My 2 Months EVS in Bulgaria
by Batuhan Ahiskalioglu
Hello from my last days in Pazardjik, Bugaria. My name is Batuhan Ahiskalioglu and I am from Turkey. It is really hard to begin my article, because it wasn’t just a 2 months project for me. This project really changed too many things in my life. It gave me too many oppurtunities to learn, to discover, to improve myself.
My first days weren’t so easy because this was my first time in abroad. But thanks to “Focus-European Center for Development”, it has been easier than I thought. They took me from airport to the volunteers apartment and show me everywhere in the city. I met with my flatmates in my first day and after that point, I started to enjoy my project. All of the people were amazing; in my flat, in my project and ofcourse my mentors and dear president Ivaylo.
Atfer 1 day resting, I went to the Daily Center to see where i am going to work for next 2 months. I met with the other social workers, with the other volunteers and with disabled people. This experience was really new for me because i have never worked with disabled people in my life. But when I was applying this project, I wanted to add some new experiences in my life, chance to help the other people that I have never met before, see the other lifes and change my life in a good way. I am sure that you can’t never understand this feeling if you have never worked with this beautiful, special people before. After you enter this center, all you want is make them smile because they are really innocent, and they are smiling like a child. And this gives you different kind of feeling that you have never felt before.
We worked with this people for two months. We played games, did new kind of activities, supported for feeding, talked too much and you can ask this “how did you communicate with this people because there wasn’t any common language?” But I discovered this, you don’t need any language for communication. We can understand eachothers and every people smile in the same language.
In our two months, our organisation gave us an oppurtunity to learn Bulgarian. As you can understand, two months ofcourse not enough for learning a new language but learning a new alphabet, by the way it was really interesting to meet with Cyrillian alphabet, and making little conversations in this new language was realy fun. With our lovely teacher, lessons were realy nice; we learnt together, we laughed together, we spent very good times together.
Maybe the other good thing in this project, we had to chance to improve our English. Becuase in our apartment, in daily center and in our meetings we were an intercultural group. The common language is English and you have to push yourself to communicate. At first it wasn’t so easy, but after 2 weeks everbody broke their barriers and started to improve themself.
After daily center, we were alltogether with the other volunteers and mentors. We organised trips to the other Bulgaria cities, parties, dinners. I have never felt like I am alone in here in last 2 months. Everybody supported eachothers and after just couple of weeks we became a family. We shared our concerns, our expectations and together tried to solve our problems and saw different point of views in every time with every problems.
During the project, i have found some oppurtunities to visit the other countries. Ofcourse with my dear president permission, in my first month I visited to Greece, Italy and Austria with just by myself. This was the other big experience for my life in last 2 months. At first i realy afraid of, but travelling alone is a chance for everyone to discover themselves. And in my second month, this time with the other volunteers, we visited to Balkanian countries: Serbia, Bosnia i Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosova and Macedonia. Travelling, seeing the other countries and discovering that there are so many lifes out of our borders was really special and I am sure that from now on, in every holdidays I will try my chance to see new places. Because once you try travelling, you will never give up.
And now, today is my last day with my project, with my friends in Pazardjik, Bulgaria. I am feeling that so many things about me will be changed when I go back to my country. Ofcourse I am sad now, but in the other way I am really happy because I have met so many amazing people from different countries in last two months and I am sure that i will see some of them in the future; maybe in my country, maybe in their countries. Thank you for good memories “Focus-European Center for Development”. Hope to see you again!