong feeling of resignation. People know precisely what should be improved, but instead of doing something they arranged with the situation. The common attitude is to accept the situation as it’s given and to become resigned a la “this is how things are supposed to be here. I can’t change them”.

This attitude is tied up with adapting to the circumstances here due to the history of this country. Furthermore, it’s pretty interesting how this attitude spread and caught me as well. On a different level, however I also became resigned and accepted the situation as it is. I don’t really care and worry about when new obstacles arise. I tend to think “well, that’s Romanian. Happens” Granted, my case is different, yet it’s fascinating and unsettling at the same time that it also worked this way for me.

Let’s draw some lessons. The good thing is that you learn here to accept that things are not perfect and how to deal with it. It’s a lesson for your life for sure. The bad thing is what you learn and which attitudes and behaviours you should avoid.

OK, one more lesson for free. Regarding problems existing here: I learned that many things highly depend on let’s call it “luck” and the circumstances. I was born in the “right” country, that’s the reason why I heard about passports only in ancient stories and Romanians have it far more difficult to travel. This is also one of the reasons why plenty of people want to leave this country and move, for instance, to Germany. It’s sometimes an awkward situation when I tell people that I’m volunteering here in Romanian which is completely the opposite of what they want. Working and living somewhere else. For me it’s a pretty weird situation and I can’t comprehend it to 100%. It’s driving me in a sad mood. Of course their reasons are legitimate and understandable, yet how shall you improve and build something here if everyone is saying “la revedere”?

So, to put it in a nutshell: How was my time here?

To cut a long story short, it was pretty amazing. Granted, I didn’t dance samba for the whole time because I was to 110% fulfilled with happiness. Though if I just compare what I did or experienced in my life before or estimate how it’d have been to spend my time now in university I’m almost before dancing samba. It’s unique, that’s the sad, yet even more amazing part of it. I didn’t make a lot of decisions in my life before going to EVS, though this one was definitely the best of my life.

(That’s a nice end I suppose)

 

Recurrent questions. Same answers.

“Why did you decide for doing an EVS?”, that the recurrent question that we heard when for the first time, we met someone here. I have to say that it’s a good and difficult one. Before coming here, it was quite clear for me. First: Because I want Second: Why not ? Third: Because I want to do a break between my Bachelor and my Master. Forth: I want to develop myself and my soft skills. Fifth: Because I want to help. But now, it’s still clear but new questions appear. Are these reasons legitimate, selfish or wrong ? I don’t know and I think I will never know. Because it depends on my mood. Sometimes, it is “I was right” or “I was wrong”. But at the end, I just know that I don’t or won’t regret the choice to come here. If I wouldn’t have come, I would have regretted it for sure. Furthermore, my two last reasons were also a part of my expectations. I think that I achieved them. Even if I’m not totally satisfied with that yet, I still have five months and half. Knowing my character, I know that I will always want more.

But there are more reasons of why doing an EVS is so great. Here are some of them that I experienced and benefited:

1. You meet awesome people from different countries, with different personalities. But we have at least all of us something in common and it’s being a volunteer. Isn’t it awesome? Some of them will become so important for you.
2. You can travel in the country that you are living but also around it
3. You learn new languages. I’m trying to learn Romanian but also Polish. I enjoy telling tongue-twisters in Polish.
4. You improve your English skills. You get confidence in speaking.
5. You develop yourself and develop your soft skills in different ways.
6. You receive so many smiles from people, children that you work with. Even if sometimes, you are not satisfied with what you did.
7. You are doing human-size board games. Come one, it’s just awesome.
8. You discover new interests as Human Rights or Gipsy musics.
9. You dare to do things, that maybe before you wouldn’t have.
10. You will experiment a surprising path, with a lot of obstacles but always with the smile.

That’s what I get during these first months. I feel thankful for that. But I think it doesn’t depend only on doing an EVS but also on your willingness to experiment it. Because it’s your EVS, your adventure. You can share it with others but at the end you are the main character of your life.

