Spain – (SPS) – June 24 – July 7

Welcome Global Works travelers, parents and friends.  We are excited to share with you trip updates from around the world.  As our main office receives updates from the trips we will update the page as we receive news from the field.
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Welcome from your Global Works Leaders:
Hola!

Can you believe it’s almost go time?  We’ve been preparing everything here in Spain and are excited for the group to arrive.  We hope that everyone comes home with a better understanding of Spanish culture and some of the issues facing underserved families here in Spain.  With an unemployment rate of almost 20%, many families in Spain struggle to get by on a daily basis.   In Granada, our work focuses on helping families such as these at a special place called the Fundacion Escuela de Solidaridad.  We can’t wait to share stories with you about the people we meet there as well as the time we spend in the incredible city of Granada!  We will visit the Alhambra one day, and have a surprise planned for another night.  We can’t tell you what it is but you will be sure to hear about it after!

We hope you are ready to dive right in and meet new friends.  We can’t wait to get started!  Hasta pronto!
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Update #1:
Today was the first day of the Global Works journey in Espana. First the group woke up after a long flight across the Atlantic, and headed off to breakfast and then to lunch. Here they were introduced to two new members, Ellen Cook and myself. After we finished lunch, the group left and walked back to the Hostel for some much needed rest. After break time the group walked to a nearby park for some group Icebergs (Ice breakers) and expectations that we hope to gain from the trip. This part was interesting because we got to hear everyone’s background in speaking Spanish and a general background of the person. This was the point when I and hopefully others figured out that this was going to be a great trip! Dinner soon came and the food fest began with no protest. There we had an assortment of ‘tapas’ ranging from Calamari to traditional tortillas.  Dinner was also pretty hilarious mainly because of Garrets conversations. For example, “I shot someone…. no, I mean with a paintball gun!” Lastly, we finished dinner and headed down to the Puerto del Sol where we tried to find ice cream.  Anyways, the day was pretty awesome because we were able to meet our group members and learn about them.

Day 2: Happy Birthday Brittany!!!!
1.    Breakfast
2.    Flea Market
a.    Shopping, bargaining, statues that are ACTUALLY humans, Hispanic bands, costumes, etc.
3.    Back to Hostel (relax & rejuvenate….)
4.    LUNCH
a.    Salad Bar at Fresco
5.    PARK and Row Boat Ride
a.    Walk through the gorgeous park, get into groups and go rowing in the pond, while we share
our life stories with our small groups)
6.    Bullfight
a.    It was sad, but really interesting to experience the traditional Spanish culture
7.    BRITHDAY CAKE- cumpleanos feliz a Brittany…yum yum yum!!
8.    Rest and Bed in Hostal
a.     Play Cards, shower, etc.
b.    Prepare for Bus Ride to Granada Manana

Day 3: In Which We All Enjoy the Awesomeness of an Air-Conditioned Bus and Fall in Love with the Little Community We Are Staying With in Granada  – By Sayri Suarez

Our daily adventure began as we embarked to Granada, all of us happily clambering onto the air-conditioned bus.  What awaited us was a 5 hour(ish) bus ride filled with card games, 20 questions, scary stories, Spanish language evaluations, and the oh-so-awkward medical chat about poop (among other things).

We all, however, returned from both these chats unfazed and became excited as we entered the area of Granada, with rows of white houses lining narrow streets of small villages.  As it turned out, we are actually staying in one of these separate towns a few minutes outside of Granada.  We arrived after the bus driver pulled a very tactful U-turn involving ALL FOUR SIDES OF THE INTERSECTION.  (Ok, so maybe it was on three sides, but I already wrote four in marker… so, yeah.)
We were greeted by the leader of the community, Ignacio, and the many other people who live here.  After being assigned our rooms we went on a tour of the Fundacion Escuela de Solidaridad, where we saw the true purpose of the community: to help others and to offer support to those who have far less than we do.  It was so awesome to see Ignacio’s passion for the project and the community he had founded.  Afterwards, we experienced the joys of a swimming pool at the end of a hot, hot day in Granada.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:
David: the super cool local boy who instantly became friends with everyone in the group. (Except a certain someone who shall remain nameless due to his ongoing “tiff” with David over who would be “it” in a game of Marco Polo.)
Nick: going up to all the local children and teens asking the typical introductory questions such as “como te llamas?” and “cuantos años tienes?”  He then proceeded to ask Priya (a fine, upstanding member of the group) how old she was before realizing that she was, in fact, one of his group members!

