eleven and twelve

DAY 11
Yesterday was a great day like every our day is. In the morning all of us (except Sahra) went to our lovely cave. All of us were deep into their kind of job, for example, Iberians were digging and succeed in it, because afterwards  Manuel Martí, praised them all. Of course! Ferroudja and Esra overturned and pulled off three big rocks and later they were argueing about which one is bigger. Alessandro found some bones and dead mouse, which he triumphantly buried at the end. Egyptians built the fence and had mud fighting.
After hard work we went to swimming pool and (imagine!) than human towers-fight in the water started. It was so amazing and breathtaking! As usual, Esra and “her baby” Ferroudja won.
In the afternoon we made pottery for the first time of the mud we had done the day before. It is very interesting, but not so simple how it looks like. You need to equate all parts of the mud and take into consideration every single detail. Speaking about details, Esra, as usual, did something special (guess what! (18+)).

In the evening after the dinner liders engaged us in the game “secret friend”. It means that all of us should create a gift for one of the volunteers and present it on the last night of the camp.
At night we had kind of party outside. We played different games and (you won’t believe!) made group massage.

DAY 12
Today in the morning we visited Romanic church and learnt many interesting facts about archeological excavation.
Marc, Nicholas, Arpie, Hayk and Rea went to the beach in Gavá, enjoyed themselves there and wanted to recommend it everyone. Wáter was blue, clean and really refreshing.
Before the lunch almost everybody was busy with making gifts for “secret friend” evening. It seems that all of us are so creative and have good imagination.

ninth and tenth day

DAY 9

On Saturday we got to wake up later than usual, it was only by an hour but everyone was so exicted about this. Once everyone was up and ready we had free time until 11:30am. which was different from our usual day, most people went back to sleep while the others enjoyed the sun. Probably in the wifi plaza. It was really relaxing and nice. Then we had an “activity”- an enlightening lecture about Catalonian culture delivered by a local man, Roger. He told us about the Cuca fera, a terrifying dragon/devil that features in a parade once a year, the Sardanas dance, the human towers “castellers” and we were able to share our own cultures´ festivals. Arpie told us about an Armenian tradition where newly weds leap over small fires to ensure a long and happy marriage.

We then had lunch and had our daily siesta which is quite a novelty for a lot of the group. The evening´s excursión was a lovely 12km hike through one of the local walking trails in Garraf National Park. We were assured there would be no climbing but of course it ended up being quite a challenging walk. Esra admitted to crying a Little bit at the beginning as she didn´t think she would be able to complete the trail. We saw interesting rock formations, 3 different rock types- red, black and White, and a lot of quartz! In the end everyone enjoyed the excursion as the views along the way provided many opportunities for great photos and selfies. We finished up at a look out point, El Mur, and had a picnic with an amazing view.

DAY 10

On Sunday it was our 10th day at camp and we had a free day to do as we wanted, as long as we stayed out of the camp leaders hair and did not disturb them durnig their day off. Everyone had very ambitious plans for the day. For example one group of people wanted a relaxed day on the beach, whereas others wanted to see the whole of Spain in 8 hours. One group of people did not have much luck during their day off because those who choose to go to Barcelona soon found out that the shopping centre was closed and after discovered the Boqueria market was also closed. At this point many of the campers were ready to give up. We met with the others and some wanted to get the train to Gava to go home, however the others wanted to get the bus from plaça espanya. We thought we were not going to make it in time for the bus, however we were 15 minutes early. When the bus arrived, it did not stop for us, we ran and ran to try catch the bus however we did not make it. Ferroudja cried when they missed the bus because she was sunburnt, tired and stressed. We then had to get a taxi home, we arrived at the school around 10:30 pm that is when we had the ´black dinner´. However the beach and food was amazing and all the others enjoyed their day. We all know that in a couple of days we will be laughing at the transport disaster.

Another group chose to visit Sitges, a close city at the south of Gavá. We went to the information center to know what was good to visit in the city. Then, we visited the oldest part of the town and the church. There, we had a beautiful view point of the sea. After we went to the beach. We stayed there for 2 hours, the sun was really strong. In search of shade and food we went to a snack bar close to the sea. There we oredered patatas fritas y sangría. It was a great break, we stayed in the restaurant for a while. After that, we went back to the school. It was pretty a relaxing day compared to some other campers.

