I finished my studies last year and I’ve been working daily for a few years now. I found myself feeling overwhelmed with the city life – the constant noise of emergency sirens, traffic jams, living in a rush and with limited access to wild nature. I needed a break. At the same time, I was always drawn to the idea of intercultural exchange and community life. I had good feelings about this project from the moment I learnt about it – length of the project, mountains location and work with donkeys as well as some physical work. I’ve decided to apply.
It was my first ESC project so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wanted to see how this experience is going to influence me. My first fears before the project started were mainly connected with fitting in with the group and feeling isolated because of limited access to transport. But actually I felt a good connection with the group from the beginning. Being surrounded all the time by people can be challenging and overwhelming, especially during the first days, but we started the project with team building activities and open communication what made me feel more safe in the group and also made me realize that others struggle with the same fears as me.
Our activities were very diverse – some of them involved physical work like painting walls, repairing and painting fence and donkey care session once a week. Apart from that we had a chance to meet with the local community of seniors and kids. I really enjoyed cyanotype and making pasta workshops.
In our free time we went hiking in the mountains and explored the neighbourhood with small waterfalls, lovely villages and spring blossom everywhere. I didn’t expect the close neighbourhood to be so beautiful. But it’s important to note that the public transport almost doesn’t exist and the village where Ostello is situated has no shops . The closest village with local shop or pharmacy is 1h walk from the Ostello. But I didn’t consider it a problem and Stefano and Airin who run the Ostello always supported us in case we missed anything.
I had the best time during the project. I feel that I could discover a lot about myself during this time. It gave me more confidence to be myself and made me more aware of my strengths and what impact I can make to the community. I also feel now that I would like to engage to build communities in my local area. I’m very grateful for the people I met during the project. I made a lot of new friendships and I hope they will last after the project.
