news from Adeline (France)

Can you tell us why you have choosen this project in Bulgaria, what were your expectations ?

I wanted to do a project in a country where I have never been before, where I could find something really different of France. I searched a project in link with culture or ecology or education. I chose the project in the IYVC because it seemed that there was a lot of differents activities with kids and with disabled people.

Can you present now your project and your role ?

We were three volunteers in the project, Egija from Latvia, Melchior from Germany and me. We organised activities for the kids in the orphanage and in Marina the center for disabled kids and teenagers, and also in a kindergarden (painting, drawing, cooking, garden, sport, english games, mosaics...).
I went also in a highschool to give "lessons" in french. It was not in my project at first, but it was also an opportunity to meet new people. I had a little group who wanted to prepare the DELF (a french test -as TOEFL in english-) so I helped them to prepare the oral part of the test.
I also started a blog to present our activities. And thanks to a contact with Serta group in France we started to develop a partnership with the IYVC. Serta collected clothes, games... to send it to the kids in the orphanage.


What report can you do after this year in Bulgaria (tell what difficulties you have met here, what you learn about Bulgaria, about yourself…) ?

My difficulties were :
1st : the language of course ! Bulgarian is a difficult language. So when you can not express yourself as you want, when you don't understand what people try to tell you, it can be quite irritating sometimes ;)
2nd : difficulties to understand people's reactions sometimes, things could be really really slow, some activities couldn't be organised. For exemple, we wanted to go in the swimming pool with the orphans and also to organise a visit in Green Balkan for them(a center for birds in Stara Zagora) but we couldn't find money to do it. The municipality, the state don't give so much for orphans... and cooperation is not easy ! The corruption is present in all the society, wich prevents the country and the projects to advance.

The positive part of my project was, of course, to see the kids happy and when they asked us when we will come again ! We also learnt to manage to go up activities in spite of the difficulties, it is very formative I think.
And EVS is not only a projetc, I appreciate a lot to meet people from all Europe, to discover Bulgaria wich is a beautiful country (in particular the mountains !!!), and to have fun with my dear flatmates :))) I had a lot of good souvenirs of my travels in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey... this is also a part of EVS : traveling and discover a culture !


What is your best and worst memory ?

Best memories : some funny evenings with my flatmates and volunteers, travels aroud the country and around Europe, go to the orphanage by sliding on the ice during the winter, play football in the snow with the kids, shopska salata, learn kids a french song "un éléphant qui se balançait", the dancing evenings... ;)
Worst memories : when things are so slow and complicated to organize...

What are you doing now ?

I am working in a center for young people, to help them to find a job, a university...