On arrival-training in Bergondo

Two months after our arrival in Santiago, the last 7 of us, who arrived the latest on their project, had our On-arrival training. It took place in a small village called Bergondo, situated close to A Coruña. In the morning of the 10th of December we took a train to Coruña where we should meet at the bus station with other volunteers. It would be the first time for us to get in contact with volunteers living in other cities of Spain, so everybody was quite curious to find out where they were from, what they would be like, if there'd be perhaps somebody from ones own home country etc.. When we finally arrived there it was crowded, 30 - 40 people waiting for us, all stranger to each other, but united in the decision to take part on an Evs project. After we took the bus to Bergondo, we got our rooms. Everybody got a room with people from other cities, so that we would be forced to socialize a little. We had few minutes to put down our stuff, greet each other and exchange a few words before we had to meet in the activities room where we  started the week with a few welcoming games to get to know each other. The start of a great and as exciting as exhausting week.



For me the week passed really fast, we had a huge program, a lot of different activities and games to prepare us for our different projects. The staff made a really good job choosing nice games and trying to keep the theoretical parts about volunteer rights, insurance, and so on, as interesting as possible by presenting them under more pleasant forms like quizzes or group works. We also had Spanish classes ,with great Spanish teachers and the ambiance in the group got better from day to day. I don't want to write about every single activity and thing we've done as I don't want to spoiler anything for future volunteers, so I wanted the focus myself on my two favorite parts of the week.

 The first  one was our trip to A Coruña, where we had an afternoon to solve ten tasks, leading us to get in contact with the locals, for example helping them, speaking with them ,playing games like trade a pen for a Mercedes etc. It was really nice because we had free time, we could do it wherever we wanted. So we found ourselves walking threw A Coruña and his bars completing the different missions. In the evening we met in La casa de tortilla, a restaurant reserved for our group. There we ate delicious tortilla and drank some bottles of wine together. We spent a really nice evening with the whole group and after dinner there was a great band who played Spanish songs for us, which all of us enjoyed immensely.

My second highlight was the quemada we got the last night. It's a traditional Galician fire drink you share with family or friends. It was really impressive to see this, how it's made and spelled with magic. It was also the starting point for a great evening where we deepened our new-built friendships, from which we'll profit for the rest of our project and hopefully even longer.

As conclusion I can say that it was a great week, where all of us learned a lot about our project, but even more important found a lot of new friends with whom we can share the EVS project experience.

Louis