Lina in Spain

I'm Lina, a 20-year-old university student and I participated in a 2-month group volunteering in Spain, in a small village, Nalda. Volunteering was a sudden idea, a week and a half before the departure it was revealed that I had been selected for the program, but this period was an even more decisive experience for me.

There were nine of us volunteers, only girls, I had German, Italian, French and Greek mates. In the village, the locals lived mostly from local consumption, we worked together with the local organization (El Colletero). Every morning we planted plant seedlings or potatoes in the fields, picked weeds, cleaned the area in the mountains, pruned olive trees or picked cherries from the trees. And in the afternoon, we prepared a project for World Environment Day on June 5, we made a documentary about Nalda, focusing on local consumption, and interviewed the local people. We were many times in Logrono, not far from Nalda, where we worked together with a youth organization (JEDAIS) also on our documentary.

I think we were really lucky, because the locals were welcoming, direct and helpful from the beginning, there was great solidarity in the village and it was good to see how well a local organization can hold people together. My fellow volunteers and I always got along well, on weekends we hiked in the surrounding area, in the mountains, and visited the surrounding cities and the ocean coast.

Overall, I feel that I learned a lot, developed, became more determined, learned to travel alone, it was a pleasure to get to know the mediterranean culture, I could use a lot my language skills, I worked in a great team, made friends, met many new people, collected many experiences and memories, I was a member of a community I could feel at home in Nalda. As Raquel, the old women we lived with, wrote in our group chat: En Nalda tenéis un lugar.

I think back on my volunteering with good feelings and love.