O testemunho da Alina

“I want my every  day to be new and different from the previous one, so that I discover something new every day, and I want to travel every day”. I thought in my room in my country when I accidentally saw this EVS project in Lisbon. And now, when I want to share my story and feelings about my EVS life and do the opposite look,  I am amazed that everything was exactly the same as I wanted. Now I can’t even believe that the end has come of my EVS and I also needs to pack.

My EVS was for one year, but time spilled so fast that I did not even have time to look back. It seems everyone knows this feeling, doesn’t it? It seems, like it was yesterday, when everything was interesting, new, unusual for me. It has been a year of my life in Portugal, but until now almost everything here is still interesting and new for me, there are still a lot of places that I want visit and have not visited yet.

 They say that “your homee is where you were born”. But why then every time when  I was coming back   from another trip to Lisbon, I was telling  me that “ I’m at home again” and I felt that I was at home. Why, right now, when I am writing about this, I feel sad and want to cry. Why, since  my  first days in Lisbon, I felt me at home. Probably the whole world  is our home and we can feel ourselves at home espechially  in the places, where we are comfortable, where we feel the energy of the home and the heart feels  good. Lisbon became my second home, and sometimes I feel  it is  my first home.

The smell of Portuguese coffee and pastel de nata’s, the smell of the ocean, with which I became very close, the Miradouro’s, who I so passionately sought to clymb from my first days in Lisbon and still there are attractive for me.

Probably all EVS volunnteers write at the end of their project,  that it changed their life. But the truth is that my EVS also changed my life. More precisely, this experience changed a lot in me, in my views on life, my principles, lifestyle, language barriers, style of communication with people. Thanks to EVS, to my coordinating organization and of course to my Hosting  organization,  where I worked for one year, I learned a lot and opened myself  in a new way, brought new challenges in the professional sphere and in the personal sphere as well, made me learn a lot about myself and to work on myself.

There isn’t even enough pages to count how many things my IVS has given me, how many I have learned, what ideas and new plans for life this amazing project has given me.

I was going to work in the same field where I worked before my EVS: with children with special needs (I have 7 years of experience). It seemed that there was probably nothing more to learn about this sphere, but it only seemed so. And now, having summed up, I realized how many things I discovered for myself in a professional  way, how many new skills I received and managed to realize myself in many projects. During my EVS, I was able to do:

– establish contact with the boy with Autism, overcome language, cultural barriers, get closer to him, to teach him new things and make a Art  project: Personal exhibition at the school where we worked together. This was my personal Art Theraphy project, according which I was working in that school , especially with this boy who has a talent for drawing. The project was very successful and for the school, and for the boy and his family, and for me too.

– In my Coordinating  organization, I organized Yoga Classes with volunteers and with everyone who was interested in the practice of Yoga. I had another interesting and cool experience, that gave me new skills.

-I had an interesting experience of traveling. It was and remains the most magical, emotional, amazing experience in all my life, full of meetings with amazing beautiful and good people, with whom I managed to make friends, full of crazy adventures, that taught me a lot, and of course full of a lot of new knowledge  in general , about new, interesting places. I can say I traveled a lot during my EVS and which is most important  I enjoyed it (started of discovering Latin America` Brazil and finishing travelling  inside of the country` in Portugal).

-in cultural and personal terms, in a new way  I opened myself up. I  acquired a lot of new habits and hobbies of life, such as surfing, Capoeira, drinking Portuguese coffee and making typical sweets,  discovering new insanely beautiful beaches in Portugal. I also learned to communicate with people from different countries, with different outlooks on life, with a different culture, I have made a lot of good and interesting friends.

I am grateful to everyone who was in my life during the period of my 1 year life in the amazing beautiful and magical city of Lisbon. This was the best year of my life, which is probably never can be forgotten. And I’m not  saying goodbye to  Lisbon, I would like to say see you very soon my pretty and lovely city. I’m going back with little sadness, but full of a lot of important “personal  luggage”,  with pleasant emotions.

I’m saying good buy also all the EVS people, who were near me here and with me and who gave me something or a lot of things. I’m very thankfull all of them: take care of the Lisbon and enjoy your EVS, beijinhos)).