The Journey of Unexperienced Wanderer

Working as volunteer is one of many youngster challenges including me. It can pull out my hidden talents sleeping inside of me to the world and show the others how capable I am. 

My name is Chayuth Kittawee, Boat. I am 22 years old at that time. I am a 5th-year medical student at Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand.

Since I was a kid, I was being raise and nourish in the strict old-schooled family. It is a bit harsh for me because I was always coward of doing something alone and making mistakes. I couldn’t get rid of these weaknesses until I met my English teacher at the tutorial school before getting enroll to the university. He gradually changed my aspect of how you live your life as a human who desires to get out of these feeling and freely fly yourself in the sky with your own unexperienced wings. Many years passed by after I have finished studying with him, I realized I had to find something to fulfill my dreams and here my chance was coming to me. I had almost 2-month-long summer break after my 4th-year of studying as a clinical-year medical student. Studying medicine comes with a certain expectation to work harder on average than most other students leading myself developed burnout things as I felt overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. As soon as I realized what really happened to me, I had to find the way out and, fortunately, I heard that one of my friends, Issa, planning to go to Poland as a volunteer on her volunteer project and I gave her a call all of a sudden to be a part of this roam.  This was so new to me because I’ve never done a thing like this before. Even though she went to a different project which was not Euroweek but it didn’t matter. Then, we joined the trip together and I knew something new and exciting was going to happen soon. I started doing the visa stuffs, prepared the documents and submitted them to the Embassy. It was a pretty hard work for me because I’ve never been to European region before and here was my very first time. At first, I totally had no idea how to start and P’ Pear invited me to know P’ June, my dear lovely sister, she gave me not only how to apply for the visa but also how to survive in Poland and make an amateur traveler ready. On the day I got my visa passed, I almost cried because of my hard work and endless effort yielded. 

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On 28 March 2019, I literally got a butterfly in my stomach. My mind was in a maze even though I knew that I didn’t fly alone but I was still afraid of making the very first move to a totally different people basis on their lives and cultures. My major insecure of this journey was my English skills. Why? Since I did not frequently speak English as in my daily life, I was a bit loss of confidence during any conversations. However, it couldn't be helped and I just gave it to go. The second insecure was homophobic abuse including any verbal and physical forms. As a LGBT+ alliance and member, living up and residing in a Christian country had to put yourself back to the closet and hide your vividly rainbow spirit is a bit harsh for me hence I had to pretend and act like a normal-based male citizen with a little bit feminine gesture. Luckily, throughout this trip I was safe and took my 32 vital organs back perfectly. Finally, during the 17 hours on the aircraft, we finally landed on Poland, the land of mountains, white beaches and thousands of lakes. After we reached the airport terminal, I and Issa had to separate to our hotel. My heart started beating faster and faster like me, myself developed arrhythmia in a blink. I had to pull myself together and move on. The first night in Poland was pretty messed up because I have no idea where I was but I actually I did. I stayed in Krakow for 2 nights, explored the city then I had to catch a train to Domaszkow. The funniest thing is when I went to the train ticket office and I told her I wanted to go to Domaszkow (note: Domaszków is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Międzylesie, within Kłodzko County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland), she looked at my face and said “WHAT IS THAT PLACE” and there were a lot of question marks on her face (I told myself even a Polish people didn’t know where it was how could I stayed only for a few day in this country would know that). OK, let my best friend gave me a hand, Mr. Google, and 5 minutes later, we already knew where it was and then I just realized many people were waiting for their turn to buy a ticket. In a meanwhile, I disappeared as fast as Usain Bolt ran in the Olympic race. After the 3-hour long journey on the train, I finally arrived at Domaszkow station and Zanis, one of best volunteers, came to pick me up to the Malefir hotel. I met a lot of people there. There were Vietnamese, Myanmar, Honduran, Indonesian, Mexican and Colombian. They are all very friendly and hilarious. We stayed, slept and did the activities together. We were quite intimate and got along pretty well but it was normal to have an argument about noise disturbance and quarrels sometimes. During the volunteer work, I enjoyed being as a sisbrother (sister + brother) to these youths. I had to admit that they are super creative and energizing despite of all-day time activities. We aimed to improve their English skills, how to be more confident, and the courage to accept the variety of human being despite of their races, sexual orientation and human right as well. In Euroweek, we also encourage the new generations to express their ideas and thoughts in order to bring something new to the community including the project of inventions to help disabled people or patients. One of most impressive interventions is “magic gloves” which assist the user to communicate with deaf people. All of them amazed me all the time how these ideas came from. To be honest, if I have a chance to be a kid again, I will never waste my time and find the opportunity to show how capable I am as a driving force of new era kid. My 30 days of work was fascinating and enjoyable. I met new people, got to know the local community, made new friends, increased your social and relationship skills, learnt new skills - and put my existing ones to good use. I am truly proud of myself in every single decision I’ve made this time.  

I swear I’ll never forget these moments of my life.