It has been more than seven months since my adventure in Croatia began. This is my first time in Croatia, my first international volunteering and the first time I live in another country. It has been an intense seven months, because I felt everything intensely, new people, new culture, new language. But I can say that I enjoyed every second of my service here and hope I will enjoy till the end of it.
At first, I had a little trouble adjusting because I didn’t know a lot of people and the COVID restrictions were quite strict which overwhelmed me a little bit because I’m a person who likes to move and I felt immobilized, but then I started to travel as much as possible and that’s when I met other international volunteers.
The best gift Croatia has given me is the people I have met, both Croatian nationals and other international volunteers. My relationship with other volunteers is great and we usually spend most of the weekends together. I met them a few weeks after coming here, at the first volunteer training, and we have been inseparable ever since. I have met volunteers from Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Bosnia, etc. Also, the fact of living close to Zagreb allowed me to meet Erasmus people from all over Europe. My volunteer friends are great, and we usually visit Croatia together, we visited a lot of Croatian cities and places like Osijek, Vukovar, Split, Zadar, Split, Plitvice Lakes, Karlovac or Zagreb; museums like the museum of illusions; we tried the traditional food like bučnica and štrudla and we enjoyed a lot learning about Croatian´s history and culture.
We have a great time when we are together because we have so many things in common, maybe that’s why we’re all in Croatia. Also, my friends at Zabok are great and we spend a lot of time together, they are trying to make me have the best time here and they’re really good at that.
About my organization, my relationship with them is pretty good, they work and we work as a small family, I can count on them for what I need, and they always give their best to make me happy and comfortable here. They help me in all my activities and teach me how to perform my duties correctly.
Zagor is a youth association, so the activities I do are for young people between the age of 15-30. I teach Spanish, write articles, and edit videos and posts for social networks, go to workshops and intercultural meetings with high school students. Doing those activities allowed me to get new skills like learn English and Croatian, be more able to speak in public, learn how to teach Spanish and organize the time of the classes, edit videos and learn how to create a personal project.
It is being a very interesting and beautiful experience that I recommend to all young people who wants to experience a new adventure, learn a new language, live in another country or leave their comfort zone.
Autorica teksta: Sukaina El Yousfi Agzennay, dugoročna volonterka Mreže udruga Zagor
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Članak je napisan u sklopu projekta “Dva volontera za lokalnu zajednicu 2.0”. Projekt je financiran u okviru Europskih snaga solidarnosti, Volonterski projekti.
