A Year in Slovakia: Dosiahla som moje ciele?
Prior to departing on this life-altering adventure, I set three main goals for this year:
#1: Be conversational in the local language by Christmas.
#2: Leave in impact on the surrounding community by working with at least two service organizations each month.
#3: Make lifelong friends by meeting one new person each week.
At this point, I feel like I am successfully achieving two out of three of these. I am going to start with talking about goal number two. During the first five months, I worked with the same three “organizations”, dividing my time between them throughout each week. Very unlike America, Slovakia doesn’t have many community service organizations. When I had first arrived and was asking around about places I could volunteer with, more often than not I was laughed at. Many people thought I was joking because they couldn’t imagine performing work without the reward of money. In my previous blog post about my goals, I had written “I want to focus my time abroad serving for organizations which provide assistance to the Roma population. I also want to volunteer for my Rotary club, as the Rotary International community is very involved in service”. While here, I have searched for programs to assist with the Roma population and for a long time, I found none. There is so much prejudice and seperation related to the Roma that it is hard to even have a discussion about them without just getting shut down. But finally after nearly five months, my efforts have been rewarded. I recently moved to my second host family and brought up my desire to help with the Roma. Initially they were hesitant but after long, honest conversation we came up with the idea together for me to help at a nearly by kindergarten solely meant for Roma children. The next day after said discussion, my host dad went and spoke with the director of the school and he said she was very open to the idea. Now I am awaiting approval from the mayor of our town and from the director of my school, as I will have to miss one school day a week to instead attend this government funded kindergarten. I am so ecstatic about this new development and will continue to push to achieve this part of my goal.
My Rotary club here also is not as involved with the community as I had initially hoped — which led me to make a new goal: I want to help them become more involved by planning and executing at least one fundraiser or event prior to my departure. I want my club to understand how much of a possible positive impact they can make on our community.
Overall, though, I do believe I have achieved my second goal. I have volunteered with at least two programs each month. I hope to continue volunteering and am currently searching for new, different ways to be involved.
On to goal number three; there is no doubt in my mind I have accomplished this. I already dread even thinking about going home because of how much I will miss the people who have become like family to me here. I spent the first four months of my exchange cultivating local friendships, which was hard at first but so incredibly worth it. These friendships I’ve made have made my life here so much easier and I always am looking forward to when I am with them next. Even the most mundane things seem like the greatest adventures just because they are by my side. I have also become close to some of my fellow exchange students, creating it so I now feel like I have family across the globe. Once we all separate, my heart will be torn to pieces, with little bits residing in Slovakia, Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. But the pain is worth it because I know these are friends for life.
Now to talk about goal number one. This one has been the most frustrating goal to accomplish. Prior to exchange, I really believed it was possible to be conversational in my host language within four months of arrival. Since being here, I have realized how unrealistic that was. Slovak is an incredibly difficult language, especially in reference to the grammar. I spent my first four months completely immersed in the language, yet I was still unable to even achieve partial fluency. Most adults over the age of twenty-five cannot speak English well, therefore while in public I was constantly hearing and speaking Slovak. At home with my first host family, we only communicated in Slovak (or through a dictionary when I didn’t understand). I also actively studied the language every day for a minimum of three hours. And still with all of that, I wasn’t conversational by Christmas. Sometimes I get super upset with myself over my lack in ability in the language and overall progression. But I am still trying. And now I am altering my goal to be conversational by the end of my exchange. As of now, I can understand between 50% to 70% of what I hear, depending on the speed and topic of what is said so I definitely have hope that by the end I can accomplish this.
Currently at the halfway point in my exchange, I am still continuing to push and set new goals for the remaining duration of my time in Slovakia. Because by the end of it all, I want to look back and know that I did the best I could and accomplished as much as possible. So on that note, here is to five more months in this beautiful country filled with lots of joy and new memories! Na zdravie!
