Yara Mostafa Kamal in Szczecin, Poland

I've been on a GCDP internship in Szczecin, Poland from 10th of July to 31st of August where I worked in 3 kindergartens (Promyk, Fantazja, and Nutka) and two Foundations (one for poor children, and an orphanage -or a student house as they call it). 

 In general, I would teach the children basic English; using songs, flash cards, games including team work and challenges, and I would share the Egyptian culture and traditions. They all expressed quite a big interest in the "Egyptian" way of life and history. I showed them a brief presentation on the era of the pharaohs which surprisingly they knew much about it –even though they are 5 years old- I later learned that Egypt is very popular in Poland and that it is one of the easiest and favorite places for a polish person to travel to.

The program I joined was successful in ways and unsuccessful in others: since this is a "global development program" I didn’t notice much development working in kindergartens because they were all rich and the children there did not need anyone new or from another country, however, in the foundations for children with certain conditions like being poor or autistic or having ADHD or with parents who abandoned them, it was a whole different thing. 

It is such an amazing feeling to know that just being there with the children, playing and showing them new stuff that they didn’t know of before. I had the best time of my life staying with the kids at the orphanage; I felt I was doing some change.

Besides the volunteer work, all the fun and parties start in the afternoons and weekends. Although I'm not much of a party person and haven’t attended that much parties, I had a blast enjoying the music, listening to the impossibly hard language without understanding a thing, and just communicating with all the different people -AIESECers of SZCZECIN- who had a party almost every day and a monthly party playing bowling and billiard. I've also met amazing Polish people who were working in the kindergartens and foundations. I got invited to their homes, shared their food, traditions, and their experiences. Every weekend, I would travel to a different city in Poland, visiting museums and famous landmarks, going into forests, swimming in lakes or to just chilling on the shore of the Baltic sea. I've been to Międzyzdroje, Sopot, Gdańsk, and Poznan.

What is more special in this internship for me is that it was a first for me, everything I did was new, and fresh. So with happy memories, crazy moments, and an awesome Ukrainian friend, who I'm still in touch with, I'm SO willing to go through the AIESEC experience all over again in a new place with new people to build an empire of international friendships and experiences.