Better together in Rybnik – Elena’s summary article
Good morning my dear readers, I’m Elena Salvetti, a 22 years old girl from Italy. Today I would like to write about my 5 months experience as an ESC volunteer here in Rybnik, Poland.
I worked in Młodzieżowy Dom Kultury (youth centre). It was an exciting experience. Here I started to teach Italian and English to Polish children, teenagers and adults. During the summer holidays I also did a summer camp and there I discovered my perseverance and courage. It seems easy maybe but it is not. I already worked with children when I was young, but I stayed with them for just a few days. In the youth centre I understood that I can manage with them, they are funny and also they helped me a lot also if I did not speak their language. Also my colleagues were kind, they teached me a lot of words and traditions about Poland. They suggested to me some typical places, foods and drinks to try too. I fell in love with this place thanks to the plenty of courses (like theatre, music classes…) organised for free. For me it was strange, in Italy you have to pay a lot for this kind of activity. Here the aim is teaching something new to the children and teenagers. I think that, if there was something similar in my city, I wanted to attend all the courses.
During my five months I also had the chance to know more about myself and the others. For example, I attended 2 meetings where I met a lot of other volunteers from different countries. We talked about different topics and cultures. It was really interesting. Regarding Poland and its inhabitants I can say a lot of things. I had the opportunity to visit different cities, from the most important ones, like Krakow or Warsaw, to the small villages like Cieszyn and Wisla. I saw a lot of differences between them and I fell in love with the small ones. They always have a particular story and I found out the best museums like the Ethnographic museum of Torun. If I have to speak about the local community, I can say that they are strange. Sometimes they are rude, old minded and also unorganised. But sometimes there are some exceptions like my colleagues. A big problem for me was the language barrier. Here a lot of people don’t speak English and if you try to communicate without Polish they will get angry. Another problem is the drunk people in the buses and around my district, at every hour of the day.
In general if I have to give a note for this adventure I can say 7/10. My workplace and the flatmates were amazing. Poland is not a bad place, especially if you are looking for a quiet place, but my flat and some locals were not so good for me.
In conclusion, if I have to describe my crazy five months in Poland I can say that I found another viewpoint and also I understood a lot of important things about my future interests and my lifestyle. I also discovered new skills and new passions like cooking, staying with children and teaching something about my culture and country. I left this country with a desire for it. I want to come back here in the future (for holidays maybe) and I really hope that the people start to be openmind with foreigners, there will be less drunk and dangerous people and at the end they will be more organised (I had a lot of bad experiences for these reasons). I will say thank you very much Rybnik, it became my fourth house and I will never forget it.
The summary presentation and article was prepared by our volunteer Elena Salvetti, thank you ! 🙂
