The year of my metamorphosis

I am Carmen, a Spaniard with a degree in Audiovisual Communication who is still looking for her place in the world. From the point of view of more or less half of my volunteering, my experience has changed over time. It all starts from the moment you are accepted. In my case I was ecstatic, because I had been wanting a change in my life for a long time, and finally, all the efforts I put into looking for a volunteering materialized into the right opportunity for me. I left behind a job that was consuming me, I made an express move and it was one of the strangest and most stressful Christmas holidays of my life, but at all times the predominant feeling was joy and desire. I started to learn some Croatian basics and to research as much as possible the context I was going to find myself in, to make me aware that it was going to be something shocking and different from what I was used to, but in spite of this, the shock came all the same. I was lucky that my boyfriend, Adrian, would be my partner in this adventure. 

At the beginning I was in the honeymoon phase, where you go through when you move to another place, everything seemed better than in my country and I didn't notice what I found shocking in a negative way. I should also mention that I had a certain amount of tension and stress because of the fear of having any kind of confrontation or problem and not knowing Croatian and not being able to solve it. Without going any further, as a small anecdote, a dog bit me in the first few weeks; it didn't even pierce my shoe with its teeth, but the anxiety I suffered from all that is worth mentioning, because even to this day I am afraid of the dogs I meet running loose in Zabok and of walking through areas I haven't been to before or where there might be dogs. It was a time of emotional duality, when I was very sensitive, but I had a lot of support and understanding. Anyway, everything was exciting and challenging. About the volunteer work, we started with the creation of the magazine that we publish monthly and making a video presentation, I have to say that I reconnected with the audiovisual world, as in my previous job I didn't do anything related and I had forgotten how much I like writing and being creative. In February we went to the “On arrival training”, where we met other volunteers with whom we had a lot of connection. 

Gradually, there is a process of coming back to reality, in which you see the shocks clearly and you idealize your country of origin, nostalgia took hold of me a little. At the same time, I learned more Croatian and I lost my fear, I was adapting.  Also, the tasks in the organization became more diverse and numerous. Some of them involved going out of my comfort zone, which I am glad about with hindsight as they have been very useful for my learning and self-knowledge, not to mention the curriculum.

Nowadays, I can say that I am happy with my decision to come to this volunteering, I am getting to know a culture different from my own, travelling a lot and exploring many fields of work and meeting wonderful people from all over the world. I consider that I am adapted, I see objectively and simply accept what I used to compare with my previous context, either for better or for worse. It is probably one of the best years of my life and one that will undoubtedly mark a before and after in who I am, in fact I know myself better and I am starting to get clear on what I want and do not. How will this year end? What comes next? I have no idea, if it continues along the same lines, then I'm very excited about it and curious to find out. Obviously, the uncertainty of what I will do with my life after this period gives me some headaches, but I am learning to live today and worry less about what is to come, because the future does not exist and it is not worth it to stop enjoying the present, which is the only real thing. 

Carmen Silvia Sanz Navas

Updated on Tuesday, 05/11/2024