A new
morning, a new day and a new year - the first of January. I wake up, look through the window and see
the palm trees in the garden of the Royal palace in Madrid. Good place to start
the year, no doubt, with the sun shining above the sleepy city and two Bulgarian
volunteers going out for a new-year walk and shopping. Me and Aleksandra spent the most Bulgarian New
Year in Spain ever possible, celebrating together with few more people from our
country who study in Madrid at the moment. So, instead of one, we had two
new-year comings with the hour difference and the obligatory speech of the
president, the fireworks and the traditional banitza.
As after
Morocco we stayed couple of days more in Madrid for the celebrations, it was
time already to go back to Ribalandia. Actually spoiled by the reat time I had and the 30 C temperature in
Africa I felt as if it is a tough task. But coming back didn’t turn out to be
something bad, because many holidays and celebrations were on their way. First
on the row were the Days of the Three Wise Men (Los Reyes Magos), which was
quite surprisingly for me celebrated even more than Christmas – for example
this is the day for the children to receive their presents from the Kings who,
according to the Bible, reached the cave where the little Christ was born. On
the 5th, 6th and 7th of January the village
was once more occupied with parades, holiday lottery and spectacles. Those days
we had here two of the EVS volunteers in Padron (close to Santiago de
Compostela) visitin. This type of visits is definitely popular among the volunteers, due to
this special relation you have with the others sharing the same experience.
Many nice international friendships are always created, and going to some
country for an EVS guaranties meeting people not only from this same country,
but from all around… the world.
In the same
weekend of the Reyes we had once more a poetry recital of Jaime Moreda with visuals
that Alexander had made before he went away. So it was up to me and Santa to
replace him this day and we did it with pleasure. It was a nice experience for
me, even though not many people came to the event. That was the day of my name day as of course it is something I could celebrate only in
Bulgaria with the people that know about it.
January is
in general my private month of celebrations, as my birthday just follows the
next week. On the day I only made a little dinner for the few friends that are
around in the winter. Because it turned out to be true that there are some
periods during the colder months when even the few people left in the town stay
more and more at home and it is usually much more quiet. So, the idea of
celebrating my birthday somewhere more alive and fun came logically. It was
about a time to finally go to Barcelona as it was a dream of mine for a long
time and the perfect moment came when a friend of mine from Bulgaria (who has a
birthday on the same date) decided to come with five more girls to Spain to
celebrate it. Not just in Spain, in BCN… I simply fell in love with this city.
Toether with the shinin sun I had the best company to enjoy my time.
First I met another Bulgarian friend and few from Ribadavia who live there, and
when the others arrived we had our room in the hostel, the touristic walks and
all the fun that we could, including an incredible rental-bike-route in the
last hours there. And yes, it was Barcelona, but the other thing that made me so happy those days
was the feeling of the strong connection I have - despite of the distance, with
my friends back in Bulgaria and the joy of sharing few days of my EVS year of miracles with
them.
With this
trip all my vacation days (because every volunteer has two days of vacation for
each month of the service) were over. I came back at home realizing that I had made
my last travel during my stay here. And at this same moment the visits in Ribadavia started
– as they say “If Moses doesn’t go to the mountain”... the friends will come to Ribadavia J In the last week of the month we
had once more other EVS volunteers visiting, this time the ones from Gijon (Asturias),
as the boy is from Latvia and they also made a good “common-background” friendship
with Santa. This is also a thing I can notice every time I live outside my
country and meet so many foreigners – all the people love to meet someone with
whom to speak freely in the language of their thoughts…
So, as we
were expecting a quiet, even boring and cold winter, it didn’t really turn out
to be like this. Together with all this movement, at work I was always occupied
as the first deadline of the Youth in Action program (1st February)
was coming closer and we were applying for partner’s projects and those of OMIX
itself. Both of me and Santa started this month the big search of the future.
It was really a month of looking back and forward, realizing that the end of
our year of voluntary service is coming and wondering what comes after. I was
amazed by the number of different ideas for my own future, as travels and
education and work and more volunteering were all there… One of the reasons I
wanted to make this “gap year” was to decide where to go after. Well, in the
end, I am even more confused, because from all I keep on experiencing I only
realize how many things there are to be done, how many places to be seen and
people to be met! So the mission of making future plans wasn’t successful, but
what matters more is that nothing is over yet…
