“The hard path”
I am going to be honest with you all. Those months of my project have been hard ones, mostly because of the pandemic restrictions which were strict here in Slovakia. The last winter was long too and for the most of people, especially for a southern Greek, it has been also hard mentally. But the whole of the experience so far is not taking a negative sign, I would say it was and still is a period of reflection and realization. I definitely had the time and peace to think about what I want in life, about what counts for me in life, actually about life itself. I can tell you that I became a different person, my dreams and goals are change for the better, having actual more meaning.
The experience of an ESC project is changed a lot because of the current hygienic crisis. ESC is about living abroad, working and interact with new cultures, peoples and ideas. Traveling is also a big part of it, in order to create an active person, an active citizen is important to see and experience how big and diverse the word is. Is a life changing opportunity blessing you with a wider view. The project now is changed a lot all the interaction and the intercultural aspect is quite gone, the online connections work bad to some extent.
It is the end of April now and I am already at the half of my project here and now that spring is here and summer is closer the measurements against the covid-19 crisis are becoming loser. Nature is blooming as the mentality of the people. We hope for better days and I believe they are coming!
My project is a volunteering work at a kindergarten called Hlavicka and is been great. Great collaboration professionally and beyond that. It has been the best choise I could make as it never failed me, it has always keeping me energetic and creative, happy and focused on my tasks.
I would like to close with a quote that I found out during the lockdown and I felt that is really liberating to any kind of problems arising. Is a quote from the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and it goes like this…
“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
Text a foto: Ioannis Chatzidakis
Ioannis je dobrovoľník na projekte Európske zbory solidarity v detskom centre Hlavička. Projekt bol podporený z projektu EÚ Európsky zbor solidarity.