Why I went to Denmark and what I did there

Why I went to Denmark, what I did there and how Covid-19 changed it

About a year ago, I realised I wanted to do something different after I finished highschool, so I started to think about a possibility to go abroad, since I always wanted to live in another country for a while. I found out, that there is the possibility to live abroad and work at a project for a few months or even a year. After I went through an application phase, I arrived in Aarhus in September 2019. Since my arrival I've met a lot of international people, lived alone/ with a roommate for the first time in my live and started to work in a nursing home. I only knew a few words in danish. And out of all the words I knew, I probably pronounced half of them wrong. But luckily I had a danish organisation (ICYE), who helped us with the bureaucracy and any other problems, which helped a lot, especially in the beginning.

Here in Aarhus I live with six other volunteers in one building, but in 4 different apartments. After a lot of adventures we have gotten to know each other better, discovered some culture differences (e.g. greetings, (not) to take your shoes off in the house, dinner times etc.) between our countries (and Denmark). We experienced a lot of different things like the "Swap language café" (which became a weekly date then), the danish nightlife, a dance class, discovered beautiful places like an infinity bridge, the deer park or the Moesgaard museum building. We went to Sweden and Copenhagen together, had a christmas dinner, Disney movie nights, went out and a lot more. We became good friends and have a strong bond now. Since I'm here with a danish organisation (ICYE), I was also able to go to two training camps, where we learned more about the danish culture, met people from different countries and got to know more about our program. It is the European Solidarity Corps, which is supported by the EU and enables us to do this voluntary year. Through the ESC program, young people between 18 and 30 years old have the opportunity to help and work in a country abroad. The local community of course also benefits from their work and the cultural exchange. So it's a win-win situation for both sides!

My project place is a nursing home (Plejehjem in danish) a little bit outside of Aarhus. My tasks are different each day, sometimes we help with activities like gymnastics, the singing afternoon or the singing with children. We help at lunch time in the kitchen, support residents while they are eating and sometimes clean the dishes. But we are also allowed to bring in our own ideas, which really increased my ability to be creative in finding new things to do. We went on walks with residents, learned how to ride a transportation bike and doing little tours with residents, which was very fun. We also did puzzles, painted with residents, tried to read stories in danish or just tried to sing and play the piano with them. We also had a lot of nice talks with them- especially at coffee time. In the beginning this wasn't easy, because we weren't really able to talk in danish, which made basic communication and understanding kind of hard. (sometimes it also led to some funny misunderstandings). But with the support of our collegues, the residents themselves and that we were able to go to the language school for about two months, we learned fast and after a few weeks it already was much better.

Unfortunately by the time I wrote this, we were not able to go to the nursing home, because of the Corona Virus. As probably everyone knows by now, the virus is especially dangerous to elderly people, so the risk to bring the virus inside was to high. Of course that made me kind of sad, because I really liked to go there and we had a lot of stuff planned, but the safety of the residents was of course more important. Therefore we tried to support the elderly home as good as we could (e.g. writing letters). We also prepared some informations for the next volunteers, so we could still add to the well being of the residents in a certain way. The good news, while I am finishing this article are, that we are able to go back to the nursing home for the last month of our stay. This way we can have at least a little bit more time with the residents, which I am very grateful for.

In the end I can say, that I've learned a lot about myself and even if it definitely not went like I would have expected it one year ago, I still experienced a lot, saw many different places and got to know a lot of nice people. This experience also teached me, that I'm able to live alone, but it's also normal to make some mistakes:) And that you sometimes just have to try things, even if you are not sure, what the result will be.

So if you are thinking about doing a voluntary year like this: just try it! Not everything will always go like you have planned it, but that can also create new opportunites and you will gain a lot of life experience. But the most important thing is, that you will have a lot of fun!