Being in Serres gave me much more than what I was expecting even if I didn’t really have a lot of expectations. I really like being part of Serres life, some of the local people knew us as the Erasmus living in Serres. But they were all the time asking us “why are you here?”. Personally, I didn’t really choose to be in Serres, I chose the project itself. After a year spent in Serres, I can say that Serres has amazing people and amazing cheap food. Indeed, food took a big part of my Greek life: at the beginning our mentor told us “Everybody gain weight during the time they spend in Greece” and I didn’t really believe her until... I gained weight. Trust me, it’s impossible to resist to the incredible smell of bougatsa...
More than that, you will meet amazing people, create amazing friendship, live an amazing life aha. Sorry if I’m saying to much “amazing” but it’s the word which describe the best what you will live if you decide to come to the lost city of Serres. We, volunteers, are not only friends, we are a family too, (you will think that’s maybe too much but it’s true), we eat, work, travel together so even if at the beginning you could think “we are very different it’s going to be hard to be friends with them”. Some weeks later you will consider them as your siblings (hopefully). And of course, as a family, you argue sometimes about stupid things but not everything can be perfect. Actually, I lived two different volunteering since every volunteer that I knew left earlier than me, I had to create new friendships and to be their mentor. On one hand I was feeling very sad because my friends/family left, and I was also lazy to get to know more people. On the other hand, I felt very included in the organisation and at some point, I didn’t need to make any effort to be friends with the new volunteers because we directly bounded.
As I said not everything can be perfect, sometimes you could feel frustrated because of the language barriers, or because of the work, feeling useless whereas you came here with the idea to make a real impact. However, when you think again about it you make an impact even if only one person gets to know who you are, what you are doing here and why, that’s already something. For example, I went to a high school in a village near to Serres, with one of the other volunteers, we introduced ourselves and praxis organisation, we explained how and why we decided to come in Serres to the students. And at the end of our small presentation, some pupils came to us, saying that they didn’t know that they could do what we were doing and that they would also like to do the same as us. That is something very meaningful and, at some point, you feel a bit powerful, making them discover the European opportunities.
During this ECS, I did a lot of things that I have never done before like working with the refugees. At the beginning of the volunteering, we were going to the refugees camp every Friday afternoon to help LHI (the organisation who works every day at the camp). The first time we went there, I was not feeling very comfortable, I was feeling a bit useless because everyone was busy, and I was not doing anything. But more the times went by, more the refugees were used to us as we were used to see them every Friday. Going there became a habit, people knew us as we were getting to know them. At some point, I felt very good with the refugees.
To sum up, during a long-term volunteering you cannot stay happy the whole time and it’s normal, you will have some bad time that you would like to spend alone. You have to keep in mind that it’s nothing compare to the amazing time you will have!