Emotions post volunteering - forever stuck in nostalgia?

Something about us – Volunteer Life

Experiences from ex volunteers

by Carolin Kretzer

Returning back home after an ESC project is unfortunately an unavoidable part of the journey. The blues felt when coming home is nothing unusual but can also hit you hard.

Not long ago, I stumbled across a TikTok on my for you page that described the feelings of a girl returning to her everyday life at home after a long journey. A lot of people could relate to the hashtag #posttravel, and while reading some of the comments, I began to understand why. So many people described how quickly they adapted to their usual routine and how sad it made them. Within one day, they went from their amazing experiences abroad to a completely different reality back home. At first, it feels incredible to catch up with all of your friends and relatives after not seeing them for such a long time, but not much time passes until the socalled post-travel blues kicks in. After spending so many months in another country, expanding your comfort zone and collecting beautiful memories and meeting people that open up the way that you think and the way that you see the world, life in your home town can feel comparably boring. The things that would usually excite you don’t feel the same anymore.

The exact cause for this melancholy is not clear, but there are some plausible theories. Some say it is the large change in environment or also see it as a sort of reverse homesickness, as you have gotten so used to a new home while away. Then there is always the possibility that you are just coming home to a new job or school that you are scared of and rather not want to start.

Coming back home after doing an ESC volunteering project can cause the same blues, but since I didn’t finish my project yet, I decided to interview some old volunteers whom I met during my first half of volunteering and who are now back in their hometowns.

I am okay

© Anastasia Hrechka

Yusuf, you finished your project in December 2022 after living in Thessaloniki for almost 12 months. Can you describe to me your feeling when you came back home in the first few days and how it feels now?

First of all, thank you very much for including me in your article. Actually, you’re one of the people who can understand me the most. Because you were always with me during the last parts of my one-year volunteering experience in Thessaloniki.

In the last months of the project, there were times when I sometimes felt tired. However, I was not complaining about that. Because every moment I spent there was very special for me.

When it was time to go back home, I was saying to myself that it’s time to leave. If I have to talk about my first few days after returning to Turkey, of course it was pretty nice. After a year, I was happy to see my family, friends and especially my hometown. Absolutely, the volunteers house is unimaginably crazy, interesting and beautiful place, but sometimes it is nice to return home for a little rest. If you ask me how I feel now, I miss every moment I lived in Thessaloniki. One of the most beautiful things about ESC is that you feel like a local in the place where you volunteer and you become a part of it.

Do you feel that you have changed during your experience?

Yeap! If I have to define ESC, I would say it is an experience that will change your life. ESC gives you the opportunity to live in a multicultural environment, meet new people from different coming to visit me helped a lot, but probably I never really allowed myself to get used to Napoli again because I knew I was coming back to Greece very soon. countries, with different cultures, values and experiences. This project was an amazing learning journey for me. I think I have learnt a lot and improved myself in many ways, especially through living, working and interacting with people of different nationalities. In conclusion, I strongly recommend an ESC experience to everyone. Because you will find such a friendly environment where you can develop your skills without any fear.

Giovanni, you completed your volunteering in May 2022, how did being home feel for you in the first few days in Italy?

For at least a couple of weeks I really felt out of place in Napoli, where I live. To be honest, I always feel out of place in my city, but this time was different: I was missing the other volunteers who became my routine for many months, I was missing Thessaloniki, my life there and also the excitement to do something new everyday. Having people from that reality coming to visit me helped me a lot, but probably I never really allowed myself to get used to Napoli again because I knew I was coming back to Greece very soon.

Vulnerable

© Anastasia Hrechka

You came back to Greece in July for another ESC project. What made you decide to come back?

Our boss forced me to come back, I didn’t want to! Jokes aside, I actually went with the flow and accepted to do this other project in different city in Greece. I came back to Thessaloniki a few times during the summer and I was actually nervous, but not only I found a comfortable environment with many people I knew already, I also found new friendships that I value now. I even decided to stay a bit more after the second project because I was enjoying this “second part” of my experience.

Now that the time in Greece is finally over after coming back two times, how is your feeling about this ending?

Is it the end? My friends make fun of me because I was coming back all the time.The first time I left, it did feel like an end (it wasn’t eventually). This time I feel different. Of course I am in Napoli now, I am developing a project here in Italy and I am moving on, but I just feel Thessaloniki is also part of my life: I have Greek friends, volunteers or ex volunteers are still living there, I am still very much in touch with people from USB.. I don’t agree when someone says Erasmus and ESC are like a dream, far away from “real life”. If you want, it can be part of your world, even after it ends. I mean, while I am writing this I am planning a reunion in Prague with “my generation” of volunteers and a new visit in Thessaloniki for next month. Tavernas, I am coming!

