Balancing Act: Navigating the Rewards and Challenges of Volunteering

Hello, it's me again! Last time I shared a few of my thoughts that you can have as a volunteer. I think I've reached the point in the volunteer project where you sometimes only see the negative sides and things don't always go so well.

I would just like to share my experiences and thoughts from the last month with you. Because I think if you decide to do a voluntary year then you also think about the things that might go wrong, but sometimes they are things that you can change and solve very easily. Meaning I want to show you the downside, but also show you that sometimes it's not totally horrible right away.

So the last month was quite hard for me again, I cannot name the problem directly. I guess it was different stuff at the same time that made me upset sometimes. I was homesick most of the time, so if you ever want to do a volunteering year don‘t feel bad or be mad at yourself. It is quite normal to have these kind of emotion during this big experience. For me it was really hard sometimes because my family and my bestfriend are visiting me during spring. So I was so focused on the fact that my people are coming and that I can show them my life here in Georgia. Because of this I couldn‘t enjoy the time I have here now. And yeah most of the time I couldn‘t enjoy my daily life here in Georgia because it didn't always work that well and this was difficult for all of us and also demotivating. But at the same time we were together and we still tried to spend our time in the best way we could.

For example, we all went to an opera together and saw the play Carmen. For me it was really nice. It was also my first opera I ever went to. When I was young, I watched the ballet ``black swan`` with my mother together, but an opera I never saw. Afterwards, we went to Daphne in Tbilisi and ate khinkali and khachapuri together. I really enjoyed this Sunday and it helped me to distract myself from thinking too much about things and people I miss in Germany.

So I can give you some advice, for real don‘t feel bad or see things too negative sometimes. It is totally normal to feel weird or sad sometimes, but please don‘t see everything as negative. If you want to do a volunteering year do it! Don‘t stop yourself because you are scared from being upset sometimes. I made so many new experiences here and I am so proud of myself. I noticed in the last two months more and more what big progress I made personally. And it is about so many different things. I learned how to live on my own, I have to make my own food and manage my daily life without the help of my mother. In addition, I made such a big progress in speaking English with other people and when I was still at school, I couldn't imagine living for a year in another country with foreign people, a foreign language and alone. To speak in English for the whole day was a wish from the young Charlotte but I could never think that it would be reality at one point in my life.

But ok enough with the sentimental stuff, I also want to share some other things I did this month. I really recommend distraction if you‘re not feeling well. So on another weekend we went Ice skating. Finally! It was quite nice, yeah we complained a bit much about how bad the skates were and that it was so crowded and all this stuff but on the bright side we spent time together and had fun.

I am also really happy that I can go to different partner organisations. Twice in the week I am going to German class in a public school with Anias.And in the beginning of the last month his girlfriend joined us and could meet them too. They were so happy to meet her and also ask her questions in German. After this week Keti the German teacher came with two classes to the Scout Center and I helped her to make a fun short lesson where they learned the animals in German. It was really nice and another nice experience I made during my volunteering year.

I hope I didn‘t bore you with this, maybe a bit of a negative topic, but also hope I could give you a small insight also on the downside of volunteering. The next chapter is probably about our mid-term evaluation, which we will have at the end of March.

So if you don't want to miss the next experiences, stay tuned!

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