I can’t believe that already 8 months went away. I feel that I just arrived a few days ago. Maybe the time is running here faster or I just feel that way because I enjoy every moment and I don’t want to stop it. As I see there are two kinds of people: the first group who adore Bulgaria and the Balkans, and the second group who don’t like it at all. Fortunately, I belong to the first group. If my family and my friends would live here I would never leave Sofia any more.
I can’t say that I know everything about Sofia, I can’t say that I can speak in Bulgarian, but I already know a lot about the life here. I meet some familiar face in the street on the way to the office every day. I know the shop assistants in my neighborhood. I know the trees and bushes next to the road. I know when the sun gets up and goes down.
Sometimes I am wondering why the Bulgarian people do this or that, but it’s only because the different culture. I like to spend time with elderly Bulgarian people – especially who can speak in Hungarian or in English – because they have a lot of interesting stories from the past. I like that here I have friends from all over the world, and I can get to know different habits, different cultures here.
I have 5 very good EVS friends. They are from Lithuania, Romania, Germany, France and Hungary. Sometimes it’s very good that I have foreign friends, because we can discuss the strange Bulgarian habits and we have great time together.
With CVS-Bulgaria everything goes well, we have events almost every week like international days, movie nights, and some other important events like Volunteers’ Day, Christmas party. We moved to a new office which was kind of funny activity, like a team building game, and now we have a nice, big new office. Every week I spend a funny and very happy day in the Hungarian Institute. It’s a place for me like from the fairy tales where everybody likes me, and I love them. I just simply adore to enter into this building which is a small Hungary for me in Bulgaria. Luckily, I met Hungarian youngsters same age as me and we spend a lot of time together watching movies, going to theatre, creating some new food or discovering some unknown part of Sofia.
When I went home for Christmas a friend of mine asked me to explain her why I like my life in Sofia and to tell her one thing which is the best for me here. I couldn’t say only one thing, but if I have to name only one – I can say that the best thing is the feeling in my soul. The feeling that I am happy, that I have friends who like me and I like them, the feeling that I am a part of something good, great, and funny. This is my best year with EVS and CVS.
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The new LTV projects within the SCI International network could be found here. The administration fee is 150lv. and there is an additional deposit of 75lv, which the volunteer gets back upon completion of the project. If you like a project, please fill in the application below and send it to Natalia.
Another main goal of the seminar was to gather all the good practices shared by the participants in the topic and to organize them in a guide in mentoring youth with fewer opportunities. The guide will be in English. We have formed an international team to work on the guidebook, to design it and to print it in the next two months. End of January you can expect the guidebook published!
