For as long as I remember, I’ve always had this calling to do something that matters, something that helps people in some way. Even though I kinda followed the classic after uni route and took on a corporate job like most grads I guess, I’ve never really been financially driven. Sure, I’ve got bills to pay and saving up to buy a place was kinda nice and rewarding in the end but trying to “get ahead” in life to achieve what my mum would say is the “ultimate dream” of having a chunky savings account, nice car and a beautiful 2 story house with a big backyard is just not how I value my success and is certainly not what would define my happiness.
The more I was earning (compared to my uni days), the more I was starting to realise that my lifestyle wasn’t changing at all. In fact, as I started to settle into my corporate job and earn a little more, I also changed drastically personally. I realised that I genuinely didn’t need much physical stuff to be completely happy, I didn’t care how fancy my place looked, or how budget my trips were. I didn’t care about the brand of my trainers or that my old bag wasn’t matching my old boots. I guess I got pretty minimalist with time and I quite liked that! In fact, now all my belongings fit into a 30L Osprey and a daypack for all my photography gadgets <3
When I got back from my 3-month solo trip across South East Asia and settled back into work, I had a decision to make – continue with life as is, keep earning more than I could ever spend not because I was earning that much but because I genuinely wasn’t spending much at all or change my life completely and reconnect with that burning calling to be impactful and finally do something that matters.
Naturally, I chose the latter. Fast forward a few months and I was already boarding a plane to Bali to volunteer at a local school in Sukawati, in a tiny village halfway between Ubud and Sanur. I was going to help with the English classes for kids aged 6-12 but somewhat probably even more importantly I was going to take a lot of photos of the kids and their daily activities as well as the school facilities and these photos would later be used by the school principal in funding applications, website updates and social media outreach.
As soon as Pande, the English headmaster approved my Workaway application, I was so excited! I knew that I won’t change these kids’ lives in just under 3 weeks but I knew that however it goes I would have done something that would help them even just a tiny bit. And that was all that mattered!
Before heading to Sukawati to meet Pande the day before I was scheduled to start, I genuinely knew very little about the school, the English program, the place I was gonna stay at, anything really. All I knew were 2 addresses – one for the school and one for the house I was gonna stay at which was just a short 10 min scooter drive from school. Frankly, I didn’t need to know much else. When I met Pande and her husband, who came to find me after I got totally lost and unable to find their house, I already knew that this experience will be incredible. They were both smiling ear to ear when they saw me, full with gratitude that I had flown all the way from London to help the school and their little students. I didn’t care about how basic the house I was gonna stay at was, I didn’t care about the cockroaches, the unreal heat which even the little fan next to my bed could not keep away, the cold shower or how creepy it initially felt to stay there by myself when I realised a couple of the doors didn’t even lock. It was all part of the adventure!
On my first day at the school, I was kinda anxious. Sure, I had my TEFL but I had never really taught English to a whole class before, I wasn’t sure I’d be any good at it. As soon as I walked in, the kids got ecstatic. They were so eager to come say Hi. Some who felt slightly more comfortable with their English even came up to me and asked me what my name was and where I was from. Just as I remember doing when I was their age, some (mainly the boys haha) started to act out, run as fast as the space around them would allow and screamed with a dash of excitement as if they just had a sudden sugar rush from devouring their most favourite cake. I guess the fact that someone different was around did help spike their energy and all of a sudden the whole atmosphere gave me the kinda playground feel. Kids were running everywhere, teachers were smiling at me and the kids from various corners of the school, the classroom doors were widely open … everyone seemed genuinely happy and hyped to be there.
The upward control from the teachers down to the students that I was so used to seeing at my school was so distant as a concept in this place. Yet, the kids had the most incredible respect I have ever seen between students and their teachers and this stroke me from the minute I walked into the school. In the morning and after every single class, the students would take my hand (and that of every other teacher) and place it over their forehead to give me the most genuine “Terima kasih” (Thank you) I have probably ever received up until them. The students were grateful and respectful despite the true freedom they had to express themselves, to speak up whenever they wanted to speak to, to play around at the breaks and be silly in their own way when fooling around with each other.
