2 months of adventure..

I'm almost in the 2nd month of my ESC project but some moments it felt more, others were like blink of an eye. I graduated from veterinary medicine about 6 months ago. After checking the ESC website almost everyday for months, the day I graduated was the day I got accepted to my project. I'm the outdoorsy kind. So having a chance to work in nature sounded like a dream come true. But right after dreaming there was 4 months of bureaucracy induced reality check and learning how to deal with that got me to Bratislava. As soon as I came here I got my survival guide to Slovakia.I met with other volunteers in Bratislava (I'm living with some of them).

Then I worked a little without a schedule (bird watching with ornithologist, zoo with veterinarians,botanical garden with ecologists) you know “the boring 9-5”. Then I went to On-arrival training, got some more useful info about how to spend my time here, and met with other volunteers around Slovakia. Discovered awesome landscapes and nature. And here I'm trying to write about my experience.

So far it's fog and it's good... Literally.

So far I feel lucky, finding people to play games with, being able to have walks around a lake 5 minutes to my house, having my first Christmas in this country, coming across random people jamming at the old market hall...  It's fun as it sounds. I have my thrilling rush and giving feedbacks to my two organizations in Turkey and Slovakia monthly to not get lost under the spell of the new country. Because it's easy to be charmed by the cute streets of Old town, new world views of warm hearted people of the cold city. One can forget to explore themself when there is so much stimuli. Afterall I came here to get a break, little breathing time from my busy schedule to decide what branch I want to jump next     (like a little monkey). And my organizations and ESC programme are helping me stay on track, trying to provide as stable an environment as possible. Like we recently had a coaching session and multiple people told they didn't know they needed it.

Communication is the key! That's what I am doing here and that's what we are trying to focus on where there is so much cultural, geographical,linguistic difference but you'd be surprised to see how similar expectations are when people find things called respect and friendships. If you are interested you can keep following this website to see what opportunities BDC has or you can look at ESC's website to see all other opportunities in all other programme countries. You can even be able to find some opportunities by googling the “subject you are interested in+ESC”. That´s a little extra helpful tip. If you are between 18-30 I think this is something you shouldn't miss. 

Text a foto: Ezgi Dilan Safak

Ezgi je dobrovoľníčka programu Európsky zbor solidarity na projekte v organizácii Štátna ochrana prírody. Projekt bol podporený z projektu EÚ Európsky zbor solidarity.