Laura, you left Thessaloniki in December 2022 after 8 months of living abroad. How did you feel in your first days back in Italy?

During my first days at home, I was super happy. Because I was with my family, I started to go out with my friends again and we had a lot of stuff to tell each other. We had to catch up on 7 months that passed separately. At the same time, it was strange, because I didn’t have a lot of people around all day and I missed a lot of people that lived with me during my experience (Didi and Urania too).

Can you observe how you have changed during the last months in your daily life at home now? Do you feel things differently?

Yes, I feel completely different. I’m glad to be here, to come back in the “real life”, but I have to thank my experience because of my changing. Now I’m more conscious about what I want, what I like to do and what I completely don’t like. I’m more sure about myself, my capacities, my limits and also my fears. I have to be honest, after 7 months living with around 73 flatmates, I’m a little bit tired to meet new people again and think to restart a new life in another country or in another city (just for now, because we never know what our life has in store for us), but, at the same time, this experience helped me to grow my curiosity related to a place, to a person or simply to a story.

Nastya, you went back home in May 2022. How did being home after living through such an amazing experience felt for you?

Being home was really surreal in the beginning. First of all the whole environment changed a lot. Before I left we were living in another flat, still in the same house but in another flat. My stepfather was healthy but during my stay in Greece he got sick and when I came back home he was in a really bad state regarding his health so I came in a completely different environment that I was not used to. Everything felt super foreign and I needed a lot of time to get used to the new situation. I was crying a lot.

Additionally I was comparing my current emotional state a lot to my feelings during my ESC project. Everything that happened in Greece just felt like a dream. All of my friends that I had before were gone because they are studying in other cities, so I was kind of on my own. Thank god I still had friends from Greece like Giovanni or Michelle that I could talk to a lot and that I could visit, which made it better. But everything felt so so foreign and surreal and I had to find the beauty in life again even though I see myself as a person that can find good things easily.

An artwork describing the feelings in the first days back home

© Anastasia Hrechka

I saw in your Instagram stories that you gave yourself the mission to completely rediscover your home town Cologne from another angle. Was this a way for you to cope with the post volunteering blues?

I think so, I think that it was a way to cope. I didn’t do it intentionally but maybe unconsciously this was a way to kind of find the beauty again in the city I was living. I mean I never loved Cologne, it was never my favorite city but right now I achieved the point where I love it the most. I hate and I love the city, it has always been like that but after coming back I didn’t like anything in it. I didn’t like the people, I didn’t like the city itself, I hated the district where I was living. Now it’s all different again but I needed to reorient myself.

It was so much work to build the relationships I built in Greece and I am very thankful for them, I think the work I put was absolutely worth it. When I came back I was like omg I have to go through it all again when I go to university. Then I started having Tinder and and trying to meet new people and it didn’t work out because I was so burnt out. I didn’t have any energy for anything anymore because of all of the energy that I spend in these eight months meeting so many people. And I needed months or at least weeks to find my battery again. Now its alright again, I can meet as many people as it goes but before it was so hard for me to meet people. And even though I was using Tinder a lot, I never had the energy to actually meet these people. I didn’t have the energy to find new connections with this people. So it hit really really hard.

Would you recommend doing this for everyone else coming back from a project? Or do you maybe have other tips to share?

I think if you have good friends and a good family that you love back in your hometown when you’re coming back it will be easier either way and you for sure need ways to distract yourself. Because its impossible to live with this nostalgia and this amazing story pictures in your head and you are like “What the fuck, I am sitting here alone right now in my room. Where is all the shit that was going on? I am missing it so much. This random talks that we had.” And it’s so important to have someone. And if you don’t have someone you always have yourself. I mean I did it with myself, I discovered the city on my own again. I was spending a lot of time with myself reading books and I felt the new beginning. It was really nice and helped me a lot!

After hearing all those very different experiences you can clearly see they had one thing in common: Missing the life during ESC. So while the level of post volunteering blues might differ individually, it’s unfortunately a shared experience. Whether it be to become such a local in the place you moved to, missing the exciting new things you experience every day, missing the friends you made or coming back to a difficult situation at home, saying goodbye and coming back is always hard after you have become attached to so many things and people in another country. To overcome these blues there are lots of different ways. As advised by Nastya talking to your friends and family can help a lot but also distracting yourself a bit. During your ESC you will most probably also miss some things at home, so making yourself a list of things that you want to do when you’re back can help too.