Ohlédnutí se za EVS - závěrečné shrnutí a dojmy našeho bývalého EVS dobrovolníka

Začátkem týdne jsme v naší kanceláři v Brně přivítali naši novou dobrovolnici Martu ze Španělska. Již brzy se můžete těšit na její postřehy a zážitky ze své EVS. Než tomu tak bude, máme zde ještě shrnutí EVS a celkových dojmů našeho bývalého dobrovolníka Ricarda. Na následujících řádcích si můžete přečíst jeho pocity před odjezdem a také stručné shnutí některých jeho úkolů během své EVS.

Today I woke up in hometown, after 8 months experiencing EVS in the Czech Republic. My day started with having a breakfast, after telling to my parents how beautiful are the places I’ve been. Then I met with my best friends and then they asked: „What? Tell us everything.“

In that moment I have realized it might be impossible to tell everything. It has been something to me, and now it seems like a dream because nothing had changed in my normal life. Like I would say I was in Narnia.

But anyway my friends wanted to know details, some of them I couldn’t share here, but all I can remember since the beginning has been special. I arrived 1^st March and little by little I knew more people, more friends, even had a girlfriend and experienced a short Czech relationship. With all of that, I can say it has been the best experience in my lifetime.

*promotion of fallas, Expediční knihovna Brno, archiv T. Svobodové*

To me, the best weeks have been the trainings of EVS, especially because these were really intensive as well as good for our feelings and to think or to overthink about our lives. I met with volunteers from all Czech Republic. There I met the most special people I met in the Czech Republic, I’m really happy I could be a friend of them. Together we had a good time thanks to travelling or at least visiting each other, and some good parties in Prague. It was really good to have the choice to have accommodation around the Czech Republic, that way I could travel through the country without paying.

At the On-Arrival training, I met my best friend in all this time. Since that week, we have been together in Brno and together with my flatmate, we were a crew. Stan and Inga, Bulgarian boy, German teen girl and I from Spain. We knew a lot of volunteers in Brno and it was fun being related with all of them during this time, like a closed society. Another guy who deserves being named is one friend of us – Bernardo and at the end of time he became a really good friend, and he and I had good moments.

Like every experience abroad must finish and the relationships made are now just waiting for any chance, where we can meet again. But anyway in our farewell we knew it is almost impossible to have the same relation as now, so this experience had finished. Sad and true, as well as beautiful we will remember this experience as it was wonderful. Before we got bored before we got angry, it was over, and we only had good moments.

And how to explain all of that to my loved people? At the end, the easiest way is just to say it was really good. And hopefully, they can achieve to get a clue of what is discovering new things almost every day, cultural shocks almost every day, new friends almost every second day.

More and more, I’m feeling mature to see, it’s just life. It’s not my first experience abroad and every time I came back home, I felt something had changed. So I guess we all have options to mature one is in a home and another one is living abroad, but I really think abroad is quite more intensive.

When I look back how I feel about my job, here are some activities I did for Mladiinfo:

Promotion

Promoting EVS can work through a lot of ways. During the first months I was here, we went to several NGO markets to promote our organisation. There I invented a game, for seeing if the people could differentiate the European traditions. There were ten represented countries with four pictures of traditions. I was happy about the people who really liked it. Another experience which was interesting was visiting one high school – Gymnasium Boskovice, to explain my experience to one group of future EVS-volunteers, and encouraging them to be explorers of the world. Knowing that view of the word works for one view of yourself, in a different context.

Videos

In order of my new creative skills, one of the most surprising for me is my “Youtuber“ experience. I’m editing videos about my experiences on a youtube channel of my organization. This will help to anyone who will be thinking about doing EVS, to realize how it could be. One of the projects is to interview former volunteers who are from the Czech Republic. It’s really interesting how they agree with their suggestion to future volunteers. But doubtlessly, the experience of going to Sophia and to record a video of all experience was one of the funniest.

Writings

The most useful and constant work is writing articles. God and my proofreaders know that I wasn’t the best on grammar. Maybe neither now, but at least now I’m closer to European English. The best for learners is to have this kind of habits. At least once per week I write an article – by that way and studying, it’s really easy to improve in English – what I’m really proud of.

During the time here I’ve realized what else I could do for Mladiinfo. These were quizzes, yes, I thought I could do a quiz every week and post them on Facebook. That way, it’s easier to add up followers on social nets. That is the most convoluted thing I’ve done because at the beginning I had topics to develop. But for example the last one I did one about summer hits, just kidding. I like to make these quizzes because I like history and politics, and I enjoy asking “difficult“ things, and I hope some people enjoyed answering.

Fallas

Furthermore, I was cooperating with art organisation. I explained my traditional art festival in Valencia (Fallas) to them. It is about building monuments of the cardboard, making fun of everything, politicians, football players…

So after the explanation, they liked it. Then, I started to make a Trump of cardboard dressed up as a clown. At the same time helping others guys on a workshop, and also explaining what is this kind of art.

Summarising it, I enjoyed trying to be creative in any sense. Also helping people who are going to do EVS. I realized that when you force yourself to think, the things you can get out of it are amazing most of the time – and even the mind changes to a state more free.