​Antonia's immersion into a new culture

​  Volunteer Work 2019  

I surely will never forget my time in Chile, because for me it was a huge experience to travel alone to a foreign country with a different culture and language, in order to work there as a volunteer.

On my first day of my service learning, I still felt quite strange, because the communication did not work flawlessly right away. But over the two months of my stay, I have taken both my colleagues and the children there to my heart. The work in my volunteer project has given me a lot of joy every day, because the children give you so much love and after some time, reals bonds are built. My homestay host has always been there for me as well, and in the end became like a second family for me. We did a lot of weekend trips together.

There also were quite some cultural difficulties for me, because the public transport system, the language and the foreign country kind of scared me in the beginning. But I always found the Chileans to be very nice and open-minded people, so I could establish contacts quickly.
The two months in Santiago have passed quickly and I definitely want to come back.

(Antonias' report was translated from German, look here for the original post.)