Hi! My name is Dominika. I am from Poland and I have just started my voluntary work in Rato, so Portugal will be my home for the next two months.
But why did I choose Portugal?
First of all, I am an ESN volunteer in my hometown in Poland and by working in our section I met a lot of people from all around the world, among them the Portuguese people. After hearing a lot about their country I decided to come to Portugal this year in March and check it myself. Actually, I had planned to go there in April, totally unaware that it will be impossible beacuse of the virus, but then I don’t even exactly know why I had decided to go to Lisbon a bit earlier.
As soon as I saw Lisbon I fell in love with it and I knew that I will definitely come back to Portugal. So after the lockdown I started to look for an opportunity to go to back there, but for a longer period of time. I’ve heard about EVS projects and had an account on the European Solidarity Corps page so I decided to check if there were any projects starting in Portugal in the following months and that’s how I found out about Rato organization. I saw their offer, applied to it and in less than one hour I had a phone conversation with Polish coordinator, which told me more about the project itself and the things I have to do to take part in it. And then, one week later I landed in Portuguese capital city, Lisbon.
Tired after two flights and waiting at the aiport for 8 hours in the night I was so happy to be back here, so even the lack of sleep was not a problem and I went to explore Lisbon for few hours with my 4 flatmates – two from Poland like me, one from France and one from Jordan.
Today, on the 4th of August was my first day in the job and I’m sure I’ll gain some new skills and learn at least some bacics of Portuguese since the organization is planning Portuguese lessons for the volunteers. I already know this experiance will be one of the best in my life and I can’t wait to start speaking in this beautiful language, explore Portugal, its cuisine and culture in the upcoming weeks.
