How can you thank volunteers? (an example from travels in Spain)

volunteering at school

You may have read the blog post about how I spent an afternoon in the garden of the local school chasing ants. Well I also went back to school and taught division to a bunch of eight-year-olds. The most striking moment of this second experience happened when I told a boy that his calculation was incorrect. He replied, “What the f**k!”

This blog post however isn’t about swearing or division, it’s about the thank-you I and every other volunteer was given on Friday afternoon for the generosity of our time.

Naively, I imagined that the number of volunteers turning up at school to be thanked would be reasonably small. People after all have jobs and other things to do Monday to Friday. What’s more, I’ve been a volunteer in an English primary school (it was part of a ‘Right to Read Scheme’ and took three months to process the paperwork before I could even begin reading George’s Marvellous Medicine). There were supposedly two of us but the other guy never turned up. Therefore, even knowing that this Spanish primary school was well supported by the community I didn’t imagine there’s be that many people at this ceremony.

I was going because I’d been told I was going by one of the kids, and I have to take them back to school for afternoon lessons anyway.

I followed L through the school entrance, here, forming a corridor of bodies that we were guided through were the school pupils clapping, reaching out for high-fives and generally being excitable. The oldest children were closest to the door and as we snaked through the building and out onto the playground the kids got smaller and smaller. Those younger than six were already seated on the playground, holding hands in big class circles.

This village does things differently to anywhere else I’d been. If I were to guess, I’d say there were over a hundred volunteers, maybe even more, maybe over one hundred and fifty.

L led me up onto the stage which all us adults crowded together or in front of as photos were taken. A Catalan song boomed out of the speakers making one of the grandmas jump. The children who had made up the chain to the stage streamed onto the playground and arranged themselves in class groups. An adult, presumably a teacher, made a speech – in Catalan – and then different children came forward to read their thanks – also in Catalan – passing between them the microphone and pausing at regular intervals for applause.

L pointed me to my ant catching class and we both made our way over to them. Stepping over children on the way. It was probably 26 degrees Celsius and brilliant sunshine. Whilst most of the volunteers did the same as us and left the stage to go to those kids that they had worked with, the volunteer coordinators (15 or so people) were presented with flowers on the stage.

The children had drawn pictures of each of the volunteers and as we arrive, leapt up, let go of each other’s hands and excitedly presented us with pictures of ourselves as a thank-you gift. L talked to some of her friends and I was surprised at how many of the parents and grandparents knew me and said hello.

The chaos went on a while, but eventually a vague sense of order finally resumed and everyone except me sang You’ve got a friend, in Catalan of course.

A story about a postman

postman

It was coming up to one o’clock in the afternoon. At such a time, even in the narrow streets that wind through the village, the sun casts little shadow.

Here, there is a rather large and expensive house with high walls. I’m told its home to the ‘Countess’, although the translation is hazy. To me, it looks like a castle. The only people I’ve seen coming in and out are the gardener and a man with numerous tattoos, whom my eight-year-old (not really mine) stared at until he’d left our sight and then told me was not a man to be trusted.

There was a drugs raid in this middle class commuter village the other week, and there is a guy who I occasionally see hunting through the bins, but the typical resident here sends their children to piano classes and hires a cleaner to do their household chores. Appearances are important. The houses whose balconies and windows look down onto the pavement are decorated with the yellow and red striped flag of Catalonia, often with the addition of a blue triangle and white star inspired by the Cuban/Puerto Rico flags. Independence is the battle being fought. I’m reminded of the streets of flags in Northern Ireland which made me feel ever so uncomfortable.

I have deviated into politics. Back to the narrow street where, at the hour of one, causing a traffic jam on a one-way street, sat a young girl. She was screaming and waving her clenched fists, in a rather unsociable fashion, without showing respect for the locals. Her face was all knotted together like a wrung out dish cloth, slightly damp.

Further along loitered the eight-year-old. Undoubtedly a contributor to the tantrum but having witness such tantrums many times before and being certain of the righteousness of his own actions, he appeared unfazed.  A car manoeuvred around us to make a parallel park. The postman zipped by on his yellow motorbike.

I frowned and sighed, wondering what it is that one is supposed to do in such a situation. A few weeks earlier I would have been highly vexed, but whilst I was frustrated, I counted my blessings that neither child was in any great danger and we had plenty of time before they needed to be back at school.

Reasoning would be my first thought, but reasoning is not plausible when two people can only communicate in simple games, like playing ‘I spy’ in colours and ‘what time is it Mr Wolf’; or with simple instructions, like ‘sit down’; or questions such as ‘Water?’, ‘Bread?’. Plus, there’s no point talking if nobody is listening and being temporarily possessed by a demon, the young girl had no intention of listening to me.

Without a common language, and nothing but a water bottle, distraction wasn’t an easy option either. I admit considering pouring the bottle of water on her to see if it would make any difference. It worked on the Wicked Witch of the West and I was running out of options. Dragging her kicking and screaming down the street was never going to work. The Spanish might be lax about health and safety and child protection compared to the UK, but I already have enough bruises on my legs.

