It is Sunday, 24th of January. It is exactly 3 months since I arrived to Arad among other 30 people with a strong will to become a volunteer…full of motivation, ideas, expectations.
Lot of things have changed since that. I am glad to say, that I am still full of motivation and ideas but at the same time the expectations of doing something really good, to help, to improve the world, those expectations have bounced against the hard wall of truth that just the will is not enough. You have to eat yourself through the big mountain of bureaucracy to get to the people in need. And in every step you have to prove yourself, to show that you are doing the right thing.
Of course I understand that it is necessary for the organization to be transparent, to keep up the good work and to get funds for that. At the same time I have a dilemma, whether we should help people or document what we are doing, take pictures, film. Some of the cases it disturbs work, some people don't want to be on video or on picture and it is not good for the relationship between volunteers and people we have came to help here. Because you can’t be a good person and a good documentalist at the same time. (one documentalist has said that…don’t remember who)
During those 3 months I've had lot of different experiences and the majority of Romanian people I know in Arad, are poor and homeless.
I’ve heard an old homeless guy singing from the bottom of his heart the most beautiful Romanian ballad about family, while he didn’t have any family and any home, and in the end he started to cry and was still trying to sing until the end. I’ve smelt glue from people’s breath, I’ve seen a wound on a hand that was cut almost to the bone and it was done by the owner of the hand himself.
But a smile on the old guys face when he sees me coming with my guitar again or a hug from a small child – this makes it all better. This gives the motivation to go on, this is the feeling of volunteering I was expecting to get. Although it comes along with the sad feeling that there is not much we can do, but we can help them to feel a bit better, because we treat them like any other person we know. Because they are like any other person with the exception that some of them might live under the bridge or take drugs or don’t know how to read or write. But Vis de Copii, the place I work, is a place that is made to help them to forget about those sad facts even for some hours. And we can do the same. They like to laugh, to dance, to sing like all of us.
So far I have been teaching children and grownups some English songs and also singing with them well-known Romanian songs. So, it has been teaching-learning experience that I have been enjoying a lot.
I also work in Forestier school where I started a debating club together with English practicing. The beginning is still rough because right now it's the time of exams and pupils concentrate on that but there is some interest, I haven't lost my hope yet.
To evaluate my 3-months staying all together so far, I would say that there is room for improvement, from all the sides involved including myself. But at the same time, I can see the willingness to improve. And that makes me glad.
