EVS in Santiago de Compostela

    On the 1st of March it was Santiago’s carnival and of course the “ludotequa” took part in the parade to represent Don Bosco’s center.     This year the theme was “Don Bosc's Jungle”. We had lots of different animals: Sheep, owls, cows, dogs, chicken, penguin and parrot.  We took a van and we stuck a banner on it with a message showing respect to fauna and flora.

    For three days we organised Carnival Camp in Don Bosco   We divided the children into three groups: the youngest (from 4 – 8 years old) the older kids (from 8 – 12 years old) and the oldest (12 years +). We organised different activities, games, handcraft activities and tales.     On the first day we painted up the children to look like princesses, superheroes, butterflies, and cats and played some games: el pañuelito …

 Each year since 10 years, Don Bosco organizes a solidarity tournament of futsal for the "Operacìón Quilo". For approximately 2 months, the center collects food in order to redistribute it to people who need it in several places such as 2 parishes San Pedro and Fontiñias and associations (Arela, Cottolengo and Vagalume),  To participate in the tournament each player needs to bring 1 kilo of food. This year, the tournament lasted 4 days starting from Wednesday night and ending the Saturday morning which was the day of the final. During this 4 days, Andrea and I worked in the snack preparing sandwiches/coffees and selling tickets for the raffle while at the same time watching the match and supporting the team of Victor and Angel of Don Bosco.

 Every year for Christmas, Don Bosco organizes “Bosco Nadal”. This year 100 children’s were registered. Some kids came in December, others only in January and a few of them came in during the two weeks in between.

 We were 2 volunteers from Santiago, we stayed 5 days in San Servando Castle in the old part of the city Toledo.   We were 23 volunteers from France, Deutsche, Germany, Romania, Poland, Portugal, Italy... plus 4 trainers.

On March, during the Easter week, I didn't see any procession but I lived one of my most intense EVS experience. Indeed, with three other friends, we decided during this week to do a part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. We had five days to go from Santiago to arrive Fisterra , also known as « the end of the wo rld ». When we left Santiago on Wednesday, 23 th March, it was really sunny. All seemed perfect.

One week before leaving Galicia and ending my EVS, I would like to record what happened last year, what I lived during my experience as a european volunteer. According to me, it was one of the best years of my life. Why ? For many reasons. First of all, I always wanted to learn Spanish. When I arrived in Santiago de Compostela in November, I didn’t speak a word of Spanish. Then, ten months later, thanks to Spanish lessons and local people, I am able to speak Spanish with people, to understand and make me understand, to organise activities with the children of my center, to watch movies in Spanish, to ask at the restaurant.. Even if it was very difficult at the beginning to be in another country without being able to speak its language, now I feel proud to be able to communicate with people and to have done it.