If you told me five years ago that I’ll live in the Balkans for a year, I would probably assume you’re joking. Not only Balkans, but Macedonia out of all places – a country I never really heard much about, maybe apart from the characteristic red flag with yellow sun and location on the map learnt in geography classes. Now I know that I missed out, and I’m starting to think it might be the most underrated country in Europe. Fortunately, my decision to take a gap year and volunteer with the European Solidarity Corps program brought me to Skopje, and turned it into the first home I chose myself.

One of my main goals for this volunteering project was to work with social media and content creation, as this is what I want to do in my professional future. In Volunteers Centre Skopje I had a chance to see how it is to be in front of the camera while recording tiktoks, practice my short texts writing skills while preparing social media posts, and realized that one of my favourite tasks is actually making graphics. Every month I wrote an article for VOICES magazine on topics such as psychology or internet culture. While I love letting my words flow on paper (or, more likely, a Google document), the most fun part was definitely designing the articles while learning a tool completely new to me – Adobe InDesign.

Another part of my work in VCS was organizing and supporting various events. I had an opportunity to share my passion for art crafts by leading workshops about vision boards, zines or working with clay. Sometimes we left the office and helped with local actions such as clean-ups or collecting donations. I always had a space to make my own ideas come true, which resulted in helping at a dog shelter or organizing anime movie nights. A lot of tasks I took on were a mix of things I liked or had experience with and things I’ve never done before, so I could do what I enjoy while being challenged. A great example would be recording a podcast about Japanese culture – a topic I was passionate about for years, in a form I haven’t tried yet.

But volunteering is not only work, even though the line gets blurry sometimes – after all, we work, live and spend our free time with the same people. It definitely taught me, especially as an introvert, how important my alone time is and how to compromise between socializing and resting. Also, once again, I learnt that not everyone will like you, and you’ll not like everyone, but you can find your people if you just stay yourself and not try too hard… however cliché it sounds. I had a chance to meet people similar to me – for example, the ones I crochet with, because it turned out we share the same hobby – and people that are my complete opposite, which definitely broadened my horizons.

For me, volunteering is a space to go out of your comfort zone in a controlled environment. The best example is the distribution of VOICES I did recently. Going through several cafés and bars, asking if we can leave some copies of the magazine there, was the best exposure therapy for social anxiety I’ve ever done. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s definitely worth it – I can see how my self-confidence has grown since the beginning of the project.

I also learnt how to enjoy things despite not being good at them. Two new hobbies that fill my free time are baking and doing yoga – both of them I tried for the first time here, but I’m pretty sure they are going to stay with me for longer. I had an opportunity to travel a lot, too, thanks to the strategic location of Macedonia in the middle of the Balkans.

I don’t know where my life will take me next, just like I never expected it would bring me to call Skopje ‘home’. But I know that in my heart I’ll carry all the places I made my own, all the times I laughed so hard I cried, and all the goodbyes that were always just ‘see you later’.

Anna Wojdziak

Sending organization: Bona Fides