ESC Spanish team in Katowice!
Hello everybody or maybe we should say… Cześć wszystkim! 😊
Here we are Clara, Juanjo and Jose Manuel. We all together form the Spanish ESV team for the year 2020-2021 in the city of Katowice and we wanted to share with you our experiences and feelings about our first days.
You may wonder, what is our role in the EVS and how we ended up volunteering so far from Spain. As a summary we could say that our mission in Bona Fides is to promote tolerance and solidarity among the Polish people. However, the answer is much more complicated than we could explain in just a few pages, but if you are really interested in the work of a volunteer in the EVS, we challenge you to follow us on social networks and follow up the publications about other volunteers’ experiences in this country.
So, if you want to know how the life of the volunteer is, and our first feelings and impressions about this interesting Polish city you should keep reading!
I arrived at Katowice at dawn, the airport practically empty. They picked us up at the station and took us to what would be our new, small and cozy apartment. I slept soundly the first night.
Compared to the trip, full of anxiety, fatigue and uncertainty, the first day was an explosion of energy and new encouragement. The fear that I thought I would have, disappeared when I met the members of the organization, with whom I would work throughout the year. The constant support made me feel integrated and secure, part of a team before I even started working as such.
Katowice is full of life, with people to meet and places to discover. I’ve only been here a week and I already know it’s going to be one of the best experiences I’ll ever have.
Clara
I left Madrid accompanied by fear and uncertainty with the thought that nothing was going to be the same again. Even with having travelled just a few days on this long odyssey, I can assure you that Katowice can easily become your home.
These days have served me to realize that, a good attitude combined with the desire to discover new experiences can become a good engine to discover new routines while consolidating old habits in a place that at first, seems so different but similar at the same time.
Thanks to the desire to reinvent and to know and learn about the city and myself, I can affirm without any doubt that volunteering is not so much a set of activities but rather a way of life.
Jose Manuel
Since I left home, I have had many different feelings, but I could summarize them in emotion and ambition.
It is a challenge for me to have left my comfort zone, to see how I develop myself living in a country with different languages and cultures, to belong to a work team with different profiles and to test my transversal skills. All this with the objective of growing as a person and contributing with my grain of sand in Bona Fides.
Before I arrived here, I had read about the multiculturalism of the city but until that I haven’t been able to understand it: people from different countries, willing to get to know you and help you with whatever you need.
I’ve only been in Katowice for a few days but I’m sure I’m going to fall in love with the city and everything that surrounds it. I’m sure that I will take advantage of every moment and every opportunity I have, with the attitude of “yes to everything”.
Juanjo