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My ESC in Spain: new culture and amazing people

I am very glad to be a part of a team in Can Gual Residence and to work with such amazing people.

Our schedule is a very flexible one. Since I arrived at the centre 2 weeks ago, we have made a list of certain activities that we need to accomplish by the end of March:

  1. Restoring the benches and building new tables for the garden;
  2. Finishing and giving a purpose to an old tree trunk that the previous volunteer Luigi started;
  3. Finish the sculpture of an animal for the garden;
  4. Cleaning and maintenance of the places for goats and chickens;
  5. Make a fruit and vegetable garden;
  6. Restore an old pallet and make it a pot for planting herbs;

Until now we have accomplished the 1st, the 4th and the 6th activity, and we’re currently working on the 2nd and the 3rd. With the garden, we will start around the second half of this month because we’re waiting for spring.

Other than this list of goals that we have set, in the meantime we work on our connection with the youngsters in the centre, we try to connect, and get to know each other better. They help me with my Spanish and I help them with English. They are very curious and also patient, they want to learn more and they try to understand hard what I am trying to say when I don’t know the right words in Spanish. They want to learn about my culture and we make comparisons between my country and theirs.

One thing that made me very happy is that I was invited to an international women’s day celebration to teach youngsters interesting facts about famous women that have changed the world. This event was very special because most of the guys come from places where women don’t have many rights and they are not yet used to the fact that here in Europe women and men are equal. It makes me delighted that they show interest to learn more and that they want to adapt to a different culture.

Sandra Slaveska

ESC project: “A través de tus ojos”, Fundació Eveho