My EVS in Andalusia 17

I have not been writing for an eternity now, almost two months have passed since my last entry. The reason? I have been busy travelling a lot and was escaping from the question where to start and how to catch up with all the information. For now I will only present you a resume of all the things that happened. If I can regain my focus on writing and remembering, some more detailed accounts will follow in the future.

During the last ten days of March (my Easter holidays, here the famous catholic “Semana Santa” (“Holy Week”)), I travelled to Alicante, a town in the South East of Spain. The first day, I went to the beach, ate delicious ice cream, visited the absolutely wonderful history museum and the castle which is situated on a high rock overlooking sea and town. I thought it could not get prettier, but the highlight was still waiting for me to come: It came the next day at 12.                                                                      

I was just coming from the beach to get another ice cream and I ran into it by total chance: my first Semana Santa procession! Mesmerized, I stopped and stared at the carriages representing steps of the life of the Christ, carried by up to 40 men and woman, and hundreds of “penitents”, moving slowly to a solemn drumming music in their ku-klux-clan-like costumes. Two hours later, my watch told me it was time to go. Unwilling to leave the enthralling spectacle, I left the town centre running to catch my bus to Madrid.

In Madrid I stayed over in a hostel two nights and met a very talkative American girl who accompanied me to the parks I wanted to visit. In the afternoon, we had the unlucky idea of taking the cable car to a lonely park in the outskirts of Madrid where we got robbed and threatened with a knife by two men. The rest of the day I spent in the police station waiting to make a report. The policeman was nice though, and my insurance paid me back the money.                                                                  

The third day, I met up with my mother at the airport to take a car and travel to some cities in the North-East of Madrid, amongst them Valladolid, Avila, Zaragoza, Segovia, Salamanca and the Escorial (summer residence of the royal family). All cities were stunning, especially the medieval and by a massive wall surrounded city of Avila, and every night we had the chance to be spectator of another Semana Santa procession, each one a bit different. At the end, my mum drove us down South to Purchena and stayed with me one night before flying back to Germany.

The first week of April, we were busy preparing an exchange that was going to take place in our wee village. 30 participants from 8 different countries, most of them Eastern European countries (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Bulgaria, Romania…but as well Italy and Portugal) were going to come.

The exchange, in corporation with the environmental organisation “Black Lizard” started on the 11th of March. We, the volunteers, worked as staff members, leading and supporting the activities, but participated, too. The program included a visit at the local forestal firefighter station, a day in Almeria, a presentation from a representative of Eurodesk, walking tours, games, flash mob, an intercultural evening and much more. Several times I was in charge of doing spontaneous translating from Spanish into English, a challenge I enjoyed very much. We met many lovely and inspiring people (age 20 to 50) and were exceedingly grateful for the entertaining company of people our age. The week passed far too quickly and Renata and I had to bid farewell on the day 18th, a couple of days before the end of the exchange, in order to go to our “Mid-term-volunteer-training” in Mollina (in the North of Malaga).

In contrast to our “On-arrival-training” in Toledo, we were not 20, but 100 participants. Everything was different, more anonymous, the accommodation consisted of rectangular blocks, looking all the same, with rooms respectively shared by two participants. My roommate was a lovely girl from Budapest, but it was less cheerful then the room in Toledo that I had shared with three girls from Estonia, Greece and France. It was hard to have a non-superficial conversation with anyone, so we usually ended up in the old groups of people we already knew from our first training.                                           

The weather was disappointing, cold and rainy, but the food was succulent and the activities were varied and motivating. We had a great night presenting our regions in Spain by theatre plays, songs and dances, as well as a Mollina´s Got Talent night with surprisingly impressive performances like comedy, flash mob, singing and dancing.