My first 2 months in Portugal

Hello, my name is Prisca. That´s a Latin name and means "dignified" and "old". But I´m far from old because I´m 18 years old and I have just finished high school in Germany. On the one side, I wanted to go abroad after finishing high school since a few years. On the other side, I want to give something back to society. That´s why I thought, doing volunteer work in another country is the solution and I checked the possibilities. And finally, I made a find at the European Solidarity Corps as I discovered the offer of the "Associação Juvenil de Deão - AJD" in Viana do Castelo, the north of Portugal. This country was really new for me and I became very curious: I wanted to visit Portugal, learn Portuguese and get to know to the different culture. And also the offer of AJD was a perfect match for me as I like playing with kids, helping in the garden and in projects or organizing important things. Fortunately, it was "love at first sight" and AJD agreed my application. 

Besides learning Portuguese, for example, I had other expectations of this volunteering, too. Like meeting new people from different countries, making new friends and becoming more independent than before. Of course, also get to know a new type of learning, the informal learning, compared to the 12 years of formal learning at school.

But I also knew that I´ll have fears before and during my volunteering time. For example, I could have communications problems as I´m a beginner in Portuguese. Or sometimes it could be difficult for me to adapt at the different culture. It´s also possible that I could miss my family in Germany.

Nevertheless, I´m happy that I agreed this volunteering work of 6 months, because I´ve already gained a lot of experience during my first 2 months.

I´ve experienced a lot of heart-warming moments with the kids in the "Ludoteca of AJD" in my first weeks, helped in a Youth Exchange where I´ve meet a lot of young people from different parts of Europe who were about the same age like me and improved my organizing knowledge while preparing an own workshop. I also got to know how a normal working day in an office looks like.

In my free time, I lived together with Spanish and French volunteers, learned better how to cook, discovered parts of Portugal by bus or train and swam in the Atlantic. I also learned Portuguese, but it´s still difficult for me to communicate in Portuguese. Unfortunately, I had only one Portuguese lesson till now. I hope that this will get better as new volunteers arrived and I´m not the only one anymore who needs to learn this language.