Which is when, like a knight in shining armour, the postman intervened.

Now you might think that it’s a terribly embarrassing situation to be in, requiring the postman persuade the child you’re meant to be walking home with to go home with you. All I can say is children are children, and this one wasn’t even mine and if ever I am in such a situation again then I honestly don’t care who it is who solves the problem.

The magic was this. It started with “¿Qué pasa?”, a typical greeting meaning something along the lines of ‘what’s up’. Negotiations proceeded in Catalan and then from his motorbike his produced ten elastic bands. This amazingly stopped the crying and transformed the sprawled mess of child into something vertical. Persuading her to walk home took longer. He took the keys out of the motorbike and helped her up into the seat, whilst continuing reciting his spell. Her brother, not wanting to be left out, came and squeezed himself onto the seat with her.

Like the audience watching the magician, I didn’t understand more than a handful of words, but that didn’t matter, for after climbing off his motorbike, the children walked home without a fuss.

The village postman – my hero.

How sometimes I choose to remain ‘too’ English (and why that matters)

Cairo, Egypt

It’s January, 2016, at some crazy hour in the morning when I should most definitely be in bed. Instead I’m standing in the entrance of a rather middle class club in Cairo feeling rather pissed off. Partly this is because I am not used to such late nights. Mostly though, I looked pissed off because I’m being asked to do something I will not do, and my insistence on sticking to my ‘English’ way of doing things is not being taken too well.

In the street outside a fight breaks out and the place is suddenly swarming with armed guards.

Unlike my companions, I limited myself to one drink that I’d finished probably five hours before. Not multiple, the last of which was finished five minutes before like my friend who was also feeling pissed off beside me.

Our argument wouldn’t have happened to me in England. Despite having many similarities and mutual interests, the two of us are influenced by the cultures we have grown up in. When you’re travelling, and being absorbed by different cultures with different norms and health and safety precautions you have to actively choose when you’re going to stick to your own internal code and when you’re going to accept you have to change. When in Rome getting from a to b is going to be impossible if you drive like an English girl.

When you’re in a country like Egypt, the differences are going to be even more profound.

In the club in Cairo, I found myself to be the most modestly dressed woman. After walking through the streets conscious that my hair, neck and hands were visible, being surrounded by young women in short, sleeveless dresses and four inch heels had taken me by surprise. When I’d set out on the evening’s adventure I’d had very little idea of what I was getting myself into. I certainly hadn’t imagined I would have half the dance floor teaching me how to belly dance and the various guys, who were somehow related to our group, passing me between them as each attempted to teach me a new move, twirling me around, almost echoing back to some sort of 1950’s dance hall.

Apart from a couple of the guys getting a little rough with each other about how close one of them had been standing to the other one’s girlfriend, the night went smoothly and I was having a really good time. That was until I’d collected my coat from the cloak room, wrapped my scarf around my neck and my friend told me that his friend would give us a lift home.

I said no; I’d seen him having a couple of drinks earlier on.

The friend told me that it was only a couple of drinks. The friend told me we lived only a five minutes’ drive away and nothing would happen. The friend told me to stop being so English.

I said no and insisted on ordering a car.

The friend told me his friend was waiting outside for us. The friend told me it would be of great embarrassment to decline the offer of a lift. The friend told me his friend would not understand and be insulted by us not going with him.

I said no, and ordered a car.

What would you have done?’

Two women enter a bar…

Two young women enter a bar.

It’s ten past nine on a Saturday night. One woman is blonde. She typically wears liquid eyeliner with a flourish and the wrong shoes for the occasion. Tonight though, her skin is bare and she’s wearing her feet relax inside an old pair of trainers. The other woman has brown hair. She rarely wears make-up, but tonight it’s her with the liquid eyeliner.

“Sorry I’m late,” says the blonde German woman.

They sit down at a table and the waiter comes over, followed a short while later by another waiter who helps them through the Spanish menu. They each order a can of Fanta and a bite size sandwich. The blonde orders a dish of fries.

On the TV screen at the back of the room Valentino Rossi is shown winning his pole position for the Mugello race the following day. It’s still too early for the bar or restaurant to be busy. As the women chat more people arrive and order food. This is the biggest place in the village you can gather for a beer or glass of wine in the village.

“I didn’t want to go to Barcelona tonight.”

“Me neither. It’s just too exhausting.”

“Yeah, my family think I’m so boring when I don’t want to make anything.”

“Mine too.”

“The last au pair went into Barcelona every night drinking and making party.”

“The last au pair at my place drank wine every night.”

It’s a quiet, steady conversation. ‘Clumby’ is corrected to ‘clumsy’ and an acknowledgement of how difficult it is to know if something is ‘stronger’ or ‘more strong’. It echoes back to an early conversation debating ‘shyer’ and ‘more shy’. Great amusement is found at the idea that ‘kitchen roll’ is practically the same word in German, ‘Küchenrolle’.

