Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Workcamp in Envall

Wanted to volunteer in some country I am interested in, so I join this workcamp in a village called Envall, near Barcelona in Spain. I've never heard of a workcamp, but it should be good if it's volunteer work helping to reconstruct a village uninhabited for 20 years?...
So it's like a 2-weeks "summer camp" where you have to "work". So it's not that serious/scary... The leaders are pretty lay back and nice, most of the volunteers are young and friendly, a lot of them are first-timers (like me) who just finished their high-school or having summer holiday. The work is tough but shorter than I expected-- we worked from 10am to 2pm, with 30 minutes break in between. You don't have pressure to work very hard (but sometimes you get addicted with cutting small trees!)We have to clean the path connecting the nearest town by cutting the trees, and try to reconstruct the little church without using machine. (So gotta make our own concrete~) The trees there is super annoying, because they are so thorny~
after work, we will have our outdoor group shower, then lunch, then afternoon nap "siesta". At 5pm, we might play some games, or begin to walk 1 hour to the lake to swim / sun tan.... or to the nearby town to have a drink, sometimes the walking is more tiring than the work! My stamina is too weak for the mountains~
I was actually in Northern part of Spain, it's in Catalonia so people here speak Catalan. Most of the volunteers are Europeans, and we communicate in English.
I think I can handle working tools better now, and it's fun to learn making concrete (it's like making dough and throwing it to a hundreds-year-old wall). Another thing is, since I have to accept and practise many different habits, foods, culture during the camp... it feels like I am unlearning my old habits/ point of view... It's a bit of confused, because some silly things become acceptable but other normal things become stupid now... but it's quite fun too.. I can change my point of view towards something now :)

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