Initial Reflections by a Summer Intern
This is a blog post/reflection journal entry by our 2024 summer intern Willem.
Before coming to Bulgaria, I was quite excited for a change of pace and culture. When I was first told I would have the opportunity to go to Bulgaria, I was quite interested in learning about the people and language. I did a little bit of research just to get a basic idea on what happens here. After talking to Nathan and Mariana different times on the phone, I was quite intrigued. I couldn't wait to come here. I was told it was a 6 week long endeavor consisting of 6 different camps each week. I was excited to diversify my knowledge about Bulgaria and the rest of the Balkans. I knew doing something like this would definitely help me learn more about the history of Bulgaria. I also knew coming here would help me figure out the "mentally" of people in a different country that didn't happen to have the same things I had. I was exited to meet new people and expand on my knowledge on the world and the way others live.
My grandparents were actually the ones who had first told me about PINK and everything they are doing with kids in Bulgaria. They were quite involved with PINK before I came and knew Bob and Becky before I came. Last summer, they had come the prior year with my brother and cousin. Before the camps started, my grandparents took me on a Balkan tour of some different countries including Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. This was cool and chill to see all the history and get a feel for what the Balkan
This is my first time specifically working with Salt Ventures and PINK, but I have participated and volunteered in things similar to this in other countries like Ukraine when I was 14. In Ukraine, we worked in Kiev and Zaporizhzhia - there, the main objective of those camps was providing a summer camp for some local orphanages. I feel like having that experience there gave me a better idea of what to expect and confidence in being able to handle what we would do with PINK.
The first week I was assisted by my grandparents and they helped as much as they could. To be honest, I was pretty impressed with their ability to keep up and help out. My first impressions consisted of amazement for the people and food. The people in Breznik were pretty nice and the food was really tasty at the hotel we stayed at. My favorite was the fried chicken with cornflakes instead of normal batter. I was still dealing with a bit of jet lag and took some getting used to the schedule of waking up early before 8 so every day I ended up pretty exhausted. Still, I was doing something more outside of my comfort zone and that was both a challenge and adventure.
Looking back on the first week or two, my trip has been fueled by a strong curiosity and desire to experience and learn a new culture. That also includes trying to pick up the language a little bit even though I’m not very good and don’t see the need to learn much since Bulgarian is not a very commonly spoken language. Mainly I’ve just been using the words “Da” which means yes and “Ne” which means no. Not being able to talk to everybody has definitely been one of the harder things, but hopefully I’ll meet some more people who can also speak English. I also hopefully will learn some more Bulgarian and not let that get in the way of volunteering and connecting with locals.