The following article is written by my daughter, Holly. She’s is an amazing young woman who recently spent some time overseas. If you would like to share your own stories of travel and change, I’d love to feature them in my newsletter. Please email me at bev@beverleypugh.com.
My name is Holly and I am 22 years old. Recently I took a year off university in order to travel and experience life in other countries. I didn’t have a career plan yet, and I wanted to expand my horizons. I learned about a volunteer program where you have the opportunity to live in Georgia in Eastern Europe and teach English. They pay your airfare and set you up with a host family. I immediately said “yes”!
So in September I boarded a plane ready to experience 4 months of life on the other side of the world. To say it was an amazing experience is an understatement. It was without a doubt equally the most terrifying and exciting thing I have ever done. I learned very quickly that absolutely everything is different – from the food to the language to the culture. My comfortable Canadian lifestyle was far away. Every day opened the door to new challenges and adventures.
What I realized almost immediately was that if I was going to get the most out of my trip, I needed to be willing to let go of my need for structure and control and learn to be flexible. A great sense of humour and an ability to laugh at myself was essential. Communicating became a combination of Charades, the little bit of Georgian I learned, and the little bit of English my host family learned. It was a challenge to say the least, but we had a lot of fun with it.
When in Georgia I would often joke about ‘Georgian time’ because if I needed to get somewhere it required a lot of flexibility, a lot of time, and often wouldn’t happen despite my best efforts. Public transportation would randomly shut down. Even booking a taxi ahead of time wouldn’t mean anything. After a time I did get comfortable with their way to doing things and I actually found it a little boring to resume my life when I came back to Canada. After all, at home order and routine are a way of life.