After the second most recurrent question is “Why Romania?”. But for this one, I don’t have any answer. I don’t have any answer that can satisfy people. When I did my researches, I just know that I didn’t want to do my EVS in a country next to the French border and quite far away of France. I wanted to do it in a Central or East European country. So I choose much more the project in itself that the country. But I don’t regret this choice and I invite you to read my last article about it. Te iubesc Romana.

Obviously, the other recurrent questions are “Where do you come from ?”. “What are you doing there ?”. But my favorite one “How did you meet?” ❤

Te iubesc România!

I’m there since October and I felt in love with Bucharest and Romania. At the beginning, I was more like “Oh God What I’m doing there?”, “Why did I choose Romania to do my EVS?”. There were too much things that I didn’t like and still don’t like as the corruption, the no-respect for the nature, some cultural aspects of the personality and so on. But well, time passes and I learnt to cope with, to try to understand why Romania is like that. During these months, I also saw other sides of Romania and its inhabitants, that I want to share with you:

1. The Romanians have always a smile for you when you ask them for the direction and some information or in every situations (not like in France).
2. I always have the feeling to be welcome there and to be appreciated for what I am really.
3. I like Bucharest and its eclectic architecture. You can see old buildings just next to modern one, sometimes old building are mixed with a modern one. Bucharest just breaks all the theory about how a city is built.
4. Romanian mountains are just awesome. I only saw the Bucegi Mountains but the landscape that they offer us are just amazing and wordless.
5. I think that Romanian people are the only ones can come to you in the metro when you are in a very sad mood and tell you “Don’t cry” with a huge and communicative smile.
6. You can go to some gypsy concerts and having fun there.
7. Romanians like traditions and celebrate them with enthoutiasm. I don’t like Christmas but I think it was the first time since a moment that I really enjoyed this period. Or during the 1rst of March, they celebrate the celebration of Spring, where women receive small gifts with red and white threads.
8. Romania is in the Balkans closed to awesome countries with awesome people like Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina …
9. When you are walking in the street, you are just in the mood “time to reflect” and you don’t pay so much attention on what comes around you. By inadvertence, you go into someone. This person instead of telling you be careful, just tell you it brings “noroc” (luck).
10. When you are waiting in the metro for a friend, you can meet an old Romanian man telling you a French poem “La Seine” of Jacques Prévert, that you learnt in the primary school but you are unable to remember one sentence of it.

I wrote 10 reasons but I’m quite sure there are some other reasons that I forget or I will find out. Because Romania is always continuously surprising me.

Furthermore, since I began my studies I lived in different places, like Angers, Wernigerode or Charleroi. But that’s the first time that I feel like being home. Maybe it’s the EVS effect, yet I believe that it’s only one factor, one reason.

Through this article, I don’t want to say that Romania is perfect. Far from there, there are a lot of things that I’m still recalcitrant with. As I wrote before corruption, their ways of dealing with the environment, but also among others the omnipresent of the Orthodox Church.

Te iubesc România!

P.S. : I’d like to add something about clichés about Romania but I didn’t know how to introduce it in my article. So I will add a small P.S. . Before coming there or even when I came back from Bucharest to my hometown for the Christmas Break. I heard a lot of wrong and hurting comments about Roma community or Romanian people. People didn’t really understand why I decided to come to Romania to do my EVS there, why I decided to move there for nearly one year. I heard sentences like “Tell them that in France there is no work there”, “If you want to see some gipsies, you don’t have to go so far away” or “Did you come back by chariot? “. I just want to invite you to come there and to discover this country and its people. And not only for visiting, because the only comments that you are going to say are “it’s cheap” or “internet is pretty fast”. Romania is much more than these stupid, non-sense, wrong clichés like France is much than Baguette, Fromage and Vin. You will always feel welcome and important there, whereas in France we’ll just ignore, look down on them, and asking ourselves why there are there. Maybe next time, we will meet us, you will ask me how awesome Romania is and not how strange it is or which stupid idea you had to come there. My P.S. is finished.