Hello, my name is Justus. I am 18 years old, and I came to Izmir after finishing high school in Germany this year. I have been living in Izmir for seven weeks now, and although I am still in the early stages of my twelve-month stay, I already have a lot to share.
In the first few days, I was struck by the sheer size of the city and how different it was from my hometown, which isn’t small either. I also met more new people during those days than ever before: my flatmates, the other ESC volunteers, the people working at Pi Youth Association, the Pixel Team (which consists of local volunteers), and many more. However, I adapted to these differences much faster than I expected and quickly started building friendships, even though I initially had trouble remembering everyone’s names. Another challenge I hadn’t anticipated was that many people don’t speak English. This led to some funny and awkward situations, especially when I tried to order something or talk to a cashier at the supermarket. But I overcame this awkwardness fairly quickly by learning basic Turkish phrases and paying more attention to gestures and context during conversations. Once I realized that I needed to learn Turkish to truly communicate with most people, I started studying a bit of Turkish every day. Now, I can handle most daily interactions without issues, though when the conversation becomes more specific, I still understand very little.
First I want to tell you more about my living situation and the people I live with.
I live in a volunteers’ flat in Buca, a district further inland from the center of Izmir, where many young people reside. One of Izmir’s universities is located here, so the streets are always lively, especially at night. This was new for me, particularly the fact that the bakery/café near our flat is open 24 hours a day and that people drive around all night, playing music way too loudly. Despite this, daily life in Buca feels quite normal. I often hang out with my flatmates — four of them are French and one is Italian. We either stay in the flat or go out to a café or grab something to eat.
One month after we arrived, we participated in an on-arrival training organized by Turkish National Agency, which took place in Samsun. While there, we stayed in a hotel with many other ESC volunteers from projects all over Türkiye. We had a seminar where we did team-building activities and discussed various details of the ESC volunteering program. However, the most interesting part of the experience was talking to the other volunteers. They had a wide range of experiences due to their different programs and the places they lived. It was fantastic to meet so many people from diverse backgrounds and nationalities, all doing something similar to what I’m doing, though with a few differences.
In the last part of this blog-post I’d like to talk about the most important aspect of my stay in Izmir: the workshops I organize as a volunteer at Pi Youth Association.
The workshops take place in different schools, youth centers, and municipalities all over Izmir. So far, the only workshops I have hosted are conversation clubs in English and German. At first, I was worried that I wasn’t qualified to work in a high school, for example. However, I have really enjoyed hosting these conversation clubs and quickly realized that it is less about strictly teaching the language and more about organizing activities that help participants to improve their spoken language through interaction. I really appreciate this concept and always look forward to meeting new groups of motivated people and getting creative by organizing something different each time.
The workshops can vary a lot depending on the participants’ age, motivation, and language proficiency. For example, children often enjoy playing games, while adults prefer to discuss various topics. If a group of children is motivated and understands a bit of English, the sessions are usually easy to manage. However, when they don’t understand you or want to do their own thing, it can be much more challenging. Additionally, managing a wide range of skill levels within the same group can sometimes be difficult or adults can sometimes be shy of speaking English. Despite these challenges, I feel that people really enjoy attending the conversation clubs.
Organizing these activities is something I genuinely enjoy, and I find that it often fits well with the irregular working hours and the need to stay flexible.
All in all I really enjoyed my first one and a half month in Izmir as an ESC volunteer and I am really looking forward to continuing my workshops, coming up with new ideas and seeing how the participants improve. I also hope the people I will meet during the rest of my stay in Izmir will be as nice and welcoming as the people I met in the beginning.