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8 weeks volunteering in the Jimbaran Children's Home
Paulina loves to work with children. Therefore she decided to come to Bali before starting to study, to support a local children's home. With her dedication and her love for the children she made the most of her time in Bali and says, she "would do this adventure every time again"!
Pre-departure feelings...
My name is Paulina I’m 19 years old I’m from Hamburg, Germany and I went to Bali for two month to work as a volunteer in the children's home in Jimbaran.
Before I came to Bali I had no idea what to expect and I was very nervous. It was always a big dream of mine to go to Indonesia and especially to Bali. I always imaged it like a paradise to live! After my long flight, I arrived in my new home and I was just happy. All people from the house were really friendly and open. I felt very welcome from the first moment.
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My first days
First Day: In the morning a man came to our house and brought me my scooter. I never drove a scooter before so I had really no idea how to drive it. But the others from the house showed me how to do it. I would give you the advice that if you have the chance to drive the scooter before DO it! You will feel more confident in the traffic in Bali and that is very important. For me, driving the scooter in the first week was really stressful. But I could handle it and developed myself.
Second Day: On my second day Laura and Rifka from Bali-Internships came to my house and welcomed me. We drove together to the children's home and I got to know Ibu Ine the “mother” of the children's home. The 10 children, who are aged from 2 till 13 years, were really open and I was happy that the start was much more easy as I imaged. But I wished that Ibu Ine would have speak more to me and welcomed me a bit.
The project work
In the project I was together with three others from my house. We had two shifts everyday, one from 7am till 1pm and the late shift from 1pm till 7 pm. In the morning we had to bring the kids to school with our scooters. First it sounded crazy to me to take 2 or 3 kids on one scooter, but after a while it was completely normal for me. After that we played with the little ones, did the laundry, cleaned the house or went to the church with them. In the afternoon we did every day something else. Sometimes it was craft day, beach day or German class. We also had to bath the small ones and change the diapers (be prepared for that). But that was really no problem because already after one week I felt so close to the children and even if some ignore you sometimes I had the feeling to be a part of the little family.
All in all I loved the project because of the kids but sometimes I wished that Ibu Ine would have shown us what we have to do in the house because sometimes she didn’t seem happy about our work.
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Free time
During the week and at the weekends you have a lot of free time and can do and see amazing things. Driving anywhere is no problem with the scooter. We always did trips to other cities, went surfing, and went to new beaches or nice beach parties!
All in all Bali was the best time in my life till now! Not only the weather is amazing, the Indonesian people are very friendly and open minded and if they can speak English they always talk with you and are interested in what you are doing in Bali. I leaned and tried so many new thing I couldn’t imagine before, I went there and really got beyond myself.
In the end I really have to say that I was completely happy with the Organisation and I would do this adventure every time again!
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