At first, I thought to myself “How chaotic is all this?”. I had a timetable I was meant to follow but as it turned out, depending on what extra activities the kids had on a particular day, the program totally changes. It wasn’t the pre-planned to-the-minute sort of school program I was used to from my school days, with bells going off at the end and start of each class. Kids here had activities which I never even thought could be part of a school syllabus. I saw them learn how to cook, do yoga, sing, clean their classrooms, pray, take a nap, brush their teeth after lunch … it was a whole different world where kids were happy, energetic, free to express themselves, yet so respectful and so eager to learn.
As I got into my first class I felt a weird mix of excitement and anxiety as I was handed a few sheets of paper to try and come up with games to teach the “vegetables” 😀 ! Easier said than done but I had so many eager eyeballs staring at me, so many cheeky smiles and little cute faces waiting to be entertained through some funny, yet effective, games that I had to unfreeze and do something 😀 . I wiped off my sweat (it was absolutely boiling in all classrooms 😀 ) and was full on creativity mode. There was a board in every classroom and a bunch of semi-working markers … that was all I had to work with. I can’t say that I’m a creative person by nature but the kids and the little I had to work with somehow brought it out of me. Towards the end of my 3 weeks, I was coming up with games that would make them interact, laugh and giggle but also help them learn. There was no real school program so what we taught was all up to me and Pande, who a few days after my start kinda left me to run the classes by myself (scary stuff at first 😀 ). Despite the seeming lack of much order and plan, I was surprised to see how much the kids knew. They were sharp and most had the basics of English completely nailed down.
It really wasn’t taking long before I started to really bond with the kids. Every morning as I was parking my scooter at the school car park and heading to the classrooms, I would hear my students screaming after me “Marchela, Marchela”. They would then come to me, wish me a good morning and do their traditional salute smiling as wide as their little faces could physically handle. I was starting to feel part of it all and I could tell that the kids were really happy to have me there. Even though they were all at a different level with their English, with some we really didn’t need to talk much to bond almost instantaneously. I don’t know! It’s hard to explain. Maybe it was the nature of the teaching and the fact there was no hierarchy or the classic set up with me at the blackboard and the students at the desks. We were always sitting on the floor together or lining up together for a game and I and I think them too, almost had the feeling I was one of them. Sure I was slightly taller (only slightly though 😀 ), and the person responsible for actually passing on some English knowledge but I was laughing with them, hugging them whenever they came rushing towards me after class and I was always there in case they needed someone to ask a question or frankly, just stare at 😀 ! They seemed to love doing that 😀
The days I was bringing the cameras in were absolutely ecstatic. The kids would go completely crazy posing at the camera (even when it was completely switched off 😀 ), make weird funny faces, act out as if their lives depended on it. I’m not sure if they had seen an actual camera before but they sure looked as if they hadn’t. The sheer amount of excitement that all this was bringing them was making me happy. I would teach my classes and take photos in my breaks and students would surround me pretty much constantly and I LOVED every second of it! They were curious and impatient and I couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
One day as I was talking to Pande, we looked at the distance where there was a small structure being built. I asked what they were working on and she proudly answered that they were building a little library where students could go and read because at present there was nowhere the kids could find silence to do that. She then went on to tell me how the school doesn’t have resources to even get books yet which is why they were hoping to get donations to stock up their little library once ready. They had ideas, they wanted to make the school better, to give the students more but the funding just wasn’t there to materialise all these great ideas.
In a school where I saw only a limited number of notebooks, the principal and the teachers wanted to give their little students a library. Is that so much to ask?! I could feel myself sympathizing with the teacher as she was explaining how hard it has been to get even the funding for the structure that was getting built – and gosh, was it not tiny!! Then I realised that as much as we all hate to talk about money, at one point it’s funding that is needed to grow and get better. Sure the kids could study in roasting classrooms with temperature way over 25 degrees, without textbooks and only a handful of notebooks and they were doing it, happily, but at that point when Pande was explaining all this that was happening in the background, I couldn’t help but want to help more. Sure, I was already there trying to give back by teaching and taking photos but suddenly all this impact felt somehow insignificant.
As I was listening to Pande, I started to feel myself becoming quite emotionally involved with her story and it was at this very moment that I decided that I had to, I wanted to use this blog to grow my impact. There was so much time that I could physically give to volunteer and give back and this was something I was already personally committed to. But I wanted to have a bigger idea, a bigger driver to push me at the back whenever I started to feel that I was losing purpose, I wanted something that will go beyond the one-off project here and there. I wanted something that will stay.
