I sit in my favourite armchair and think: how should I start this testimony? To be honest, I don’t have a clueyet… How to include all the thoughts – the hectic ones that ran through my head before leaving and the slower ones that I had during the project? How to describe the emotions I experienced during my stay in Zagreb, Croatia? How to collect the thousands of crumbs that are tangled in not-so-old memories?
And most of all – what should I describe?
What? That at some point, working away from my country, and collecting funds to pay off my student loan, it dawned on me that I was about to turn 30 (okay, okay, not so soon) and that so far I haven’t found the time and motivation to take advantage of the program dedicated to young people?
What? That after one group volunteering trip in Hungary, I decided to find another, but a different project – close to my profession and interests. That I dug through forty pages of projects on the European Youth Portal, applied for a few of them, and had an interview after which I was a bit worried if I had made myself clear and haha, above all distinctly.
That I was travelling with my soul on my shoulder, stressed by the inconvenient connection with transfers, but staying within the travel budget limit, with a heavily stuffed bag, wondering if I would have enough time to change from one bus to another. That despite my experience in working with an international group, I was wondering how it would be. How will I find myself among the group, and organization, with tasks, with ideas or lack of them, with better days, with worse days.
I think to myself… that I’m lucky, although it’s more of a good attitude, that I find positives in every situation or at least things that I can turn into something positive. And so, after moments of stress, preparations, a little brawl from my twin sister for the way I packed my bag, after several hours of
preparatory meeting with my sending organization and coordinator, who just happens to be my older sister (and at the same time demanding-more-from-me-than-from-a-random person, guide) – off I went.

Croatia – unknown place.

But where did you go? What were you actually doing there? – you will ask. Gimme a minute to explain.
I participated in the project organized by OAZA – Green Fingers Autumn 2022, the project mainly focussed on gardening (planting, sowing, watering, weeding, working with garden tools, hoeing the soil), restoring the natural environment, and building simple gardening infrastructure.
I spent time with 9 volunteers from 8 different countries. I had met some nationalities before, such as Spaniards, French, Dutch or Hungarians, but others were a total novelty for me: Finns, Portuguese, Georgians and Belgians. It was an incredible experience to be a part of the team created by people from such diverse backgrounds!
Of course, there were also group classes that were supposed to bring us closer together and activate (or develop) our talents. One of these tasks was the construction of a bridge. We were divided into two teams and each group was tasked with building a bridge that would be connected to the other bridge.
However, we couldn’t communicate other than by sticky notes and explanations or drawings. Another interesting and cognitive task was to create a timeline on which each of the volunteers placed very important events from their lives.
For the first 2 weeks, the weather was not kind to us and it rained most of the time. The time we spent in the office and the school library was devoted to designing games that would allow children to play together on the playground. Moreover, it wasn’t just the design and planning that we were dealing with.
The action had to be involved! And so, on the playgrounds of the primary school, at first with the help of chalk, and later with paints, huge games were created – Chinese, rock-paper-scissors caterpillars, jumping to colours. But the most fun was creating a racing game for 3 teams, which consisted of 5 games connected to each other. We also took part in decorating the school with educational stickers with the Croatian alphabet, numbers, and distances and a twister with figures. It was really exciting to see our work bring joy, not only to the kids, we had a lot of fun with these games as well! Surfing the rain days we had also other tasks, like making wooden signs from previously prepared posters, as well as drawing posters for the World Vegetarian Day.

And during good weather (finally!) we took a trip to the centre of Zagreb. Thanks to our supervisor, Jasmine, we’ve got to know its story. Finally, we also had the opportunity to use school tools and tidy up the school gardens. Regular things like weeding, pulling weeds, cutting grass and branches, and then planting bushes and flowers. It might not seem like much, but it’s physically hard work. Good for stress relief and good for clearing the mind. And what did I love the most? Bird watching, walking on the mountain and around the castle, recognizing tree species. I loved it.

Croatia – a tame place.

The time I spent in Croatia gave me the opportunity to discover and navigate through the different approaches to life. It was an interesting experience to coexist with a such large, diverse group. I had a chance to discover, share and clash with different views and approaches. It also allowed me to see how some topics can make some people red-hot, how different we have competencies and approaches to solving conflicts, and how differently we deal with our emotions when we disagree with something. It’s so valuable that it made me more sensitive to the discrimination of women in everyday life, the perception of proactivity in these times and the injustice in this world.
It was also nice to see that after a while the way from work to home became wonderfully familiar and, in a way ordinary. That even if that was not my hometown, somehow I got so close to it, that I knew where everything was, which tram to take, where to buy rolls, and even to explore an abandoned hospital. Little things like the washing machine not working properly, all the discussions and even decision-making (raised to the tenth power, because there were ten of us after all) it all created the atmosphere. Unusual, but ours.
If you are curious and would like to see some pictures from these trips, please visit my Instagram: @ram0na.2 and on Instagram OAZA: link

Happy us

I don’t have an ending planned. But I have a few more thoughts – crumbs. Let’s consider them as an ending.
Happy are those who in their lives had the opportunity and financial resources to travel without limits. Happy are those who remove these restrictions and change. Happy are those who see a different path. Happy are those who, with backpacks full of various memories, go further.

Happy us.
If anyone is looking for something for themselves, there are some valuable and important projects – you can see on the OAZA website (www.oazainfo.hr) and other organizations working as part of the European Solidarity Corps.
And if anyone is looking for an activity in Poland – I encourage you to check out my sending organization – Association Akwedukt from Kwidzyn. It is located in the northern part of Poland, 100 kilometres from the Baltic Sea, in a small town. An organization that, like OAZA, through informal educational methods makes sure that our world is a friendly place where openness, tolerance and diversity play an important role.
From myself I will add, to all young people – take advantage of it. Try it, test it, check it and leave!
Hugs,
Ramona