August, the month of goodbyes

August marks the end of summer and, sadly, the end of the journey for many of our volunteers.

In the end of July and August we said goodbye to Manon, from France, Anna, from Poland, Greta, from Hungary, Nora, from Germany, and Kiara, from France.

Manon’s journey began in the beginning of January, in the Zevgolatio kindergarten. Greta and Nora began their volunteering journey in the end of January. Greta was helping in the Vrahati kindergarten, while Nora was working in the Xylokastro Youth Centre. Anna arrived in the beginning of February, and was volunteering in the Xylokastro kindergarten, and Kiara was the last addition to the kindergartens team, arriving in April and starting her journey in the Derveni kindergarten.

Even though they were different people, with different backgrounds, Greta, Kiara, Anna, Nora and Manon had in common their enthusiasm to work with the children. In the end of their project, all of them were able to truly connect with the children and even learn a little bit of Greek with them. They also had the opportunity to explore their arts and crafts skills. All of them participated in a lot of activities and events, like the Clean Monday, Europe day, Aristonautes Festival, Street Art Festival and many more.

Nevertheless, the ESC journey is not just volunteering. In their time here, our volunteers had the opportunity to travel, camping, hitchhiking, and get involved with the community. Nora, for instance, is a great example of community involvement, having taken part of tennis lessons and a lot of tournaments, alone and with her partner. Nora was also very interested in the Greek culture and in learning the language, and she left Xylokastro with great Greek skills. Anna had the opportunity to get more involved with the community since she was taking Karate lessons in the local Dojo.

All in all, I think we can say for sure that the volunteers had a great journey and they will miss their Xylokastro life. And Xylokastro will deeply miss them.