EVS Stories: My EVS days (IV) – by Belinda Ihily

My EVS life is about activities, children, students and teachers. Also, it is about international and local volunteers, coordinators and mentors. These are actually the people that I am with or meet all the time.

My EVS days are not the same. Sometimes, I wake up with a lot of motivation and other days, like a zombie, I mean I’m awake, but still sleeping. For example, on Monday’s and Wednesday’s I have to wake up early and go to the train. In these days, I’m tired in the morning, on the way I walk slowly, that’s why I said before that some days I wake up like a zombie. But, I have this feeling only until I meet my team, the children I work with.

When I see them (the children from the village), I start getting motivated because of the way they make me feel, which is happy. They are so funny and so cute that I cannot resist. They make my days!

Even if sometimes it’s hard, for example when I have to communicate with the 0 grade or the children from the kindergarten. When I speak with them, we mix English and Romanian, we talk with gestures or we draw to better understand each other.

What I like about the EVS it’s that I have all the time something to do. I’m always thinking, for example, what I will do tomorrow, which activities I will prepare, or -oh!- I have to do this, to do that etc. Also, I like non-formal education because I can use different methods to teach. Sometimes, when I implement the activities, I feel that children get energy from me. But, at the end of the day, even if I am tired, I am happy to spend and use my energy with and for them.

To conclude, I just want to say that my EVS days are like the weather (some are sunny, other are rainy) or like the rollercoaster, but it’s all the time the happiness that wins.

Belinda Ihily (New Caledonia) is hosted in Baia Mare by Team for Youth Association, in the “Life Skills for Rural Education” project, a European Voluntary Service, financed by the European Commission, through the Erasmus Plus Program.