I am back home now. My suitcase has been unpacked, life has moved on, and there are thousands of kilometers between me and Cristuru Secuiesc. But somehow, my mind is still there. I still think about the streets I used to walk, the villages we travelled to, the children we worked with, the people I met, the house we shared, and the little routines that became such a normal part of my life. Sometimes a random memory comes back without warning, and for a moment, it feels strange to realize that I am not there anymore. In November 2025, I arrived in Cristuru Secuiesc, a small town in Transylvania, Romania, to begin an eight month volunteering experience through the European Solidarity Corps. At that moment, I knew that I was going there to volunteer, work with local communities and experience life in another country. What I did not know was how much those eight months would teach me about people, community, culture and myself. And those who know my story know that simply getting there was not easy. The months before my arrival came with uncertainty, visa problems, delays and moments when I genuinely did not know whether I would make it to Romania at all. There were times when the whole journey felt much more complicated than I had imagined when I first applied for the project. Looking back now, though, I can say without hesitation: it was worth it. From the moment I finally reached Cristuru Secuiesc, I felt that I had been waited for. My coordinators did not make me feel like just another volunteer arriving for a project. There was a warmth in the way they welcomed me that I still remember. After all the uncertainty of trying to get there, suddenly I was surrounded by people who were genuinely happy that I had finally arrived. And that feeling never really disappeared. My project, “Development Support for Transylvania: Volume 11,” hosted by ATA Association, brought together international volunteers to work with local communities in Cristuru Secuiesc and the surrounding villages. Although I had moved to Romania, I found myself surrounded by Hungarian language and culture, as Cristuru is home to a beautiful Hungarian community. A large part of my days was spent with children and young people in schools, kindergartens and youth centers. We organized non-formal educational activities around English, culture, creativity, environmental topics and many other things. But when I think about those activities now, I don’t remember only what we taught. I remember the children themselves, no my children, name by name. Some of my favorite memories from those eight months come from our travelling schools. There was something about those days that I genuinely loved , getting ready early in the morning, travelling together to small villages, carrying our materials with us and never knowing exactly how the day would unfold. In the beginning, the villages were just unfamiliar names that I could barely pronounce. But after going back week after week, they started to mean something to me. I began to recognize the roads, the schools, the classrooms, the teachers and, most importantly, the children waiting for us. There was something so special about returning to the same places and seeing familiar faces again. Slowly, we were not simply volunteers visiting a school for one activity anymore. We were the people they knew and expected to come back. Living and working in an international team definitely taught me about communication, patience and adaptability. But now that I am back home, those words somehow feel too small to describe what I actually gained. I gained ten girls who, only eight months earlier, were complete strangers to me. We came from different countries, spoke different languages, had different habits, personalities and stories. At first, we were simply eleven volunteers who happened to share the same house. And then, somewhere between sleepy mornings, dinners together, long conversations in the kitchen, laughter that made our stomachs hurt, small arguments, difficult days, celebrations, trips and ordinary evenings when nothing special was happening, we became a family. If someone had told me before this project that a small Hungarian-speaking community in the middle of Transylvania would become one of my favorite parts of the whole world, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. I arrived knowing almost nothing about the community, and I definitely didn’t expect Hungarians to become some of my favorite people. I fell in love with their warmth, the way they welcomed us and all those small moments of connection that didn’t always need the same language. At some point, hearing Hungarian stopped making me feel like I was somewhere foreign. A language that had once sounded completely unfamiliar eventually became a sound I associated with people and places I loved. Coming back home made me understand something I hadn’t fully realized while I was there: volunteering is never only about what you give. I went to Romania thinking about what I could contribute, what I could teach and what kind of volunteer I could be. I came back thinking about everything that had been given to me instead. It was difficult to get to Cristuru Secuiesc. But in the end, leaving was much harder.
