The Pleasure of Travelling: Part 3 // El placer de viajar: 3ª parte

-IRELAND-

On May 2008, I was given a grant to spend a month in an English-speaking country to practice and improve my English. The month was July and the destination was the country of Leprechauns and clover: Ireland.

Two weeks before the leaving day, all the students who have been given the grant, were summoned to a meeting, in which organizers would tell us what can we expect to find when we arrived: food we were going to find, daily habits, weather and, of course, everything in English!

We were given the departure day, together with the time of departure and the city in which we were going to live. From that day I began to get nervous because I was going to live with a family and share with them everything. I thought I won't be able to made myself understood in English and I would have problems with them. But all this stuff was provoked by uncertainty, because I didn't know how my host family would be and I didn't know also if I could manage there. However, everything was perfect and nervousness and insecurity soon disappeared once I arrived there.

The departure day I found myself and some of my friends, who also were given this grant, waiting at the airport to be told the name of our host families. We were there with other people who also would come to the same city I was going to. I forgot to say it was the city of Galway, or at least that was what we thought. Moreover, we first meet there a boy and a girl who would be responsible for our group.

We all had a strange feeling when we were given a paper in which we could find our host family's name. We start to compare names because we wanted to see if there was some relation between our names and we found that there were a common feature: we had been divided into two groups and each group would live in a different town in the County of Galway.

From that moment we started to talk each other and during the flight we shared more feelings and impressions about the journey we have just started.

When we arrived at Dublin's airport, we felt a bit shocked because from that moment English had to be the language of communication and that was something quite difficult for all us.

We had to take a bus to go from Dublin to our respective towns near Galway. It was a 4-hour travel, but it was nice because we could enjoy the green views that Ireland shows and we could get to know each other a bit more.

About 4 o'clock I arrived to Ougtherard, the town in which I was going to live. When I got off the bus, there was my host mum to pick me and brought me to the house that would be my house for a month.

At first, I was going to be the only Spanish at home, but organizers phoned my host mum and told her if she could take in another girl who hadn't have a home. The woman asked me if I would mind to have a roommate and, of course, I said I wouldn't mind it at all. I knew that having a roommate would imply that I wouldn't speak the whole day with the family in English, but at that moment I preferred it because it meant that I would have someone in my same situation and that is a positive thing when you find yourself alone in a country whose language is not yours.

The girl who was to be my roommate was one with whom I hadn't speak during the travel by bus so I didn't know anything about her, not even her name, but that was solved quickly. We got on well and didn't have a problem during the whole month.

The day after our arrival, we had to go to school to take our classes. There we found all the people we had met the day before, even though the ones who were living in the other town, because the school was in mine. There we made a level test to got separate in two groups. Once we had made the test, organizers showed us the facilities of the school. I have to say that was a very old school and facilities weren't so good. There were basketball courts outdoors and also a gym.

To be continued...

The Pleasure of Travelling: Part 2.1 (A special feeling) // El placer de viajar: parte 2.1 (Algo especial)

I wrote this text the same day I come back from my journey to the Sahara desert. It is a translation because I wrote the original in Valencian. I hope you like it!

"Here, at home, some memories come to my mind. Memories about the moments lived in a place whose people welcomed me really warmly, as if I were one of them. That place took in an important number of refugees thirty years ago.

Those people were taken form their country to be exiled to a desertic, infertile land, where no plant grows, but flourish people. There you receive all you need because them, Saharans, give you all they have.

From the first moment you meet them, you notice that they are friedly, cheerful, hospitable, respectful and really really fighter. They have an enormous feeling of unity capable of knock down walls and frontiers. It is a feeling that shudders. Sharans live to fight for returning back to the country that belongs to them and that was once snatched.

It also come to my mind some images that I have recorded in my retina: a starry sky that makes anyone shiver, where you are able to find stars that you didn't know they exist. Stars that shine on your eyes and get recorded forever. There you can observe the fugacity of a star that appears out of the blue and lets you make a wish at the same time that you have the creeps. You make a wish with the same hope it become true that Saharians hope to return to their country and recover their identity.

When I close my eyes I also see the brown of the desert and the blue of the sky, colours that have gone with us everywhere. These tonalities have something deceitful, a different beauty impossible to deny. This beauty and all I've lived there will be recorded in my heart and eyes forever!"

The Pleasure of Travelling: Part 2 // El placer de viajar: 2ª parte

-Refugee Camp in the Sahara Desert-

On March 2008, me and some classmates and teachers, along with more people from other schools, began a journey which destination was the Sahara desert, in Algeria.

That journey was part of a solidarity project promoted by a group of teachers. The goal of the trip was to know how Saharan refugees live in the middle of the desert and brought them some food and other things we thought they would need.

We went there for 8 days. We were living in "27 de Febrero" camp but we also stayed in Dahla camp and visited Smara and Rabuni, other refugee camps.

The best way to know their way of living was living together with them, it was, living in their houses and spending the time with them. We made small groups and we were distributed among the different houses.

Me and some of my friends went to a house that was quite good. Our family was very lucky because their purchaising power was better than the one that other families had. We lacked for nothing because they gave us all they had. It is clear that they don't have as many things as we could have so that's why we should value more all they offered to us.

The house didn't have the facilities one can find in Spanish houses, for example. They didn't have neither a toilet nor a shower, or rather, they didn't have a toilet or a shower our houses use to have. There was a latrine instead of a shower and a hose and some washbasins to clean ourselves instead of a shower.

They didn't have chairs, we sat on the floor over a carpet. When we had to eat, they put some small tables and placed the food above them, but we stayed sit on the floor. They don't use culteries, but as they know that we do they lend some to us. The food the woman did was really good. The only problem was the sand the bread contained. They made the bread so it is normal to find sand grains in it but you get used to the sand crunches quickly.

We made some activitities in the different camps we visited. One of the activities we organized was a concert in which each one of the different groups arrived from Spain had to prepare a performance. My group and I prepared a "Batukada", but other ones prepared typical Valencian dances or even a small play. We repeat it in all the camps we visited and Saharans enjoyed a lot with us. They also prepared some performances and showed us their dancing and singing customs.

One of our trips there was to Dahla camp. Dahla is the poorest camp. It is the farest one so there doesn't arrive the food and medical supplies that arrive to the other camps. There is no road to go to there and traveling there is quite difficult and more uncomfortable. It is a 4-hour journey through the desert in old trucks. Dahla it is also hotter than the other camps, so the day we spend there was a bit harder than the other ones.

Being in the desert is an incredible experience. It is nicer than I would have imagined. Although all you can see is an extension of dryness dominated by brown colour, it has something that captivates you. But what I remember with more emotion is seeing the sky in the middle of the night. I could see it completely clear. I have never seen anything like that. I was the most beautiful think I had ever seen and it is something I will never forget.

And, what can I say about Saharans? Only good things. They treated us really good. They are incredible fighters and know exactly what they want: return back to the country that was once grabbed by someone interested in the richness of the place. It is their country and I hope that thay can return there as soon as possible, because live in the desert is something really hard.

I hope I could go back some day, because it had been an experience that I would like to repeat. I encourage all of you to go there and share your time and solidarity with them because seeing how grateful they would be with you for your visit is the best reward one can bring from a journey of this type!