Son.

April is always a strange month. For some reason it brings some chaos and very unexpected events in our lives. During my volunteering project it was not an exception. And since it was the last month of my project, it was even more special.

At the beginning of the month my friends-volunteers and I decided to go to Istanbul before a new lockdown. This big city is never failing at making us fall in love with it and help to get some inspiration. To be honest, we got tired and our work became slower. That’s why sometimes it’s a good idea to escape Ankara and feel like a tourist in Turkey again. In some cases, though, it’s not possible anymore. After few months spent here, we just absorbed this culture and lifestyle. And this is something I find really beautiful about my volunteering experience. I am happy to know why is it so important to know “the guy” in Turkey, the meaning of “kanka” and the importance of tea drinking and dedikodu with friends. This is a unique and great experience.

In April we also had some changes in our activities. As I said, we got tired at the end. Since we knew well our job and some members of the team started to work on their own future projects, we slowed down. The food delivery was growing, we even had the opportunity to meet the minister of youth and sport who thanked us for our job, but still.. we kept doing our job, but abstracted away a little bit. It is normal, everything comes to an end.  

Our Turkish classes became more chill as well. We were mostly translating texts, dialogues, having some interesting conversations in Turkish. And we felt the progress. I am writing this at the airport already, finishing another little book in Turkish. Proud of us, really! Now be careful when you speak in Turkish around us, we will understand you! Yabanci sounds offensive at this point, abi!

Ieva and I were very determined to write our last project together. When the new lockdown started, we had enough time to work together on it. Let’s see whether it’s gonna be implemented or not. It would be great to see young people participating in it, I swear, like you see your kid growing up. We’re sorry in advance if it’s boring, we tried our best to make it entertaining and useful! 

All the other activities slowed down a bit too, but April was also a month of results. We started to think more and more about our future plans and about the knowledge/skills we’ve got after volunteering. I decided to work on my personal project. This was the time I realized that I had a deeper cultural experience in Turkey during these 6 months, than I had during my 3 years of studies in Hungary before. And I also realized, that ESC gave me the opportunity to become more confident, which I needed for starting this project alone. Before I would never do that..

I’m grateful for my new friends, amazing mentors and all other good people I met on my way here. I’m grateful for being able to see and help people, understand better their issues and learn about different ways to provide help, to make changes. I’m grateful for all the challenges that I faced during this project. It became an important part of my life and it will have a huge impact on my future.

Hopefully, I’ll see you soon in other projects. For now, I need some time to “digest” all these things and prepare myself for the next chapter of my life. Bye-bye!