As I promised before - a post about my thoughts.
Yesterday was definetly a "Goodbye day". We had a meeting with the Regional Minister , who wanted to present us a gift and thank us for the voluntary work we do here (although she could make it than the event was really nice). Almost all the volunteers were there (with the exeption of Rebekka) and it was really nice but it was also the last night for me to see 4 of the volunteers for the last time as their projects had finished and they would be going home in next days ( or for a while at least as I hope to see some of them still sometime in the future).
And in general it is a "Goodbye weekend" as my On-Arrival Penguin group (group of volunteers you come to Austria at similar time period and have on-arrival and mid-term training together) is also having their goodbyes ... a lot of them finishin and also returning to home.
I did Erasmus in 2009-10 so I have the experience of both and I have to say that for me they are not the same experience. I did make a lot of friends during my Erasmus time but with EVS I gained 2 families : my Estonian-Belgian-German-Graz family and my Penguin-Austria family. If Erasmus was mostly about having fun and studing/working than EVS is about learning, taking care of each other and sharing. Thats why I would describe it as a family - as I feel being taken care, being taken without any judgment and I felt safe. And of course we also had a lot of fun :)
I think I was really lucky to have this 2 EVS families and make this connection with this people. I feel special by just being part of this groups and I will never forget them or the times we shared together. Parts of my family still stay here for me so I cannot say that it is all behind me. And parts of my families I will see soon again.
I hope the other volunteers who come after me will also find something so special from this experience and will have this support network around them.
And there is this 2 things I learned from my Belgian friend: " Don´t tell "Goodbye" , tell "See you" and "We are still together: we will only leave each other when we will stop thinking about each other" .
So people we think of will always be right next to us and they will only leave when you stop thinking of them.
So see you soon :)
Yesterday was definetly a "Goodbye day". We had a meeting with the Regional Minister , who wanted to present us a gift and thank us for the voluntary work we do here (although she could make it than the event was really nice). Almost all the volunteers were there (with the exeption of Rebekka) and it was really nice but it was also the last night for me to see 4 of the volunteers for the last time as their projects had finished and they would be going home in next days ( or for a while at least as I hope to see some of them still sometime in the future).
And in general it is a "Goodbye weekend" as my On-Arrival Penguin group (group of volunteers you come to Austria at similar time period and have on-arrival and mid-term training together) is also having their goodbyes ... a lot of them finishin and also returning to home.
I did Erasmus in 2009-10 so I have the experience of both and I have to say that for me they are not the same experience. I did make a lot of friends during my Erasmus time but with EVS I gained 2 families : my Estonian-Belgian-German-Graz family and my Penguin-Austria family. If Erasmus was mostly about having fun and studing/working than EVS is about learning, taking care of each other and sharing. Thats why I would describe it as a family - as I feel being taken care, being taken without any judgment and I felt safe. And of course we also had a lot of fun :)
I think I was really lucky to have this 2 EVS families and make this connection with this people. I feel special by just being part of this groups and I will never forget them or the times we shared together. Parts of my family still stay here for me so I cannot say that it is all behind me. And parts of my families I will see soon again.
I hope the other volunteers who come after me will also find something so special from this experience and will have this support network around them.
And there is this 2 things I learned from my Belgian friend: " Don´t tell "Goodbye" , tell "See you" and "We are still together: we will only leave each other when we will stop thinking about each other" .
So people we think of will always be right next to us and they will only leave when you stop thinking of them.
So see you soon :)
