I am grateful

Understanding who I am, each day having the chance to believe in myself by remembering the ones I love.

Being able to let my feelings be shaken by the confusion of the unknown, so then I can collect the pieces floating on the air and realize how good it feels to have my life.

Have the gift of thinking, pondering and being grateful for each moment, each person, each feeling, each colour, each dream, each hope, each day of an existence that draws smiles, comfort, enlightment, love…

The EVS

Before departing, my perspective on how it would be to adjust to the new circumstances was totally different from how it has been. Now that I’m here for almost three weeks, I can start seeing it from a distance. I start to understand what it is that belongs to me, what belongs to the culture of the country where I’m living, what it is that is the shock between both, what it is that is from the personal character of people here and what not. Sometimes I forget I’m here and I feel as if I’m in Portugal. Very often I’m walking on the streets and suddenly realize that I’m hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away from home. I wait for the camera to show up from behind that tree, and then I just feel dizzy because I accept the fact that I’m actually living here.

The friendly smiley girl that works on the market next to the apartment is the closest relation that I had up to now. This doesn’t mean that I don’t bond with anyone else. In fact, it hasn’t been easy to bond, but I believe that this is a consequence of my choices. Back to the friendly girl. We connect through the eyes. From my lousy Serbian, I could understand that last time I was there she asked how I communicate here. I told her that I speak in English but I’m Portuguese. Her eyes said much more than any other eyes here, until now. I know that if I improve my Serbian or she tries to speak a bit English, we can develop a friendship.

The guy from Foody! (the most busy fast food restaurant in the center, but actually with good warm and cheap food) is also a good connection. He speaks English and he knows me already. His eyes speak a bit too. He has grey hair, is thin and wears a Foodys’ hat.

In the bus people push themselves against each other, faces are tired, as tired as the bus that comes and goes all day.

At the office, I started bringing my laptop because I was ending all my days with such a headache that I thought I was starting to be ill with something. It was from the screen of the computer that I was using there. Now I’m not getting headaches. My friend Tania and I are thrilled about a project that we are creating together. This is what I have been doing. The deadline to give in the application for this project is the 1^st of November, so until then I’ll be busy and motivated. After that, we’ll have to wait for the approval (cross your fingers). If it all goes well, I’ll update on this subject.

The food… well, here there’s good food, but so far I’ve been waiting for the money for my EVS project, which means that I’ve been kind of short on budget. I’m not starving or anything; I’ve just been controlling better the costs. But from next week on I hope everything is solved. Something that doesn’t help, the apartment has an electric cooker and it doesn’t have an oven, which limits my cooking. As I was writing, they have good food, some of it. Unfortunately a lot of it is fried, either pastry or meat and fish, a lot of things are oily. For someone who found out about her high cholesterol levels before coming it’s not something thrilling…

I’ve realized many times that I still didn’t write about the police episode, but today I also don’t feel like doing it, so maybe one day…

There is no Bostik/Blutak in Novi Sad! I've searched every possible paper store/drug store, and there is no way to find it. Without mentioning the searching process... explaning what Bostik is without speaking Serbian with people who don't speak English... I had fun. So, I need to get out of here to find it, and stick some postcards on my wall.