A year ago I stood at Lisbon airport, nervous and overloaded with questions, saying goodbye to my family and stepping into the unknown. That unknown turned out to be Rzeszów – a city in south-eastern Poland I knew almost nothing about, where my one-year European Solidarity Corps volunteering experience was about to begin.
The nearly empty parking lot when I landed made it clear: this was a fresh start. A short bus ride later, I got off near Galeria Rzeszów and met Gaia, a Spanish-Mexican photographer who greeted me with the first warm smile of that year. She took me to the apartment that would be home for the next twelve months.
I was the second long-term volunteer to arrive. That same evening, Mariami from Georgia joined us – a country I knew little about at the time. Late-night conversations, shared meals and traded stories closed that gap faster than any organised icebreaker could. The next day, Erij and Mariem arrived from Tunisia, and the apartment quickly started to feel like a place people actually lived in, not just passed through.
You might be wondering why I mentioned six volunteers but only named five. The last one, Adrian, was supposed to arrive three weeks later – and he did, walking in with a suitcase and the kind of ease that completed the group. Within days we were on a train to Kraków, sharing the first inside jokes, and discovering the very questionable existence of Oreo pierogi. I tried them. Don't.
Our days at INPRO took shape around workshops, school visits, community events, VET groups, seminars and trainings. There was always something on. Each activity carried the sense that the work was real and the effort mattered. Short-term volunteers came and went throughout the year, bringing fresh energy and new stories into the apartment each time.
INPRO encouraged us to attend Polish language classes. Polish is still not easy – but the classes taught me patience and the value of trying even when you sound ridiculous. Some of my favourite moments came from stumbling over a sentence and being met with laughter, warmth and understanding. I also met other Portuguese speakers there, and hearing your own language after weeks without it is a specific kind of relief.
Toward the end of the year, we revived "Monday Stories" – a series of evenings where participants presented their home countries: the beauty, the struggles, the details you won't find in any travel guide. Putting each event together was a proper exercise in logistics, communication and improvisation. Eventually we handed it over to the next group of volunteers, confident they'd carry it forward their own way.
"Open Cafe" became another regular anchor. Every Wednesday, Urban Lab filled with a mix of languages and people. Relationships formed there that lasted beyond a single meeting, and it was where I came to understand how genuinely open the local community in Rzeszów is.
There were smaller moments too – a barbecue at a teacher's house, reunions with former volunteers who had decided to stay in the city a while longer. Community, I learned, isn't something written into project documents. It's the thing that forms around shared meals and bad jokes and people who keep showing up.
A year like this doesn't fit neatly into a lesson plan. You learn it by living among people, by pushing your own limits, by encountering cultures you previously only knew from a screen. The year went fast, but it left something lasting: friendships, experiences and stories I carry home.
And one conviction above all – that openness to others, as INPRO has always said, is how we build something wiser together.