A Volunteer's Perspective - my work during a pandemic

On the 17th of January, so ten months ago, I sent my application form to my hosting organization to start the project I am currently participating in. Back then I had no idea, we ALL had no idea, what nightmare was about to crash all of our plans for 2020. Covid-19 surprised us all and kept us inside for the majority of spring, changed our daily life and the situation still continues to change every day. But my mind was made up, I wanted to travel to the Czech Republic in September even with a pandemic still going on all around the world. So I graduated high school in June -Class of 2020, the Corona class- spend the summer with my friends -as far as it was allowed to meet with other people- and finally packed my bags in September and moved to the Czech Republic for ten months.

I’ve been living and working here for one month now and Corona is still a serious problem and more present than ever before here, the numbers are rising and new, stricter measures are announced almost every week. This obviously also interferes with my work in the kindergarten and school. We all had to wear masks and disinfect our hands as soon as we entered the building. I don’t mind wearing the mask, you get used to it very quickly, but still it is weird to not shake the hands of your colleagues when you introduce yourself. And try to understand the Czech language when the person you are talking to speaks through two or more layers of fabric, it’s impossible (I have to admit that my Czech is so bad I probably wouldn’t understand anything anyways, but the masks definitely doesn’t make it easier). Since last Wednesday the primary schools are closed and I can’t participate in the lessons anymore or at least not as I did before, now all of the classes are online.

Due to Corona my schedule has changed many times throughout the last few weeks and I don’t have as much to do as before, that’s why these blog posts are going to be way more frequent than I originally thought. You can decide for yourself if that’s something good or bad ;). With that being said, enjoy the rest of your day, wear your mask and stay safe!