O testemunho da Agnieszka No. 3 (Viver Telheiras)

Being a volunteer can be odd. You are not a tourist, yet not a local. You are passing by but at the same time you get really involved. After some time, most of those struggles seem funny. They make good memories and valuable lessons, they make this all more precious and ours.

Most of testimonies look the same. To sum up – it was great, I learned a lot, made good friends and traveled everywhere! I loved it and can recommend long term volunteering to anyone!

The list of struggles could be endless. Mine would start with nr 1 - „communication”. Pushing the doors that were supposed to be pulled (who would though that puxe is pull...), google translating at doctors visits, actually google-translating almost everything, saying tá bem to all of the things that you did not understood hoping that was just an irrelevant small talk…

But that’s not only that. Even if you understand the language, and are able to fully express your ideas, you can not be sure that you will be understood. Finding a common ground it’s a challenge. Even despite cultural differences. Sometimes it creates funny misunderstandings, but other times, it just makes you frustrated.

The second place on my list would be „boredom”. Firstly when I realized that doing volunteering I will have more free time I just thought about traveling, meeting friends and learning new things… I expected only sunny days, full of exciting challenges at work and adventures. Well, it was not only that. Sometimes it felt that I am doing nothing and I am just wasting my time. There were days when I felt like it’s just not for me, that being somewhere for one year it’s too much and not enough at the same time.

The last one for me it’s a „failure”. Creating events, workshops that no one is interested, doing things that won’t change a thing, accidentally killing my cherry tomato plant or making the worst (almost raw and uneatable) cake in the world. There are so many things that I have failed that it could be list on its own...

Agnieszka’s testimony: 4 things I’ve learned during my volunteering in Lisbon

Although I feel like I just arrived, I am already in the middle of my volunteering project. Portuguese sun and summer vibes, as well as the close distance to the ocean, makes writing this text slow and painful process. The pleasure of describing my experience seems way less attractive than going to the beach. However, despite this unfavorable conditions of the sunny weather, I managed to write down those 4 things that I’ve learned during 4 months of my stay here:

1. You get as much, as you give

At the beginning of my volunteering adventure, I was a bit passive – I was doing things I was asked to do. At that time I was complaining a bit that I don’t have enough tasks or they are not really what I wanted. And then I decided to do something with that and be more pro-active.

Instead of asking what else I can do, I proposed my ideas. Doing this changed my experience – I realized that being here it’s an opportunity. It’s a safe place to try things that I never did before. I can experiment – do the workshops, events – and fail as many times as I have to.

The secret is to do more than you are expected. In exchange, you can receive more than you could ever think of.


2. Be open

It’s impossible to live without expectations. Starting a volunteering project, we all have some ideas on how it will look like, what will we do, what type of experience we want to have.

And most of the time, reality doesn’t meet our expectations. We can not predict life. We have to learn how to adapt to and be open about the challenges we face. Being open to new, unexpected accidents can make you see and understand a lot of things as well as create new opportunities. Sticking to your original plan can hold you back on your development, create frustration and make it less enjoyable. So let’s relax, be more open and positive about the things!

3. Slow down! It’s not only about work

After feeling a bit depressed in a phase when I didn’t have enough work to do, I realized how important „work” is in my dictionary. Life of almost all the people are dominated by work; sometimes job becomes a sense of life and the synonymous of success and growth. As my project is not connected with the career path I have chosen, I had lots of moments when I thought that being here, for so many months, is a waste of my time. I can do volunteer part-time and develop a professional career, right?

But then, having in mind the previous point, about being open, I decided that changing my focus on different things for a while can be beneficial even more than professional sucess. It’s a chance to slow down and try new things. For example I discovered that I like cooking

(all my life I thought I am the worst at it) or I came back to drawing and making collages. I woldn’t do that in „normal life”, because I am too busy to take care of my hobbies and I don’t have time to discover all that little things that makes our lives better.

4. Nothing lasts forever

Everything in this world will end at some point. Having that in mind I try to take as much as I can of my experience here. Sightseeing, exploring nature and new cultures, meeting people from all over the world. Every day it’s a possibility of experiencing something new, going out of comfort zone and learning about yourself. Having in mind that my time here is limited, I feel that I want to do all those things almost religiously.

With that being said, I am ending this post, and run to take some sun rays, eat pastel de nata and drink vinho verde! There is never too much of these – that’s for sure my favorite lesson that I’ve learned.

A testimunho da Agnieszka

„We should bathe our destinies as we do our bodies, change our lives just as we change our clothes – not to keep ourselves alive, which is why we eat and sleep, but out of the disinterested respect for ourselves which can be properly called cleanliness” 

- The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa

The „perfect” does not exist 


Lisbon. Quite small and charming capital set picturesque on the hills. Little, narrow houses are whole covered in colorful tiles which gracefully reflect the sun. The city faces the wide Tiber which slowly heads to the Atlantic Ocean. In almost every hidden corner there’s a superb park with plenty of nature which in any other place you can see only inside botanical gardens. On the trees, it’s easy to spot some parrots. Furthermore in Lisbon is rarely raining. People are cheerful, relaxed and most of the time helpful. Over the top, Portugal has one of the best cuisines in the world. Is there anything else you would like in life?



If you put it like that, it seems to be heaven on Earth, and I guess if I would show that description to myself a couple of years ago, my suitcase would be already packed and I would be ready to begin a new chapter of life in Lisbon. 
But well, this time it was not my case.



When I got accepted for my project I had a battle in my head if it’s the right thing to do.
 If I am not too young, not too old if the project will be satisfying if that’s the moment in my life when I should do this. From the beginning, I was overload with emotions and thoughts. 
And it’s nothing extraordinary. Starting a long-term volunteering project is quite a big step in life. And because it’s a „long-term” thing, you don’t want to mess up this decision and what follows - next months or „even” a year of your life.



Go to school, choose the profession, start a university… Most of our childhood and youth we are told what we should do in our lives. Sometimes the roles which are imposed on us by the family, society or the culture becomes ours. We live like there is a right time to do the things. We stop questioning life and accept everything as it is. The voice of the culture transforms into our own – now we want to achieve a professional success before 25, buy a house in the early 30s... Some unwritten manual tells us what is the right thing to do at a certain moment of our lives.


However looking for the ideal circumstances in our life to do the things, is simply wasting our time and potential.
 Because the perfect does not exist.



Looking at the Lisbon as the example – on the surface, it seems to be an amazing city, full of joy and sun. But after some time, when you switch yourself from the tourist mode, you discover also the downsides of this place. You start to see the problems and difficulties which people face here. You will have some rainy days, people being rude to you and even maybe there will be that day when you will have to eat rice with beans to survive till the end of the month.


Although, discovering all those imperfections is the perfect reason to come. Because it shows you what is under the superficial surface. It will destroy the illusion of perfect moments and perfect places.
 Nothing bad will happen if you will go one year later to the university, miss that opportunity in your professional career, or if you will not save enough money to buy yourself a car or an apartment in the future. It is not a race where you have to be the first, it’s not about finding things which are „perfect”, it’s about making all those imperfect happenings meaningful.