So after giving it a good thought, I decided to pledge to donate 20% of all that this blog ever makes to sustainability and children education projects. Sure, this won’t be much, if anything at first, but years down the line, I hope I’ll be able to look back at this day and reflect on how much this blog has been able to contribute. I’m saying “we” because without you, my readers, none of this will be possible.
At the time of writing this blog generates only a very small amount of affiliate commission because honestly, my focus has never been on monetising it. But I’m committed to investing more time into the blog to give you a lot of valuable content and hopefully when you get to booking your trip, you’ll remember to come back to this site to make some of your bookings through it. Why this matters? Well, some of the links on the site are affiliate which means that if you book through them, I’ll get a small commission (at no extra cost to you) and 20% of that commission will go towards charitable projects. I truly live by and believe that every little helps so eventually we’ll make an impact, I’m confident of that!
The next few days at the school were pretty amazing. I got to attend and shoot at the school’s Saraswati ceremony which honestly was the most incredible and authentic event I have ever been part of. Kids and teachers gathered together to celebrate the Goddess of knowledge by putting in an extraordinary set of dances and rituals. The fact that I was the only non-local at this super intimate and special event made me feel honoured, humbled and fully integrated. I sat on one table with the kids and the teachers, sharing the offerings after the ceremony, laughing and giggling, what for I can’t even tell because I could only understand a tiny bit of the cheerful conversations going on but I and everyone around me was happy, smiling ear to ear, and that was all that mattered.
The days passed quickly and by the time I knew it, it was time to say Goodbye, hug my students for one last time, receive their salute once more before I drive away with my scooter one last time. And I gotta tell ya, it was emotional! It was that single day that made me truly realise that sometimes the actual amount of time really doesn’t matter. I had spent just under 3 weeks at the school, yet on my last day the entire school gathered together. The teachers gathered all the kids and sat them down at the little corridor in front of the classrooms, one of the headmasters gave a little speech, then the principal gave a speech! I was standing in front of all the kids, blown away by this whole formal set up and farewell. I didn’t expect any of it. I didn’t expect them to care much at all, to be honest. I mean, 3 weeks really isn’t a long time and I didn’t feel that I had done that much.
Yet, class by class, groups of students one after another started to come up to me to hand me a handmade card and give me the sweetest most genuine Goodbye hugs a humble girl from a little tiny town in Bulgaria (that’s me) could ever wish for. My heart was pounding because I just genuinely didn’t know what to say. The kids were getting all emotional to see me go. Some were making me promise that I’ll go back and see them again. It was honestly one of the most amazing moments of my life. For 3 weeks I had managed to connect with people way more than I ever imagined I could. I didn’t feel that I made a difference, yet I was sent off with so much gratitude that humbles me out even by the sheer recall of it all.
As it kinda goes at every proper send off, the principal asked me to say a few words. For a short second, I got stunned. What do I say?! How can I inspire these little kids?! I got incredibly excited, my heart rate went up, my cheeks suddenly got even pinkier. This was the moment.
“I come from a small town in a small country, from a simple non-English speaking family, very much like you. I went to a public school and I worked hard, I put my heart, my soul, my time and all my dreams into my studies. Now I’m standing here before you and I’d like to think that I’ve come a long way from the school girl I used to be … but none of this would have been possible if I didn’t study English as hard and as passionately as I did because being able to speak English got me to where I am today. So study hard, put in the hours, put in the work and never give up on your dreams!” – all covered in goosebumps, not word for word, but this was roughly what I told the kids before I packed up my 20+ handmade cards and a few presents and hugged them all one last time before leaving.
Learning English got me everything I have today and being able to say it aloud and inspire these kids really gave me goosebumps because I know that just like I did, they can change their life completely if they could just speak the language of the world. I did it and so they can!
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Excellent blog here! Also your website loads up very fast! What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my site loaded up as fast as yours lol
Heey😊Thank you so much for your comment. I’m so glad you like the blog. There’s definitely a lot more content coming soon so do come back!! I use Bluehost and I genuinely can’t recommend them enough. The customer service is just excellent. My affiliate link is http://www.bluehost.com/track/theglobaleyes. You’d know already that 20% of anything that this blog makes (including of course any commission from Bluehost) goes to support sustainability and children education projects so I would really really appreciate it if you do use this link to buy your hosting. Thank you so much again and have an amazing day 🙂