Bericht von Sandra

Hello, Im Sandra from Macedonia. I arrived in Halle four months ago, in September 2016. Halle is small beautiful city where one can meet a lot of interesing people and as well enjoy variety of events. In all time period I spent here, one of the most amusing  areas is my working place. When I say amusing, I mean it is chalenging and dynamik. Beacuse this letter is mostly related to my working experience, I will stick to the subject of writing.

I have two places of assignement. One is the head Office of Freidenskreis e.V., where I spend three days, and the rest two days of the working week at the Pflanzgarten (Botanical Garden). At the beggining I find everything chalenging, which I think is pretty normal for every foreigner. Especialy because this was my very first time in Germany and I didn‘t actualy know what to expect. But as time passed, I discovered the right direction. The first month was addaptation period where I met all the coleagues and was introduced to the obligations. From this point on my presence started to have sense. Mainly work with the promotion material of Friedenskreis, designing and preparing  documents, meanwhile I offer my help whereever needed. That means, if someone of the colegues need some task to be done, I‘m there.

The next is generaly content of one of my working day at FK.
In the morning hours, around 10, most of the employees are in the office, starting the day with a cup of coffee, then at 12:30 we starts the ‘‘Mittagessen‘‘ when we gather and share a moment of relaxation and homemade food. After the short break people go back to finish their daily tasks. Almost everyone at FK  follows this rhythm. I still learn the  rhythm:). Meanwhile many things happens beside the work at the office. I often go home and work from there because the lack of software at the office. This makes the day more dynamic. Such a freedom makes me feel that I have gained mutual trust and support from the members of FK. Most of the tasks are conected to designing proces, exploring different shapes and colors suitable for the actuel project. Beside the design, i have responsability to attend on the meetings which are happening every second Tuesday  where we discuss work from previous days. I learned a lot new things as well, like sharing with and careing about people around me. This happens the first three working days, and the rest of the week I spend, as I mentioned, at Pflantzgarten.


Pflanzgarten is a botanical garden, where the biology classes are held by Frau Jäger. The classes are  combined with 6-10 years old children, a curious little creatures, which are still in a deep conection with the nature. The way Frau Jäger teach is interactive education, through practice, cooking and planting different kind of plants and flowers. I help with program of the day, for ex. If the children are planting I‘m planting, if they are cooking, I‘m cooking as well. My role is to be part of the children and the teacher, do and watch. I simply enjoy the time spend there learning and refreshing my memory about nature.

Beside all pleasant feelings I experience here in Germany, there is, of course, a part which is not so ‘‘awesome‘‘. The biggest reason for that is I am here, far from home. Experiences are not consistent only of beautiful moments,  there are also scary moments. The most scary  for me is socialization, especialy in the way I feel the language barriers. I don‘t speak German, this makes me feel weak, but here is the other side. The chalenge! Accept it and one day this will bring fruits and you‘ll be gratefull. This is constantly in my mind. Every day I learn something new, some new words, try to understand and then to speak. During the day, after work, I mostly go to the other appartment next to me and spend some hours with my people. The other volunteers. We talk, exchanging experiance and stories of our days, making plans for future...Simply we use our time in no rush, like a observants. Please this should not give you a wrong image, we are pretty much active :) What ever opportunity comes, we grab it. It is always about self motivation.
There is a lot to say about these past four months volunteering. I just tried to put the most relevant things which I suppose will help you to understand how this reality influences the life of young foreigner.

Best of luck,
Sandra