December ends on a sweet note with the holiday season...
For me, it marks
the end of my second month of volunteering at ISCRustavi in Georgia. It has
been a very busy month: lots of discoveries, encounters, learning, but also
some more complicated moments.
All in all, it has
been anything but a restful month!
First of all, I am
very happy that this month was filled with summer camps and children's
laughter.
Children's camps
are clearly one of the main reasons why I chose this volunteer program: when I
was a child, I loved going to summer camp. I saw it as a kind of magic: in one
week, I felt like I had lived a whole year! And in just a few hours, complete strangers
became lifelong friends, like members of my family, friends for life, but only
for a week. This is one of the reasons why I trained for childcare in France
and decided to run summer camps myself.
In December, we
finally started planning, organizing, and running camps with the association.
It was the first time I had been so involved in the organizational side of
things: planning, preparation, logistics, and all the technical aspects that I
had never really done before. I learned a lot, even if it wasn't always easy.
We organized a
one-day camp for children aged 8 to 12, and a three-day camp in Manglisi for
teenagers. It was also the first time I had participated in a camp exclusively
for teenagers. It was a very enriching experience, both because it was a
different audience and because these young people have a different culture from
mine.
It allowed me to
really interact with young adults from the region, to better understand their
concerns, their school system, their ideas, and their history. I think I was
lacking this (lively) perspective of children/young adults in my attempt to
understand this new country, which I had only encountered through the boring
lines of Wikipedia pages and press articles.
Speaking of
boredom (a real problem for me): office work
Alongside these
very positive experiences, the periods of office work were a little complicated
for me, who—let's be honest—tried to escape the classrooms by taking refuge in
the Caucasus. It's true that this is a job I would like to be better at, but I don't
enjoy doing it and I think I'm very bad at it... I found that this month there
were a lot of demands, a lot of responsibilities, things to manage, tight
deadlines, and pressure that I sometimes found difficult to cope with.
Teamwork wasn't
always easy either. Not all decisions made sense to me so I got a bit confused.
The gray weather,
the cold winter, and the move from the office to two houses away (no more walks
in the morning): all of this combined also affected my moral. Traveling and
going out were a great help!
Discovering my
host country
December was also a
month of travel. After going to Armenia the previous month, I had the
opportunity to discover more of Georgia, hitchhiking with two other volunteers.
Borjomi,
Akhaltsikhe, Bakuriani, the Kutaisi region, and Adjara. Even though the ski
season hadn't started yet, the trip was well worth it.
My favorite place
in Georgia so far: a sulfur spring nestled in a valley in Nokalakevi! A
wonderful setting, a hot waterfall flowing into the icy river water, and a
chance to meet some great people!
Hitchhiking allowed
us to meet many Georgian people, who told us about their country, its history,
current events, religion, music, culture, and food. From Borjomi to Batumi (a
brightly lit, almost surreal city that gave me the impression of discovering a
totally different world), lots of different people satisfied my curiosity about
this country.
Along the way, we
spent nights in tents in the cold, stayed in luxurious hotels in Batumi,
guesthouses, and with local residents. My best evening so far was at a
guesthouse in a small village near Vardzia. The owner served us the best meal
of my trip: a real homemade feast with delicious farm products!
Let’s go back to
Rustavi: another new experience
I also gave my very
first Spanish class to absolute beginner children. It was a real challenge for
me, and I wasn't sure I could do it. But I'm happy to be back after the
holidays because I really wanted to teach Spanish, as it's a language that
fascinates me and that I love very much.
End-of-year
celebrations
As the end-of-year
celebrations approached, I had the opportunity to return to Armenia. I spent
Christmas there with other volunteers on December 24/25 (according to European
traditions).
I met many people,
including Armenian volunteers, who told me about their traditions, their
culture, and their country. I found these conversations very interesting:
Armenia strikes me as a country that is very attached to traditions, where
young people—and especially young women—have a lot of responsibilities.
I also had the
chance to speak my language with the other French-speaking volunteers present
and to discuss shared interests such as languages, photography, animals, and
birds.
After Christmas, I
also took the time to travel alone, hitchhiking alone for the first time. I saw
snow, visited Yerevan, and took some time for myself so I could return to
Rustavi feeling calmer and more peaceful.
I ended the month
by spending all my savings on a skiing trip, which was the perfect start to
2026!
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