Lucie's steps out of her comfort zone

Lucie is our participant from Czech Republic, who started her work practice in an Elderly home "Dom Danice Vogrinec Maribor" on 27.9.2018 and she is staying until 27.4.2019. In this time she already experienced a lot, gained many new working related skills, got to know new people and places and became very familiar with Slovenia in general. Bellow are Lucie's thoughts on her time here.
"In my first weeks of work practice in the Elderly home I had a presentation about my country and I even taught one client how to dance Czech Polka. For me, having a presentation made me step out of my comfort zone. I received positive feedback from my college and was very happy to hear it. In December, I changed location of work to another unit. I was a little bit afraid of new place, new people, but on the other hand I knew it was good for me, as I would be working with my mentor as a social worker. At the beginning I was struggling with Slovene language, as  the elderly wanted to share their experience with me and I couldn't understand everything. But they were always supportive and understanding. I had Slovene language lessons which was perfect! In the last lesson me and the teacher, Luka, drank coffee and talked about everyday things - most of the chat was in Slovene language, so I was really proud of myself. I began to understand the administration at work and became more independent with organising all the documentation. I am also practicing the language in my free time, as I get in contact with local people. In daily centre we prepare many events and I think it is really perfect that there are good intergenerational relationships - sometimes children come to visit us, we have concerts etc. I am looking forward to next weeks, because we have prepared lots of interesting events!"