A Moment of Love

by Kann Sorn (Hungary)

I didn't expect to find Poland

Since a while ago, there was a winter holiday from school for a month. I did not have plan for myself of what I was going to do with the break time. Afterwards, one of classmate shared me a volunteering opportunity which was Euro Week in Poland. I decided to apply for the work and willing to spend my winter break at Domaszkow with young Polish students. Two days after submission of my curriculum vitae, I received an email for Skype interview from Euro Week Program. I was asked by the interviewer about how long am I be able work there? My answer was around 3 weeks. Unfortunately, the interviewer said that a volunteer should sign a contract with the program about three months or longer. I was trying to negotiate with her due to the fact that I was available only three weeks or one month. I also mentioned about the date which I was available from this day till this day. After a while, she sent me the invitation letter, contracting paper for three weeks, and guidance for the transportation. It was my first time of traveling to Poland. I took bus and switched to the train from Hungary to Czech Republic, and then arrived in the final destination in Poland. There were two heart-touching memories of traveling to Poland as such working with young adorable Polish students and friendly multicultural environment. Working with young Polish student was really emotional and challenging for me based on the fact that we spoke English, but some of them did not. There were some activities for the students which were group discussion, snow fight, country presentation, night show and conferences. I just remembered that I put myself to this job with all my passion, emotion, love, care, helps, and energy just to make all the kiddos smile and enjoy their holiday with me. I just wanted to make sure that every single students learned something from the moment where we were spending time together due to the fact that I don’t know in the future we are going to meet each other again or not; or are we going to have this moment with one another or not? So I had to make sure that we were having a great time together. I also remembered that students asked me about weird questions such as Do I prefer kissing with or without tongue? Do I watch 18+ videos? What was my sexual orientation? I remembered the opening day that I just introduced myself to them and the closing day which they were crying and saying that they don’t wanna leave Euro Week. Also, they said they love me and I am the best volunteer in the world. They even did a night show about me teaching them Khmer language and culture. It was really emotional and hard to say good bye to them. Moreover, while working and having fun as a volunteer in Poland I had an opportunity to work with different people who came from different countries and continents as such Polish, Filipino, Uruguayan, Indonesian, Lao, Thai, South African, Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian, Italian, Turkish, Guatemalans, Vietnamese, Azerbaijani, and of course adorable cute Polish younger generations. I have learned about culture, individual interaction, languages, and so many other things from the daily activities with them. I love to work with Latinos due to the fact that they are cheerful people, sweet, easy-going, and friendly. The most favorable about them was they spoke Spanish and I love it. After years by giving up of learning Spanish with the reason of no teacher, I heard they spoke Spanish every day in which encouraging to restudy Spanish. Overall, I didn’t expect to find the first experiences which I had in Poland. I had my first snow fight, built my first snow man, saw a deer, learned Polish language and dance, ate Polish food, met first person from each Latino countries, and had my first kiss. Also, the trip inspired me to restudy Spanish, maintained friendship with volunteers, gave me a feeling which I never felt before, and I didn’t expect to find those moment of love.