The JAM SESSION: my favorite part of the day!  We have a guitar and a ukulele, so there are a lot of jam sessions to look forward to. Dinner was afterwards and they fed us this delicious grilled meat and their homemade bread.  (I believe that pan and carne are the two staple foods in this country.)
After dinner, those that couldn’t get away were thrown into the pool by community members as a welcome gesture, while the rest of fled the scene back to our rooms.

Update #2:
Hi parents!  Things are going very well here at the Fundacion Escuela de Solidaridad in Granada, Spain.  None of the students quite knew what to expect as this community is nearly impossible to describe accurately.  So that you don’t have to wait until July 7 to hear all about it, I will try to give you some background.  Ignacio Peredas runs FES and has been involved in philanthropic endeavours for the past 25 years of his life.  FES aims to create a community and a family for underserved families and individuals throughout Spain.  This often includes single mothers or immigrant families who are working hard to get by but do not have the skills or the support to make ends meet.  Ignacio’s goal is to create place where people always have a shoulder to lean on until they can support themselves.  Many people do well and ultimately come back to FES as volunteers further down the road.  They broke ground on their current location on October 1, 2005 and have been slowly building ever since then.  Current projects include an effort to renovate an old barn on the property to make it a building for their occupational workshops which are currently located in various spaces throughout the property.  Among the workshops they have are cartridge recycling, iron work, hair styling, sewing, computer science, gardening and farming, candle-making, and many others!  They hope the building will eventually house 12 different workshops.  The students have been working in the candle-making workshop daily as this is one of the main sources of income for the community.  They have also been helping in the guarderia (day care), harvesting and weeding in the garden, contributing to the mural of ceramic tiles that all volunteers help to create, cooking in the kitchen (as each meal involves feeding 80+ people of all ages), teaching English, and helping to build the new workshop.  It is a lot of work, but the students have all been enthusiastic about each project we are doing (although the indoor projects seem to get very popular around 1pm).  Ignacio’s passion for the work and the complete gratitude of the community towards our group have helped the students to understand why they are doing what they are doing here.  Fifty pages couldn’t accurately do this place justice, but I hope this bit has helped you to understand what a special place your children are working at.  And now it’s off to flamenco class–I’m late!

Katie Roberts, Victor Pachas, and Emily Havens

Day 4: June 28- By Kyra Kennedy
LET THE SERVICE PROJECTS BEGIN!
Our day is filled with caring for babies at the guarderia, harvesting and weeding in the garden, cooking our meals, making candles, creating mosaics, working in a metal shop and more.

IT’S GETTING HOT… TIME FOR A BREAK!
Chocolate cake, fruit, and iced tea suddenly appear in front of us.  We are really excited to get 15 minutes of much-needed rest in the shade.

MORE WORK!
We continue all of our different service projects.  It’s amazing to see how one person can make such a big difference!

LUNCH!
Garbanzo bean salad.  A rare vegetarian dish in this ham-eating country!

REST!
We love siesta!

COUNCIL/LANGUAGE GAMES!
We practiced our Spanish and created our language contract in the Casa Africana.  A game of telephone ensued, showing us just how much we can’t understand QUIET Spanish.

SWIMMING!
We cooled off in the godly pool after being in the sun for so long.

SOCCER!
We had a great time being active and communicating in another way with the Spaniards.  We’re still not sure who won…

DINNER!
We decided in our language contract to spread out at dinner so that we could talk to the members of the community.  We learned a lot about everyone tonight.

NIGHTTIME GUITAR PERFORMANCE
After dinner we gathered around the pool to listen to Victor play his guitar and sing.  It was a cool, perfect night with the stars and mountains surrounding us and the lights of the pool creating a beautiful scene.

PHOTOS:

 

Update #3:

Day 6: Garrett Getlin
Today began with a trip into Granada after breakfast.  We first toured the city with on of Victor’s friends.

After leaving the Alhambra, we went for ice cream at Los Italianos, whose claim to fame is, as far as I know, having Michelle Obama as a customer.  Afterwards, we broke into groups and embarked on a shopping spree.  I made the mistake of landing in a group full of retail junkies and this wasn’t good for any of our already painful legs.  We reconvened after an hour in Plaza Nueva to return home for dinner.

