European Awareness- what it means for a EVS ?

Yesterday I had again my monthly Evaluation. We talked about a lot of topics and I will write here some of the thoughts.

One of the most interesting topics we touched was being a European citizen and having European Awareness. I´ll start by writing about how did we come to this topic.

It all started with just one question: " How do I see the next 4 years for myself? "

I had been thinking of that lately. I guess it is the question for every EVS volunteer - "What will be next? ".
Estonia is a small country with just 1,29 million people and 45,227 km(2). From the list below you can see some of the countries that are bigger or smaller in size comparing to Estonia .. and then think of their population.

24) Lithuania: 25,174 square miles (65,200 sq km)

25) Latvia: 24,937 square miles (64,589 sq km)

26) Croatia: 21,831 square miles (56,542 sq km)

27) Bosnia and Herzegovina:19,741 square miles (51,129 sq km)

28) Slovakia:18,859 square miles (48,845 sq km)

29) Estonia: 17,462 square miles (45,226 sq km)

30) Denmark: 16,638 square miles (43,094 sq km)

31) Netherlands: 16,033 square miles (41,526 sq km)

32) Switzerland: 15,942 square miles (41,290 sq km)

33) Moldova: 13,067 square miles (33,843 sq km)

34) Belgium: 11,780 square miles (30,510 sq km)

What I want to say is that from inside it looked so much more bigger than now from outside. The cities felt bigger, the systems felt more right, the way of living felt like "the way everyone else does it" .   After travelling so much and living abroad I just see in a sense how much more limited things are for me when I am born in a small country. Jes, small is not always bad and even not in this case. I love Estonia. 

But actually "the way everyone else does it " is more like " the way estonians do it " . Being abroud and meetin all these people from other countries have made me feel other possibilities to live, other options, other mentalities that I didn´t know existed before. For example, the way austrians live is so much less stressful than estonians - ( of course , they also have a lot of holidays to rest and Sundays most people don´t work). Or how the "hot-blooded" italian or spanish people are so heartwarming and open from the first meetin and don´t need so much time to dare to be totally themselves from the first moment. 

Or what led me to write this entry ... the European dimension- or like seeing myself work in a European Federation. Maybe for a while full time, maybe split the time with Estonia, maybe once in a while. 

But the "maybe" in my thoughts is what surprised me as it has been "no" for most of the times. 

Afraid to making friends here knowing I will leave, being afraid that I will lose those who I left behind because I am not there. Most of these fears have been unfounded. I miss some things - some good times and some bad times but I can be that also for the people here. 

And my family and friends will not lose - they will just get a more happier me, maybe just abit different one. My family and friends won´t maybe see me that often but when they do - the appriciation and quality of the time will be so much higher : ) Being here has made me relalise : it is not about the  quantity ( how many times we meet) but quality (what we make of the one time we do meet ).