Let’s make dreams come true! Fiia's thoughts looking back

In 2010 I graduated from high school and I remember that I started looking for voluntary projects abroad. I had a very strong desire to move abroad but I am not completely sure where it came from. But this desire stayed inside me for many many years. During the years I had the opportunity to work as a au pair, study abroad and also to be part of EVS. But always something came up and I didn’t take a chance and leave. But this way I really understood how important this dream was.

Some years later, in 2018 I participated in a shorter voluntary project in Egypt and when I came from there I had this feeling that this past month was so amazing but also too short. I want more! This was the kick that I needed. Immediately I started looking for longer projects and finally found this very interesting project near Madrid in a smaller town that I didn’t know how to pronounce. I had to call my spanish speaking friend to tell me how ‘Majadahonda’ is pronounced. With this, maybe you understand that my spanish skills were not really good. Actually I have never studied spanish but during the past 5 years I have also developed a dream to learn spanish. I am a very practical person so I decided to learn it in Spain! Luckily I got selected for this amazing program and I started waiting for my project to start.

After some difficulties I finally arrived at Madrid airport at the end of October 2019. Lovely Cris was there to pick me up and she was just so amazing as I imagined her. She dropped me to my new home and introduced my new roommate for the next 8 months. I felt home right away.

What I didn’t mention before I studied civic activities and youth work in Finland and I have also worked in that field already some years. I was extremely happy when I heard that I will get a volunteer friend who has a similar background than me and she is from Estonia, my neighbor country! As you can imagine, our teamwork has been so natural and easy. We have our own skills but we complete each other perfectly.

My tasks were to plan and run English classes with Angela, be part of two technological projects (Coder Dojo & Technovation challenge), tell about our experience as a volunteer, help to organize events with the Youth Center and other smaller things. All the tasks were somehow new to me so I gained a lot of new skills also at work but also in general living abroad. I learned: “poco a poco” which means like slowly, one step at a time. This actually came kind of a joke that we said all the time, but it is very true. Just be patient about your language learning, about “spanish time”, about travelling, about eating in a restaurant etc. As a Finn I have used to do things right away and do a lot of things at the same time and just run run run all the time. So also the lesson that I learned was that take your time, this world is not perfect even if you work until you don’t have any energy left. I hope that I have found, at least, some kind of balance to life that I can be more accepting for myself. In addition to these of course I learned so much about spanish culture, about the people, food and lifestyle. Spain has become my second home. And I am so grateful for this experience. 

Thank you Spain, thank you Majadahonda, thank you all the workers at the Youth Center, thank you my roommate Carmina, thank you all the people who welcomed me and taught me about Spain and spanish culture, thank you Angela and thank you Cris! You always worked so hard that we felt good and made us feel safe and taken care of. 

I can highly recommend being a volunteer in Majadahonda youth center.

I’ll be back. See you soon! <3

With love from Finland,

Fiia