We recovered from our collective comatose state and watched a film on the history of the foundation that was very informative and a great reminder as to why we are here.  And why our legs hurt!

Day 7: The Day Victor Wore a Nice Shirt: by Nick Wechter
Today was a day that represented the heart of a Chimera, the legs of one of Apollo’s fiery horses, the hair of Poseidon, and the voice of Zeus/Antonia Banderas/Bob Marley: all in one harmonious bowl of paella.

… and of course we continued our service projects!  We finished the mosaic we are making, which is some sun and a lot of shine.  Inside the rays it says “VIVE TU VIDA EN LA LUZ”.

Tomorrow is Katie’s birthday in 15 MINUTES!!!

In the evening we went to town and found more churros con chocolate before we went to our surprise outing, a flamenco show.  We were hoping for a discoteca, but alas, it was not to be.  The flamenco was wonderful and the dancers danced with passion.

Day CINCO: by Ellen Cook
Today we continued our community service projects after a healthy breakfast.  I worked with David (the candle maker), which I was excited about because he is a very interesting person.
After our morning session, we had a feast of paella that was made by four members of the group.  After lunch we worked on the candles and wrapped them so that they could be sold in the ship to raise money for the foundation.

Later on, Isabel offered to teach us about one of the talleres (workshops) at FES, the peluqueria (barber shop).  Two of the boys offered to be “models” and get their hair cut.  It was a really fun experience and there were a lot of laughs.

Before our delicious tortilla (Spanish omelette) dinner, a woman named Carmen came to show us how to dance flamenco.  She first showed the younger girls how to dance and then it was our turn!  It was so difficult to get the choreography down, but the process was a lot of fun.  After our lesson, Victor played the guitar and sang while Carmen showed us a dance.  It was really cool to see the traditional dance and get an insight to the Spanish CULTURA.  Overall, it was another good day at the foundation.

Saturday, July 2: Most Incredible Birthday Party for Katie (GW leader) — By: the girls’ room
The day started a bit later that usual as breakfast is at 9:00 on Saturdays.  Nevertheless, the morning was filled with balloons and party hats.  Since it was Katie’s birthday we woke her by singing happy birthday quite loudly (one of many times that day—and she had to give a speech after each one).

Breakfast was wonderful because Nick made pancakes for everyone with his grandmother’s recipe.  We also introduced everyone in the community to the pure heavenly joy bottled up in a jar of peanut butter.  After breakfast we all helped to clean up the entire facility by splitting up into groups and tackling different jobs.  A lot of us were assigned to sweeping all the patios, and we all had a party by pretending we were brujas (witches) and spraying each other with the hose.

After discovering Emily and Katie were baking brownies in the house, we all rushed back to help sneak bits of brownie mix!! We shared the finished brownies with everybody after a lunch of rice, fried eggs, and a tomato puree type thing.

Our final day at La Fundacion Escuela de Solidaridad consisted of a Fiesta/BBQ type thing outside with fried fish and Garrett’s WONDERFUL PASTA and SALAD!!!! After dinner, Patrick made a speech and AJ gave out presents we all brought. We were then all thrown into the pool and had a grand time making sure everyone got thrown in!! We then listened to victor play the guitar and watched a movie thing of photos and videos of our stay. Needless to say, the day was extremely fun and exhilarating.

Sunday, July 3: Today was our last day at FES. After our last breakfast with the community we cleaned up the house and finished packing. But before we left, we saw the video that Karina and Sebastian made for us one more time. After, it was time to say goodbye.  Everyone was hysterical and no one wanted to leave. But from this experience we took away a new sense of being and what it means to love and care for one another in a community. Thank you FES!! Os Echamos de menos!

“Vive tu Vida en la Luz” by Global Works. We made a mural and this is what the mural said.  We then got on the bus and headed out towards Cordoba. We split up for lunch then headed back to our hostel for resting time and to order….CHINESE FOOD!! After dinner we went to a spa (a traditional arabic bath spa!) for relaxing in the different temperature pools and sauna.  After the spa we got some ice cream and hung out on the bridge to take some pictures. After a while…..we went back to our rooms then hung out all together before bed. It’s hard to believe we are leaving so soon but we’ve made such great new friends both within our group and the FES community.  By: Brittany

More Photos coming soon!