My wonderful year at Tandem

Hello everyone! My last blog post will be about happiness and my volunteer year at Tandem, because these topics are inseparable.

How do you recognise that you are happy? Is it because you absolutely have to experience something great and new every day? Or are the actual sources of happiness perhaps invisible at first glance and are sometimes taken for granted? Maybe both and maybe it’s individual for everyone. I myself have discovered that I can be happy in two different ways: Either in moments when feelings of happiness fill me for a specific reason or in every moment, as long as I know that my most important source of happiness – my family, friends and the awareness that my life is going in the right direction – are always there. No matter where I am and what I’m doing.

In my experience, you can also recognise your happiness by the fact that you often laugh without having to have a specific reason to do so. You simply feel and know that your life is going in the right direction.

I realised early on that I was happy at Tandem. At first, however, it was about that phase of happiness in which you don’t yet realise how lucky you are. The kind of happiness that consists of inconspicuous and brief moments. Moments in which you realise that you are devoting yourself to meaningful things. Moments in which you realise that you have come across good people who are not only reliable and hard-working, but also friendly and very liveable.

My Tandem colleagues were always there for me, whether it was about business or personal matters. Despite the work, which was sometimes more than enough, they always found time to ask me how I was doing and what was new with me.

When you accumulate a lot of good moments, you experience a transition from happiness phase one to happiness phase two, in which you consciously recognise your happiness and enjoy it to the full. During this year, I have experienced a really diverse range of moments of happiness: these include my everyday life in the office, interesting projects and lots of fun with my Tandem colleagues, numerous trips all over Germany, excursions, karaoke sessions and endless coffee breaks with my friends and acquaintances in Regensburg. Very important and not to be forgotten were and are moments when random passers-by on the street gave me a smile. Last but not least, I must also mention in this category those moments that were not happy at all at the beginning, but which have brought me further in my life and for which I am grateful in retrospect.

I mentally put together a mosaic of all these moments that resembles a flower. I call it the flower of time because I experienced all these beautiful moments not all at once, but little by little. If the colourful stained glass windows in the picture of the flower of time remind you of the Gothic windows of the church on Marienplatz in Munich, you’ve guessed right. When I was at the On-Arrival seminar for the ESK volunteers in Munich, it occurred to me that everything I experience during my voluntary service at Tandem forms a beautiful, colourful mosaic of memories.

My time as a volunteer at Tandem has flown by. I will be leaving Regensburg the day after tomorrow and I still have a lot to do before then. As well as packing my suitcase and tidying up my flat, I really have to say goodbye to all my friends in Regensburg. I want to thank them and my Tandem colleagues from the bottom of my heart for my wonderful year in Regensburg. For all the wonderful things we experienced together and for everything I learnt from them and with them.

One of the many things I appreciate about my Tandem colleagues is their attitude towards other people and their work and their mature approach to finding solutions in conflict situations.

When I was at the Midterm seminar for ESK volunteers in Bremen, we sat around the campfire one beautiful evening and sang together. During a short break between the individual songs, a volunteer suggested that we write a list of our wishes on a small piece of paper and then throw the piece of paper into the fire. According to a legend, the wishes then come true. I also wrote a list of my wishes back then and threw it into the fire. And now I close my eyes and write down a wish on a mental piece of paper: That my Tandem colleagues are always well, and that they maintain their enthusiasm for German-Czech cooperation and the good atmosphere that prevails in the office. I throw the piece of paper into the flame of joie de vivre and say:

Thank you for everything!

And a big thank you to you too, my dear readers. Thank you for letting me write these blog posts for you. I wish you all the best. And as always, stay up to date, because new volunteers will soon be coming to continue the ahoj.info project.                                                                                                                                    

Yours, Mária