My EVS journey started with very interesting people and places. I was in a new city with the people that I am not familiar. This is interesting because it was a challenge I had to overcome.
Bulgaria is a country which has partially like my country, Turkey. So, some parts of about it was really easy to understand. Of course, there are so many different things. I learned the facts that I wasn’t aware too. And I had a chance to contribute a society which I have never live before.
Thanks to old EVS’s help, I adapted to environment quickly. But things weren’t perfect as they seemed. I had problems in accommodation, these problems started to affect even our office duties. Even so this was an experience which I needed to learn for how to manage crisis and be more tolerant. So, at the end there weren’t anything to talk about as a problem.
All the remarkable moments are happened thanks to people from ICDET; they are open minded, hard worker and true European Union citizens. I also had a chance to discover other countries. After every single trip, I am more lightened about those countries, their people and how they see the rest of the world. I decided, if I want to know more about a country I should visit instead of looking media and internet.
In my second month, I had an opportunity to join VET program under Erasmus+. There were so many students from different cities. Even though they are from same country, they were so different. Therefore, I became gentler about my communication and relationship with them. I also facilitated some sessions and plus in these sessions, I learned from them. This was my first time, but hopefully won’t last, to do a session with a big group. Those are people, I also want to see again one day.
Like this I had so many firsts in here. My first facilitation, first visit to Bulgaria, first train trip to another country… I noticed so many things about myself thanks to these experiences.
Simply If I wanted to explain my EVS journey in a one sentence, it would be “Sofia and ICDET became my second home.”