My last days in the paradise

Today is my last night here in my paradise. I am writing this entry with tears in my eyes because I don’t want to go home. I love my place here, I just can’t believe that my 9 months of EVS are already done. It was so fast.

My tears are not only because I am sad of leaving this beautiful place and ending such a great era of my life but also of happiness. I am so happy that I had the chance to come here and experienced and learned all of these new things, to get to know so many new people from everywhere, to meet friends for a life. It was an amazing time and I think I lived it the best way. I saw a lot, and did a lot. And now I am leaving a lot here but someday I will come back to visit my dream place and my friends who are here or somewhere all over the world. I love you all so much and wish you all the best for the future :)

My friends made my last days here unforgettable. You know about the main things that happened from the previous entries. All of this time my friends were around me making my time so great just being there. Yesterday night when we came back from La Gomera most of them were waiting for us and we went for a dinner in a guachinche (the typical restaurant) and we spend the whole evening together. As we were tired from the trip we didn’t go for a disco, but today we met again at noon. We had a great walk around the city seeing the sand carpets and having ice cream. After this they brought me to La orotava to see the biggest one and in this time Brendan and Marie made for us a Marroquies dinner. My last dinner was SO delicious. Thank you so much.

Everybody spend my last day here fully with me even they had a lot of other stuffs to do. I love you all so much and THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. These were the greatest months in my life.

Unbelievable :)

You will never believe what happened to me. Come on I am still not believing it even i live through it :) I received a present from my hosting organization for my good work through my project. When they told me that they have a present for me I told about something simple like T Shirt, pen, cup or something like this, but not I was totally wrong.

You won’t believe what was my present. It is a trip to another island that I couldn’t see. Trip for 3 days for me and one of my friends that I choose. Can you believe it, this is not happening even in the movies - present trip :) Well from this moment I am with this enormous smile on my face and nothing can’t erase it :)

So It was kind of hard to find 3 days to do my trip as you can see that I had kind of busy schedule lately :) I just can’t say goodbye to my personal paradise and to my friends here. Well in the end we went 30, 31 and 1 so on 3 is my plane for home.

It was the most amazing place that I have ever seen. La Gomera is really peace of the paradise. In its woods you are expecting every moment to appear some fairy :) It was really great. In the end we were three girls and we had the greatest time ever. We saw the whole island and we had time for everything that we wanted. Thank you Macu and Claudia to share my adventure. Thank you AURI to give me the greatest present ever and make my dream come true :)

The end of the cooking workshop

As everything the end of my project is also came. Yesterday I had to close officially the cooking workshop. Everybody was really disappointed that last week was the last cooking. For closing it and also popularizing it we participated in this week event “Cocinarte”. This is a forum organized by the University and whole week are elaborated different cooking shows, lectures and etc.

We participated in exposition of food in the central square in La Laguna. We were there to present the workshop, what we did and we learned, and of course some of our favorite dishes. We presented the Bulgarian Banitsa, the Austrian Apfelstrudel and the Italian Tiramisu. Just before we went there I received a phone call that TVE will come and make an interview with us. Well it was exciting to speak on live on the Spanish National Television, even on show seen on local level. After the interview and making our workshop even more popular we gave the food that we prepared and I was really pleased once again that everybody loves my Bulgarian Banitsa.

As a conclusion from my international cooking experience I can say just that almost everybody eats the same and pretends that it is their most typical and original food. Examples for these are the meatballs, the rice with milk, filled paprika, etc. But nevertheless I am highly recommending that you have to try the others cuisine because this is one of the best ways to get to know better other culture – how sweet or salty it is.

The exhibition

My last week here started and it is appearing to be really full of nice experience and positive emotions, or maybe a little bit melancholic, but let’s see it.

Today we just opened an exhibition with our pictures and also pictures of the Canary Islands volunteers in other countries. The exhibition is our photos with short description of our projects and something smart that according to us describes the EVS.

Mine one is telling the trues story, something that I think I will remember always and you also have to know. One day I was staying next to the ocean with one of my friends from here. I asked her what she sees and thinks when she is watching the ocean and she answered me that everything is so, so far away. Hearing this words I recognize that filing whole Europe and staying here last 9 months I am seeing exactly the opposite - that the world actually is not so big and you can be everywhere you would like to, and this is the thought that comes to my mind when I watch the ocean.

This exhibition was inaugurated today because today starts the week of the european youth and after this it will go throughout all of the Canary Islands and Spain to promote the EVS. I really hope that it will inspire more people to get this chance and discover the world throughout the eyes of the others and for themselves.

African day

I think I missed to tell you that we made the Guinean cooking workshop this week because yesterday on 25 of May was the day of Africa and we wanted to celebrate also. One of the boys that cooked organized whole day celebration of the African day. He is president of the Association of African students in the University of La Laguna.

The day started with presentation and lecture of the African history and culture from one professor from the university, after this continued with presentations of the countries that has most students in Tenerife like Guinea Equatorial, Cabo Verde y Senegal, after this they represented their food – really delicious, and finished with music and dances from Africa.

I was so happy that I went to this Day of Africa because I learned so many new and interesting things and try the special wine from some really beautiful flour. And I am proud to know the organizer everything was really good and I am sure that this young intelligent person will become famous.

Youth for diversity

You kind of know me already. I am curious and want to know as many new things as I could. If it is connected with different people, culture and points of view well of course I am there. This was the case how I understand from one of my friends that exists a youth group for multiculturalism.

Actually this is one project that helps to different age groups to organize and start working about the sensibility of Tenerife’s community about the treasure multicultural diversity on the island.

Well of course I went in to the youth group and they are still in the beginning when they are planning how to organize their objectives, what kind of activities they will make and which one is their target group.

“Juventud por la diversidad” (Youth for diversity) is a group of young people from almost everywhere on the world. Their target group will be the young people on Tenerife and to sesnibilise them throughout different intercultural activities and events.

I love their ideas and the friends that I made there. I really would like to help them even from my country as I am going home in two weeks. That’s why I will help at least with this interesting Facebook page “Otros puntos de vista” and everything else that I could. Thanks guys for everything that I learned with you.

Cuisine form Guinea Equatorial

Well coming back from my Gran Canaria adventure I am already vacation or at least not working in the office, because I won’t leave my favorite activities like the Cooking workshop and Language Café nevertheless it is officially work.

This week we had workshop for the Guinea Equatorial cuisine. And it was really amazing. It was so delicious and so interesting. Our cookers were two guys from different parts of Guinea, who I met in the group Youth for diversity. I learned so many new and really interesting facts about their country, their traditions, culture and languages. In the end of the workshop we had so curious conversation about the different ways of greetings in each of the countries of the workshop’s participants. I recommend you to ask your friends from different countries because it is really interesting topic. You can’t imagine what you will discover.