During our last supervision by the organization we got a special reflection task to look back to the whole volunteer project and the year we had spent in Czech Republic. The concept was to choose a title and name the most significant chapters of our story like if we had been writing a book, then we had to pick up one of the chapters and start realizing it.
It was a difficult exercise indeed the think about everything, but since I analyze my life a lot in general I think I already had my thoughts on the topic. I tried to deal with a chapter that was more constructive and somehow covered or represented my entire staying in the country, so I was writing about the third one, that was actually the second one since every pair chapters were supposed to be transitional ones.
'...After the firs serious difficulties I can really feel the spirit I had been looking for. Now I remember why I wanted to come here, what I wanted tod o and I can see that it is not just a plan or a dream anymore, but pure reality, flesh and blood. I have not received such a lot of love by people for a very long time like during this period.
It is all weird and unbelievable, much more than what I had expected. I have found collegues to connect with, met some locals and also someone who has become very important to me recently. I already have a bunch of places that I can relate some special emotions to. I am still an alien, yet I am exploring and building my own unique world here, so I am sure that I have definitely reached a new stage of my personal journey, while I can finally be its main character.
I have noticed a lot of interesting facts, changes and developments about myself. I am able to be creative, coperative, responsible, devoted, passionate, I can think not only about problems, but solutions as well, I can help others and realize my goals instead of waiting for some kind of miracle – because the miracle is always there beside me, I just have to wake up and look around enough carefully.
I am full of ideas and much more confident about my skills now and it is also relevant that I could leave the wounds of the past behind in order to appreciate what is still about to come. This life is never boring or predictable and it gives me a lot of surprises since I got rid of my doubts and let the moment teach me. There is an unusual, never-experienced vibraton in my mind and my heart in these days. I think I have indeed grown up.'
We also had to create the last sentence that would close the story and my choice was 'we will see it', because first of all I really do not know what is going to happen next even though I have my plans regarding to my close future and, from the other hand,the Czech equivalent of this phrase uvidíme' is something the people use here very often and this point of view is somehow a unique part of the everyday communication and it is similar to the Spanish mañana' the Polish jakoś to będzie or the Hungarian lesz, ami lesz that we have.
I am also attaching all the chapters of this spiritual adventure to show the context:
I. Something among the Trees
II. First Shadows
III. Creation with Passion
IV. What Love Tells You
V. Fear and Hope
VI. Lonely Melodies
VII. In the Monster’s Jaws
VIII. Touch by the Light
IX. Wings of Redemption
X. Road to Independence
Besides all the benefits I was mentioning all the time in my articles there was also another one that I could not appreciate in the beginning, but I really understood by time, and this is the self-reflection. Even though I always reflected on myself by this online diary, I could not really have improved so much if the people around me had not been open or give me a chance to do it.
I thought that after everything that happened this would be a long and though exercise, but the fact that we paid attention to follow our own pathes regularly, it was rather fun and discovery than a huge difficulty. And I have to admit that writing this special book itself also started somehow like a duty, but finished as one of the biggest pleasures I could experience here in Ostrava, Moravia-Silesia, Czech Republic.