Bom dia!
My name is Anna and I´m a new volunteer in Rato. This is my very first post on this blog, so let me start with introducing myself and sharing my experience from the first days here in Portugal.
I`m a 23 y.o. girl, who moved from Belarusian city Brest to Poznan, Poland 5 years ago. I came to Poland for studying as many young people from Belarus do, but it was a one-way road as it turned out later (although it was kind of obvious from the beginning). Wherever you come from, you probably know Belarus, because of all these political events which took part in the summer 2020. I was lucky already not to live there at that moment, but after all these events more and more people were forced to leave the country anyway. In Poland I started to study Sinology (Chinese Language and Culture). I finished my Bachelor degree there in 2020 and during the period of studying I even went to Chinese city Tianjin for one semester to go to university there. It was an amazing experience, when I of course improved my Chinese, made a lot of new friends from all over the world and had an experience of living in another new country exploring its cultural and social differences.
After coming back from China at the beginning of 2021 Covid has started. It was really hard getting used to live in Poland again, when we all were sitting home. Although I still consider myself to be very lucky as I lived in a student dormitory, so I didn´t feel lonely and scared at any moment, my friends and I were playing some boarding games all the time, watching movies etc. But my motivation to learn Chinese decreased a lot, because of the distant learning and also because after coming back from China I understood that it was a very nice journey, but I don´t see myself in working with Chinese, because of this country policy and attitude to many things.
After finishing my Bachelor degree in autumn I was looking for some volunteering opportunities, but all the projects I applied for were suddenly postponed because of new Covid restrictions, so I decided to learn a little bit longer not wasting my time. I studied Ethnology for a year and then Ethnolinguistics, but I felt really tired of just studying, because I wanted to do something more. That´s how I applied to Rato. I chose this project, because it´s connected with helping people with different social background, in different ages and from different places. I was also attracted with learning how to edit videos and programming as I started to learn HTML and CSS during last few months, so I hope to be able to develop my skills in it here.
I visited Portugal last summer, so it´s not my first time here. During that trip my boyfriend and I explored Algarve, Lisbon and Sintra, met many great people as we were hitchhiking and staying with somebody through Couchsurfing, and we really fell in love with this country! The nature, stunning views from the cliffs next to Cabo da Roca, green gardens of Sintra, red sands of Algarve, waves of the Atlantic ocean and beautiful streets of Lisbon with its street art really made me want to go back, so I´m happy to be here again! I came 2 days ago, so another volunteer and I already went to visit Lisbon and Costa da Caparica to see an amazing sunset over the ocean.
This journey starts great, hope it´ll continue like this!