The last group, Marc and Nicolas visited Tarragona to see the Roman ruins. They saw Ponte del Diablo, the devil bridge, and some aqueducts. It was very interesting for them but soon they wanted to cool off at the beach. Unfortunately they did not have enough time for this and had to remain sweaty. The Sunday bus timetable was not kind to them either and they too ended up getting a texi from Gava instead of waiting 2 hours for the next bus back to Begues.

All in all it was a fun weekend but some of us were happy to get back to the normal work routine on Monday morning.

   

fourth and fifth day of workcamp 2016

DAY 5
As always we wake up at 7 am thanks to Aitor’s music. We prepare our bags to go to Barcelona and we have breakfast. Then, we take the bus, the train and the metro to arrive to MNAC museum. We visited the romanic exposición with a guide, we enjoy it a lot (it was interesting…). After that, we could organize our own tour in Barcelona so we got separated in some groups depending in what we wanted to see. Some groups visited the historic centre, others wents to the beach, others visited Sagrada Familia, Sant Pau Hospital, Casa Batlló…
Some of us eat typical food from Spain like paella, tapas, piña colada…
At the end of the day we met in plaça Catalunya and we took the metro to return to Begues.

DAY 6
We wake up at 7 (again), but this time with “Harry Potter’s song”. After breakfast we went to the cave and we started to work with new task. Some of us working isn’ t very hard, Andrea enjoyed use the pic, Aina liked to listen music while she is working, Laurine  liked making the path clean.
At one pm we finished to work and we returned to school  to have “una pequeña siesta” or to the swimming pool. For lunch we had paella. Now we are separeted in groups to do differents workshops like pottery, laboratory and of course writting this interesting, wonderfull, fantastic blog.
The end..     ..for now

arrival and first day of the workcamp 2016

arrival

We think that all people are scared to get acquainted with new people. Can you imagine that 24 people from different countries and with different culture were merged in one work camp in Begues? On the first day we tried to remember each other’s names and tried to break the ice. It was a real fun and it wasn’t as scary as we thought. At the night we had an activity, in which we have to complete the table and write information about ourselves. By that activity we understood the preferences of other people and met people with common interests.

first day

We woke up early with the rock music instead of alarm. We had breakfast and went to the cave. While we were walking to the cave we saw the large part of the town. Inside the cave we had a presentation about the work camp and the main information about the cave itself. It was really interesting to be in a such important place for history. All of us were amazed by the beauty of the nature that was surrounding us. After that some of us went to the swimming pool and had some fun. At the night we had an activity again.  We played the “pistoler” and “pass the carrot”. The main purpose of those games was to remember each other and to have fun.

second and third day of 2016 workcamp

day 2

We woke up at 7 a.m. again with rock music instead of alarm. We had a quick breakfast and went to the cave for working. We were divided into 4 groups: Egyptians, Iberians, Romans and Greeks. We worked in different places. Every group had different duties. We worked until 1 p.m. and after that some of us went to the swimming pool again and some of us went back to the school because they were tired. After that we were divided into 2 groups. The first one was working in a laboratory and another one was making pottery. The 3 luckiest ones were writing this blog.

At 8 p.m. we had dinner which was really very delicious and then leisure time began. We played a game which was funny and a little bit scary because we needed to hold our partners with our hands and pass them to the end of the line without dropping them! The second game was between 4 groups. We had paintbody colours and we needed to attack other groups painting their bodies as much as we could. When we finished the activity, camp leaders counted the marks on our bodies and THE GREEKS won the game!
After finishing this game some of us were very tired so they went to sleep while others went to the centre to catch free WiFi  :D

  

  

At 8 p.m. we had dinner which was really very delicious and then leisure time began. We played a game which was funny and a little bit scary because we needed to hold our partners with our hands and pass them to the end of the line without dropping them! The second game was between 4 groups. We had paintbody colours and we needed to attack other groups painting their bodies as much as we could. When we finished the activity, camp leaders counted the marks on our bodies and THE GREEKS won the game!
After finishing this game some of us were very tired so they went to sleep while others went to the centre to catch free WiFi  :D

  

Day 3

On the 4th day we woke up at 7 a.m. and had breakfast at 7.30 as everyday. At 8 a.m. everybody was ready to go to the Cave Can Sadurni to do their volunteer work. The 4 groups were working in different parts of the cave. The Greeks were excavating the terrace; The Romans were making mud fences; The Egyptians were making lime oven and Iberians were deforesting the path. At 10:30 a.m. we had breakfast and also a little rest after which we continued to work. We returned back to the school at 1 p.m. When we finished working we were very tired, so we had a shower and waited for lunch. After lunch we had a rest for an hour and then laboratory and pottery work began.