Magical EVS arrival
22-27 october, Navarredonda de Gredos, Spain .
Arrival training is the inseparable part of EVS. So this year it took a place in Navarredonda, in the middle of magnificent mountains, with amazing landscape, magical silence, and inspiring atmosphere.
What is the purpose of this training course?
In general, European voluntary service do a lot of people from around the world. In this case, Spain is not exceptional, so there are volunteers who do their job in different locations. For instance, we are from region Castilla y Leon, other ones from Andalucia, Castilla la Mancha or another else . during this “EVS arrival “ we’ve got the possibility to introduce other volunteers, learn about their activities, new Spanish lifestyle and create new friendships. These moments makes our living here more adventurous, interesting and unforgettable. Facilitators were always open to questions , interests and just satisfy our curiosity. Learn more about your rights, how to use it correctly your abilities as a volunteer and many, many interesting things.
One more reason why this week was so much inimitable is that there were plenty of diversity people. In one space were united volunteers from Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Georgia, Russia, France, Romania, England, and Ireland. I can say that it was the explosion of diversity . That factor had made a lot of ordinary moments into special . During the whole week, we were discussing, sharing our ideas and opinions about a lot of different topics, found out new skills in ourselves and filling up twice more new ones. This week was a real challenge for our Spanish language skills because half of the sessions were in Spanish. We’ve got 3 Spanish lessons and I think it was one of funniest moments of our “arrival “ ( now we know several bad Spanish words :D ). I should mention that language skill challenge doesn’t end only at Spanish because we learnt, also, a couple of words in Italian from our lovely “team Italy “ ,” brand new” British accent and useful words from Ollie from Bristol , how to speak about Machiavelli , Dostoevsky and deep philosophy with Irish man. ( by the way, his name is Dara and he was the classmate of Joffrey Baratheon, info for GOT lovers ☺))). We have seen Viennese waltz from Austrian guys and a lot of interesting things about every “participant country”.
In Navarredonda was really “ bucketing down” colorful and bright people, right now we have hopefully new travel buddies, hosts around the Spain, like-minded persons. So cheers new international friendships.
Just random stuff for you:
When someone from Britain tells you that your accent is not so bad, you feel that something magical comes to your head.
Italians always mix languages (Spanish and Italian), but no one can notice this.
We had offline “facebook” pages, where everyone can put the message for you (mostly anonymous). Our Austrian friends and we were working as a Navarradonda post, writing messages for everyone in the evening. It was the most nervous moment to come to the training room in the morning and to check your “facebook” envelope.
The last day we had really meditative exercise walking through the forest, where facilitators tape the papers with thought-provoking questions. Nature there is totally magical because you have a feeling of weightlessness in your head.
Oh, and this incredible “dance of the EVS”, but Salome was always laughing while all were dancing, and she couldn’t dance only making the video of that strange moment.
I believe, that now we know a lot about Spanish culture and about stereotypes of the regions. So, for example, in Andalucia, everyone is lazy and doesn’t want to work, just siesta and fiesta. But it’s not true. You can see the sociological reports where people from this region are really hard workers. So don’t believe in stereotypes.
To be continued….