My EVS experience

Emrah Görmüş

For my EVS project, I spent two months in the Macedonian town of Bitola. During my stay here, I participated in a number of community events under my host organization SFERA Macedonia, and I also organized some of my own activities.

Since I was new to Bitola, my first assignment was to explore the town and observe the similarities between the Macedonian and Turkish cultures. While exploring, I couldn’t believe my eyes at how similar the architecture of Bitola is to Turkish architecture, which is mostly visible in the old buildings of the Old Bazaar.

I then had to participate in the organization of the Turkish Day at Bar Carsija (Бар Чаршија) in order to promote Turkish culture. Me and my fellow volunteer Esra made flyers which we then handed out to people in Bitola to promote our event. We then started the preparations for the event. We bought traditional Turkish food and drinks such as lokum, baklava, lemonade and Turkish coffee, which was given to visitors at our event. We also played Turkish music and taught people how to play our traditional game tavla. The event was a really nice occasion to promote and share my culture with the locals.

I also organized a cleaning action in the City Park where we cleaned a part of the park to bring awareness to the environment and help out the local community. The result of the action was not only a nicer, cleaner park, but also the feeling of doing something useful for the city.

I also organized a cleaning action in the City Park where we cleaned a part of the park to bring awareness to the environment and help out the local community. The result of the action was not only a nicer, cleaner park, but also the feeling of doing something useful for the city.

SFERA celebrated its 10^th anniversary in August, so there was a big celebration in the City Park for anyone interested to come. There were many fun activities during the event, such as painting, henna drawing or music, and I taught tavla to locals.

My final activity involved making promotional brochures about Turkey. I wrote some basic and useful information about my country and culture so that the locals can get to know Turkey and maybe become more interested to visit and explore it in the future.

I enjoyed my stay in Bitola a lot because it was a very enriching and fun experience. If you’re not sure whether to apply for an EVS project or not, you can be sure that it will be something new and interesting for you to see and do!