The story of Daisy Bareham:

It’s strange to think that my time here in Blagoevgrad is almost over. I’m really excited to spend Christmas at home with my friends and family and settle back down in to work, but two months is such a short time and there is so much more I wish I could have done, and so much that I am going to miss when I am gone.

At ABS, I’ve really enjoyed building upon my facilitation skills. As well as contributing to regular Chat Clubs, I designed and delivered an interactive workshop for young people and have learned to adapt my facilitation style for a multinational audience. I designed and created digital content to promote these events on social media, a skill and hobby which I will carry with me moving forward. As the only native English speaker here, I’ve been able to assist in writing and translating for professional and informal purposes. I also learned more about the European Union and increased my understanding of funding, project coordination and proposals. Despite being here during ongoing delays of Britain exiting the EU, I’ve never felt more like a European citizen.

Living and working with the same group of people 24/7 was always going to be challenging, especially for an introvert, but I’ve been fortunate to be able to do this with such a wonderfully diverse, funny and compassionate team of volunteers, and have built friendships which I hold very dear. Additionally, I’ve experienced a great amount of kindness from strangers, who have made me feel welcome in their country and gone out of their way to help me when I’ve been lost, making their best efforts to communicate with me despite the language barrier. This has reaffirmed my belief that the majority of people are well-intentioned, and it pays to trust in this.

As a more experienced volunteer, I am approaching this placement from a different perspective to my peers, but I have learned a lot about myself. I have practiced patience and greatly improved my communication skills with people at varying degrees of English. I’ve learned that I favour nature and landscapes while traveling, as opposed to architecture and history like some of my friends. I have gained a different type of independence that I hadn’t been able to achieve through any of my previous experiences. As such, I now feel confident to travel alone – but have also learnt that sometimes the experience is richer for sharing it with others. I’m grateful to have had opportunities to do both here.

I’ve visited several different places in Bulgaria, including hiking in the beautiful Seven Rila lakes and wine tasting in the country’s smallest town Melnik. But it’s not just Bulgaria that I’ve been able to experience. With my new travel companions, I’ve been able to explore some of North Macedonia, see a ballet in Vienna State Opera House, and boat around Istanbul. I’ve squeezed so much into the past two months and I’m exhausted, but I’ve had some of the best experiences of my adult life, creating memories that I know will live with me forever.

I’ll leave you with a piece of advice from my time here – hold on to your youth for as long as possible and take advantage of opportunities that are offered to you. Better yet, don’t just wait for them to be offered, seek them out!

The story of Manon Besacier:

How to summarise 2 months full of meetings and trips in just one short article?
It's impossible, even if I talk with someone else about my volunteering it will never show the happiness that this experience brought to me.

My volunteering is filled with first times: I hitchhiked to go to Plovdiv and Sofia, I went to a night club, I played pool, I lived with people that I never met before and I had my first conversations in English!
The chat club that we organized every Thursday was the opportunity to meet Bulgarian people and students from the university. Thanks to this event I met a Bulgarian guy to whom I gave French classes once or twice a week, a very nice experience.
We are lucky to have so many countries that you can visit all around Bulgaria. It allows me to discover the beauty of North Macedonia whereas I didn't know this country at all before coming here. I fell in love with Istanbul, a city in Turkey that has so much charm and history. I also visited different places in Bulgaria: Plovdiv - probably the most beautiful city in Bulgaria, Melnik which is a little town where they make wine, and Rila's mountains.

Melnik
All of my travels were also wonderful thanks to the other volunteers who now are close friends. I never imagined that it was possible to create such powerful ties with another language and that the world opposes. The main positive point to do this kind of experience is after you have a lot of friends all around the world.

This is the end of this travel but the start of new ones to meet again the volunteers. I hope that I will see you in your own countries guys :)

The story of Alexandre Maalej:

This is the second time* I have a chance to reflect on everything happening to me during the short-term EVS in Blagoevgrad. Today is my last day in Bulgaria, tomorrow morning I’ll be on the plane, back in France after 2 months away.

2 months far from everything I knew, from everyone I know. It has been 2 months full of emotions (good and bad), meetings, passionate discussions, leaps of faith, tea, beer, and gin & tonic. After a short period at my arrival when I had to find new habits, marks; everything accelerated and went so fast… I can not believe I’m already leaving!

Here, I had time to travel a bit (we managed to go to Vienna). I had time to meet people from other organizations, and students from the university. I know that I’ll stay in contact with them!
I had also time to focus on myself and think about my future projects. Projects that will become reality once I’ll be home thanks to the motivation I got from being a part of this EVS project.

It was also a great opportunity to live with other people and to discover myself as well in such a new environment. I changed my vision about life in the community, and I know that everything can go well if you take the time to talk and discover each personality you’re living with!

*see the article « Short Term Volunteers in Blagoevgrad - Alexandre & Hermeland »

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