Hello, we are Adrián and Eva (26 and 24 years-old) and this is our first week as Leonardo trainees in Aruba. We are both Spanish but we are living in Leeds where Everything is Possible has given us the chance to do this project.

Aruba is a small island in the caribbean sea, very close to Venezuela. As it is part of the Netherlands, they speak Dutch and their native creole language called Papiamento. However, most of the people also speak Spanish because of the strong geographical influence and English because of the tourism. The national currency is the Aruban Florin, although they accept US Dollars everywhere. In Aruba, everything is really different to Europe; First of all, the weather is really humid and very hot, completely different to the cold autumn of West Yorkshire. Secondly, the nature is  green but it seems like a dessert, as everything is full of cactuses, lizards and iguanas for instance.

During the first week, we were supported by Clair, who came with us to discover the project and the island. As we have been the pioneers of this adventure, we are developing the project for trainees that will come in the future to the island.

Our main job is in Aruba Donkey Sanctuary, where we clean and feed the 72 donkeys living there, as well as guide the tourists that come everyday to visit the sanctuary. In addition, we work as shop assistant and bartender when necessary to provide full support to the organisation.

Furthermore we are also trying more projects, as Philips Animal Garden, an organisation that takes care of exotic animals that have been abandoned along the years in Aruba. There, we take care of animals as monkeys, horses, goats, ponies, snakes, a huge variety of birds, caimans, turtles, pigs, kangaroos, camels…

Our location is in the north-west of the island where we are living in a small but complete apartment, even with a swimming pool to refresh ourselves after a long working day. However, there are so many mosquitoes at night, so it makes very difficult to sleep without some bites everyday.

Last but not least, during our free time we usually go to the beach, one of the most attractive parts of the island as well as visiting the different beautiful spots that it offers. We have already been at California Lighthouse, a natural bridge of rocks formed above the sea, an ostrich farm, Oranjestad (the capital of the island), San Nicolas and some typical restaurants where we have enjoyed the local cuisine.

Even though the island is pretty small, we have not had the time to explore it completely. We will keep you informed about this happy island and our adventures by next week.

Adrian and Eva, short term Leonardo Trainees

Project part of Empowered From Within
and supported by ECORYS UK
and the Lifelong Learning Programme
of the European Commission.

This is the story of the life of eight volunteers that, more or less, have never experienced life outside of the British isles. We have been sent out from our home country to experience the culture and  become enriched by it as well at the same time helping out a local scout headquarters with their project.

Week one went the fastest In my personal opinion, there was a lot of anticipation to go everywhere and see everything at once, but we needed to balance our wanderlust with our responsibility of working at the project.

Our first day was spent with out mentor getting to know the city, traveling with us from our home to the project and Semper Avanti, our hosting organization for our stay in Poland. We then toured the main town, seeing the sights such as the town hall, the market square, the cathedrals, a big park and many more.  It was at this point we thought we knew our way around, how wrong we’d turn out to be!

For the next few days we worked at the project, painting the first few rooms, two teams one painting a room yellow and one painting a room green. We resigned ourselves to the fact our painting clothes would see better days and had fun with it, myself having a rather large yellow smiley face on my pants to prove it.

It was at this point we thought It’d be a really good idea to see how we’d fair going out at night time and dared it all to see a late night screening in the main square. Getting the last bus from our home proved a bit wrong as we ended up in what we knew at the time was the middle of nowhere with only a glowing divine McDonalds sign in the sky for guidance.. Which in turn proved fruitful as praise be McRonald they gave us directions in English! We arrived at the square in time for the show, there was an airing of a silent movie with subtitles .. in Polish. Gah. There was still a vibrant night life however and we took the opportunity to check out places we could visit. We even made a  friend who spoke in English and gave us a tour of the locales that we could visit.

Getting home turned out to be a whole different ball game however. Wrocław has transport at all hours of the night in every direction. We hopped on the right bus.. in the wrong direction and ended up by the airport. Helped by an English speaking passerby we were rescued by a pair of taxis, home at last!

These were the events of our first week more or less, getting to grips with living together, living in Poland and managing for ourselves.

 

Liam Rooke

EVS Volunteer.

 

Project part of YOUth In Europe

and supported by the British Council

and the Youth In Action programme

of the European Commission.