I came to Bulgaria four months ago, and a lot has happened since then. This experience has been very enriching, enjoyable, and challenging so far.
There are multiple reasons why I wanted to go abroad in the first place. Before joining Smokinya, I just graduated from my high school. I knew that I first wanted to experience something before starting with university, so I took a gap year. My whole life I always lived in the same place, which is why I wanted to go somewhere else. I enjoy learning about other cultures, traditions, and languages. With the ESC program I was able to not only learn about those things but also experience them.
I danced Bulgarian folk dances, visited different places around the country, experienced both the city and the village life in Bulgaria, visited museums, and learned about Bulgarian art and history, I started learning the Cyrillic alphabet and much more.
From my 9 months at Smokinya, I hoped to develop myself and my skills and until now I was quite successful with it. I gained some new skills that are useful for working in the office; for example, I learned how to write a website post and how to use different platforms. But I also developed a lot of skills that are useful outside the office. I improved my public speaking skills and I learned how to organize my day and work without having a clear schedule, like I had in school.
(my personal project, the world map)
One experience worth mentioning is my time in Mrachenik for the B.R.I.G.H.T. Future 2.1 project. I went to the camp around a week after arriving in Bulgaria. The three weeks I spent in the rural village were full of new experiences but also challenges. At the camp I was one of the team members, which meant that I was leading a new group every day. While this was a great learning experience, it was challenging as well at the same time. It was a completely new situation for me to be one of the team leaders and not one of the participants. This experience leads to me going more out of my comfort zone, which I did not always like at the time. But now I am very thankful for it. I was also able to meet a lot of new people from different parts of the world, which was very memorable.
All in all, I can say that my stay at Smokinya has been very nice so far. I was able to develop myself, learn new things, and meet new people. I hope that my next half of the stay will be just as exciting and memorable for me.
