Is volunteering worth it?

Is volunteering worth it?

Absolutely! When I listened to former volunteers speaking of their volunteering experience as one of the best times of their lives, I honestly was not that much convinced that it is really that awesome. But here I am now, and I can absolutely agree and wish for everyone having the opportunity to go abroad after school, even only for 2 months, to do so! I figured out that it is not at all only about the work you do here, but everything that is happening also next to it. I have spent 10 months so far in Nagyvázsony, I almost reached the end of my 1 year ESC experience here in Hungary and I absolutely don’t want August to arrive, when I am going to leave. I have enjoyed every day so far, even that there were some bad days, too, but they just made me appreciate the good days even more, helped me to evolve and so I do not want to miss them. But what is it that made this experience so amazing for me? It is hard to put everything into words, but it already started with the very first day here in the country by living the first time without my parents and instead with 3 complete strangers from 3 different countries.

Eva, my flatmate from Estonia, was one of those strangers and thinking about her I just cannot believe at all that we haven’t even known each other one year ago. I can already tell that without her I couldn’t imagine an experience nearly as good as it has been so far. We went through so much together. A few days ago, we sat outside during the night, talked about everything and realized how strong our friendship has become in such a short period of time and how much we are glad to have each other. I really found a friend for life. And then there are the youngsters, our “tesó’s” from the youth center and around. We learned so much about Hungary because of them and of course, spending time with them made us improve our Hungarian in a much quicker way than without them. Seeing them nearly every day is very motivating to understand more day by day. I love all of them and I can’t imagine to not seeing them everyday anymore once I am back in Germany.

And the last major thing I’d like to mention is my work I did in the elementary school here in Nagyvázsony. I loved working together with the German teachers and the children in the lessons. Especially helping them with their homework in the afternoons was always so funny and really brought me closer to them. I am going to miss all of them and hope, I can come back to visit them in a few years to see how they developed. Also, this work helped me to decide that once I returned back to Germany, I want to study at university to become a teacher for English and French. And for sure, I want to continue my Hungarian language studies and hope that I can find a good opportunity to do so. And this is all so far. I want to enjoy the last 2 months here as much as possible, but on the same time I am also excited for a new chapter in my life, starting from September.

Liza Kutowiszky