Did i say goodbye?

In the very first article where I needed to describe my first impressions of Craiova, I mentioned that I always take too long thinking how to write a good start. Well, imagine how hard was now, when I needed to think of a good start while describing an ending story. Anyway, I will try to put my hard emotions aside and give an objective picture on what does it mean to be an EVS volunteer.

Being a person that doesn’t jump into decisions that easily, I had some difficulties deciding whether to do EVS or not. Well, the decision I took is clearly obvious and since I am coming to the end of my six months EVS experience and I think I have some competence to give a little help regarding this question.

So, if new challenges are what are you searching for, if you want to get to know yourself better, to get out of your comfort zone, do it. If you want to become a more open-minded person and discard prejudices, to get a better and real picture of other cultures and lifestyles, to change something in the environment with your experiences and skills, do it. If you want to make a difference and you are ready to learn continuously, do it.

And once you think “Okay I am ready, let’s do it”, other questions may accidentally come to your mind. As an economist, I always take the opportunity cost in consideration. Having that in mind, I chose to invest my time and other resources and come to Romania to be an EVS volunteer.

Did I have some benefit? If saying the words “experience of a lifetime” is not enough, I would try to make the picture clearer. I’ve got the opportunity to live abroad, in a country that I didn’t know much about before, surrounded by people from a lot of different countries that I knew more or less about it. With some of those people I’ve built a friendship which I deeply believe is not going to fade only because we are not going to see each other that often. I had a realization of a dream that I had from when I was a little kid – to be a teacher. And as much as I want to cut the list for practical reasons, I can’t skip to mention that being here helped me to be more understanding with the others and with myself, to appreciate more, to listen more, to learn more, to enjoy more.

And it wouldn’t be fair from my side if I just give you the positive side of the picture. To be honest, as we all know, there is a risk in every decision. As there will be ups, you will also have your downs. Missing your family and friends, facing a lack of motivation, expectations not meeting with reality, cultural shock are some of the most common difficulties that you may experience during your EVS. Overcoming the hard periods may not be easy, but once you do it makes you feel more confident in yourself, which makes worth having them.

In short terms, that’s my glance on EVS. So, my dear friend if you are having doubts making this decision I hope that I was a little help for you :-)

And right after I had congratulated myself on having finished the article without involving my hard emotions as I said I would try to do, there they came. It didn’t feel like it’s complete without having said how much I will miss my life in here. How much I’ve got used to everything here – to call Craiova my city, to consider Caracal house as my home, Romanians as my people. How much I loved going to school and teaching my students on the importance of having good manners and habits for reading books. How happy I was every time when we met with other volunteers and talked about everything, learned from each other, traveling together and celebrating birthdays and other important days together…

Some of my best memories in life are made here, my favourite place (Romanescu park) which i still didn’t have chance to see it in spring Is also here, people that I would like to see again live here. It’s more than enough to make me think – Is this just a temporary goodbye?