{"id":5947,"date":"2026-02-16T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ib-polska.pl\/youth\/?p=5947"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:04:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:04:58","slug":"closer-to-myself-in-a-foreign-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ib-polska.pl\/youth\/esc-out-of-a-volunteers-view\/closer-to-myself-in-a-foreign-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Closer to Myself in a Foreign Country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I arrived in Poland, it was the beginning of September. With September, all the liveliness of summer had ended, and I had stepped into a completely different life and country. This was my first experience abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was very excited and was learning many things for the first time. The language barrier was really challenging for me at the beginning and made me feel unhappy. Although I have improved my English during this process, I still need to develop it further. Another major culture shock for me was how early it gets dark. However, none of these prevented me from collecting beautiful memories and gaining very different experiences, so I am very grateful for the time I have spent living here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I like the job I do here and the school I work at. From the children at the school, I learned what pure happiness means\u2014and I learned this simply by witnessing their lives. I had the opportunity to make friends both from my own country and from other countries, and to get to know different cultures. And even though everything is different, I realized how similar we actually are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also started shopping second-hand here, and I really loved this culture. I had never had such an experience before. Additionally, I had the chance to travel to three other countries besides Poland, and this was an experience that made me feel freer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of all these processes, I feel stronger and able to look at life from many different perspectives. With everything I have learned, I am very excited for the remaining half of my project, and I think it will be easier than the first half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article by\u00a0 Hacer,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

European Solidarity Corps volunteer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Point of view of European Solidarity Corps volunteers\u00a0<\/em>from\u00a016\/02\/2026<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I arrived in Poland, it was the beginning of September. With September, all the liveliness of summer had ended,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[89,90,11,54],"class_list":["post-5947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-esc-out-of-a-volunteers-view","tag-eusolidarity-eusolidaritycorps-europeansolidaritycorps-volunteeringabroad","tag-volunteeringabroad","tag-krakow","tag-stories"],"yoast_head":"\nCloser to Myself in a Foreign Country - ESC teaches me something<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I arrived in Poland, it was the beginning of September. With September, all the liveliness of summer had ended, and I had stepped into a completely different life and country. 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