O testemunho do Simone

How is it possible to resume a year of your life in a few lines? Surely it is something impossible, especially for someone like me who isn’t very good with words. The only thing I can say is that it was a FULL year, full of people who from complete strangers became friends, full of trips, full of experiences and shared stories and why not, full of food too!

I wanted this experience so bad, I remember that living all my life in this small village in Italy made me stuck in this comfort zone that was making me feeling ok but at the same time a bit unsatisfied and after my University graduation the only thing that I had in my mind was finding a way to leave my city and to experience around the world, that’s how I came across Spin and Boutique da Cultura. I took this gap year to reflect on myself and to understand what I really want to do in my life, which direction I have to take and after all this time my conclusion is that I still don’t know, but honestly is fine like this! This EVS taught me that is ok if at the age of 26 years old you are still not sure about your place in the world; good things take time and sometimes you have only to enjoy the road that takes you to them. This year I also experienced that is true that life can be unpredictable: personally I never thought to find myself on a stage acting in portuguese dressed as a green sheep, to hitchike in the middle of the Azores and end up in a rally competition, to eat pasta taken from a big plastic bottle in the darkness of fancy beach in Algarve (long story!) or even to find friends that now I consider for life.

I also never thought that I would end up to live in “Casa Anjos”, at the beginning you could not be superimpressed about this place, you could think is messy and too crowded (9 people and 2 bathrooms, just to be clear) but after some weeks I felt that this crazy flat was my home, because at the end what makes you feel at home are the people and there I met the most important people of my EVS. All of the time that we passed together will be forever a sweet memory in me, in particular when we danced the soundtrack of “High School Musical” in our livingroom, yeah that was great!

During this year I did my volunteer job in Boutique da Cultura and in this final moment of reflection I realize that I was lucky to finish there. This colorful group of people made me feel part of the team from the first moment and they never made me feel uncomfortable, despite the fact that I was speaking very little portuguese. Working in Boutique also allowed me to experiment different types of work, making this experience more dynamic: in fact, this year I found myself selling books and handicrafts in some fairs, I managed a solidary bookshop with my colleagues and I acted in a theatre play impersonating a green talking sheep.

In conclusion I want to give this suggestion to those who are unsure about the choice right now but have the desire to leave everything and get involved in these experience: go! Just do it! I know that often what keeps us at home is fear, the fear of not being ready, the fear of not being enough to be able to do everything alone and plus abroad. What I can say is that often these fears are imaginary and that probably a person will never be completely ready to leave their home for something unknown, but this is the price and at the same time the beauty of the game. Because in the end the unknown can cause anxiety, but if you take the risk it can also be what changes your life forever.