“God, please, let them choose not me”, it’s how my story began… I was walking on a night street after the interview and thought about my future. I really liked the vibe of people who talked to me, the description of the project was also really nice, nevertheless, all what I felt was fear. Fear of difficulties that I for sure will have to overcome, fear to lose my friends, fear to be excluded from the university, fear of financial problems and so forth. Fortunately, I didn’t know then that I was in for a lot more problems…
Perhaps I would not have participated in the selection if I had known how things would turn out. Two months before my departure, I had a few days off and instead of visiting my grandma, whom I haven’t seen around 2 years, I decided to work at international competitions to earn some money before leaving. And a few days after it, I got a message that she died… I had so many important tests and projects at the university (I had to finish the semester 2 month earlier than other students) that I wasn’t able even to go to her funeral and just cried in the nights, feeling guilty before her.
Unfortunately, my misadventures didn’t end there. On my second day in Germany I was called a “Russisches Schwein” in a tram. I could understand if it was a Ukrainian or a German person, but it was just a random eastern looking man. During the whole first week the central heating in our flat was not working and sometimes I put on practically all my clothes to keep warm. Also my phone was stolen at my workplace when I was playing tennis (fortunately I got it back at the same day but it was quite an unpleasant experience).
Sometimes I have a feeling that in Germany I’m super unlucky. Local hospitals don’t except my health insurance so I should always have some cash to pay them and I already had 2 emergency cases here while other volunteers normally have none. I bought a SIM-kart but couldn’t activate it because they didn’t except my passport. I’ve been hit on by different strange guys three times while single traveling, despite the fact that I wore oversize and generally tried not to draw attention to myself. And the list goes on for quite some time…
At the same time I truly believe that my project is one of the best ESC projects. I’m a big fan of my organization. I work in the youth center “Freizi Gropelingen” and my colleagues are fantastically good. I admire their professionalism, endless energy and genuine concern for teens and young adults. They are so gorgeous that sometimes I think they deserve a better person than me. It’s a big honor for me to work with them and I’ve learned a lot.
I also enjoy my work tasks, normally I play with teens some board games or table tennis, talk to them or we just have fun together. Sometimes our team helps to organize local events like running competitions or street festivals. We also had a great summer program: visit to a strawberry farm, camping in southern Germany, trip to Heide Park, swimming course and many other nice things. From the next week I’ll start to lead a basketball class and I’m really excited about it 😉 My organization paid for my intensive language course (I told you, they are the best), now I’m visiting classes 4 days pro week and my German is much more better.
My neighbors are also very nice; they helped me a lot during my adaptation period. We spend not so much time together but I will always remember with a great pleasure our mini-events like common breakfast, first summer watermelon or a picnic.
To be honest, I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I will try to give my best to my organization and gain maximum experience for myself.
Eva is hosted by Junge Stadt gGmbH on our project financed by the European Solidarity Corps and Jugend für Europa.