They both explain the make-up discrepancy. The blonde explains she was too tired and had been crying a lot during the day  because her friend who had been visiting had left to go home.

“I need the war paint to hide the fact I look like a zombie,” says the other woman.

They both laugh. The blonde woman orders another Fanta.

After a few hours talking, the blonde woman is blinking more frequently than normal trying desperately to get some moisture to her contact lenses whilst her companion is trying her best not to yawn. They both decide it’s time to leave and go home.

A mutual friend sends a message, “Are you at the bar yet?”

How friendships and traveling really works

Lidl, where one buys apple strudel

When you give up your home, haul your suitcase through the self-opening airport doors, repack on the check-in counter because you’ve brought too many home comforts, and pray your way through the security scanners, you’re making a choice that your life is going to change.

You’re not going to be free to meet at the local pub for a few drinks on a Friday night. You’re not going to be able to maintain that gym membership or running routine. You’re going to miss the support that holds you accountable to others, the teasing and encouragement before a community run or a job interview or the soft smile that comes with someone recognizing that your day requires slipping a frozen apple strudel into the oven while you collapse on the sofa and drink tea. You’re not there. You can’t pop round for the evening and share a bottle of wine while cursing evil heartbreakers or evil bosses. You appear to all as busy because you are absent. Gone.

Except, in some ways, you’re more available than before. In England my phone lives in my handbag, or on the bedside table. It can be forgotten when I go out for a walk or as I bake a cake, but abroad everything is different. My phone is the anchor that remains, the only link I have to the people who would scrape me off the road and tuck me into bed. When a close friend sends me a message, or my grandma emails me, it’s appreciated all the more because I know how easy it is to forget those who are out of sight.

There are few comforts to fall back to, croissants and fancy cakes, sunshine (until it burns you), the calm of reading a book, alcohol if you’re that way inclined.

Eventually it becomes not if, but how often are you willing to smile and strike up a conversation with a stranger. Throwing out your wacky ideas to see if they’re caught by the wind starts to seem less crazy. You aren’t as bad a companion as you thought you’d be. When you’re all you’ve got, you have to appreciate your own sense of humour and generate your own kindness. Listening to your own exhaustion matters more. If you crash, you crash. You have nobody to prop up your depleted energy levels. And when you find yourself spiralling into low-self-esteem, frantically worrying and planning for the worse, you can’t offload to someone else. Fear is your buddy now.

It can be lonely when you know nobody. Your Friday night isn’t a comfortable pint with people who don’t mind you whinging about the same topic as the previous weeks and months. It’s spent alone and you’d better be happy with that because you made the choice to leave.

Saying hello and introducing yourself is hard. You have to recognize that someone else, who has their own plans, friends and dreams might be grateful to have coffee with you, despite them knowing nothing about you. It takes a dose of self-belief.

Then, gradually, friends start appearing, or at least people who are also so alone that like friends they don’t mind your oddities. You meet people who, like you, worry about balancing connection and comfort with their innate curiosity. Often they might seem confused as to who they are and what they will do with their lives. They’re explorers who need someone to thrash it all out with.

You discuss food, visas and the strength of the coffee. You find out that there are countries that don’t have a minimum wage and that the idea that a woman would give up her own surname is considered, by some, crazy and unfair.

These strangers, the people willing to tell you about their broken hearts and failed dreams don’t mind when you say you don’t want to go out with them and drink on a Saturday night, you aren’t theirs, and they don’t have any expectations of you. No explanations are owed. There’s no guilt that you upset them, or shame that you’re a poor friend who’s let them down.

It gives you room to experiment. There are fewer requirements to belong to a group because the membership is in constant flux. It’s necessary to have people to meet up with to discuss the day’s traumas, but everyone knows both the person talking and the listener are there on a temporary assignment. There’s little need to bend to the group’s norms, in fact it’s damaging as what people are often looking for is a challenge to their own individuality. Differences are celebrated and assumptions put to the test. Comparisons are made, but they’re not about you as the individual, they’re about your whole culture, they’re about everything that has made you who you are.

In this land of far, far away, I often I hear stories that play along the lines of ‘I’ve screwed up and failed and my life is a mess and I’m not sure what I’m going to do next month, let alone in 5 years’ time’. They make me smile for anyone who talks openly about their uncertainties and their battles with the ‘shoulds’ of their perfect scenario gets respect from me. Admitting life is crazy scary is hard, and it’s tough saying I wanted to do this, but I failed the entrance exam, or I was with this guy, but he broke my heart and now I don’t know how to trust again, or I wish I could give up smoking, or I dropped out of college, and now I don’t know what to do, or I’ve worked for ten years in finance and I couldn’t bear another moment trapped behind that desk. It’s a powerful message.

Sometimes all you can do is keep moving forward.