APRIL SMELLED LIKE AZAHAR.
Hello Argonautas,
Finally, we find ourselves in the warm period of this volunteering. Our skins are starting to get bronze and our health seems to be recovered. The island is saying hello to the first tourists of the season and a lot of bars and restaurants are opening: We finally have ice cream! And the most important thing, the streets of Murter started to smell like spring. Over the past few weeks, so many flowers have bloomed (just like us) and the scent of orange blossoms – azahar – is intense. Just imagine how it feels going to Argonauta’s office with the sun rays caressing your skin, smelling all the flowers and buying a burek sa sirom i špinatom in the pekara. Exactly, amazing.
The last thing I spoke to you about was the YE “Click Green” in Sweden. Like Theresa did on her last blog, I will implement some of the things we got aware of in this project and try not to use Chat GPT as much as I used to do. Now I will use Theresa to correct my blogs jajaja she doesn’t use as much water.
Jokes apart, after this project we were on the island for two weeks and jumped directly to the next one: FOODY (cute, right?). It was nice, but I was a little bit tired of introducing myself all the time and telling the same things on and on. Besides, I have some lumps on my neck since a few months ago (they’re not dangerous probably, I will check them soon) and I’ve been feeling super hypochondriac recently. I cannot stop thinking about my own death, what I would do if I knew I’m going to die, the print I want to leave in this world, how far away I am from (some of) my beloved ones… so, basically, this drama queen have been somatizing a lot and is super tired. And on top of all of this it was Jugo during these days!
Coming back to the project, I found the topic suuuuper interesting and the workshop’s dynamics were really original. Furthermore, we attended a cooking masterclass and learned how to make Croatian pasta with tomato sauce. And I learnt how to do the Rubik’s Cube, one of my dreams since I was a little girl.
We came back to Murter for two days and guess what we did… Exactly! Leaving again jajaja. On this occasion, we decided to spend the Eastern long weekend in Hvar, a super beautiful and super expensive island! Seven euro for a small Heineken! But prices apart, it was completely worth it and we really enjoyed our girl weekend under the sun, pretending that we had an economic level we don’t. We are thinking of coming back in summer to witness the lavender fields, and if any future volunteer is reading these lines, I hardly recommend you to visit this island.
Once we returned to Murter, Theresa’s family came to visit her for Easter. It was so pretty witnessing all of them together and speaking with the people I’ve been hearing about during all these months. At the same time I cannot imagine how weird it was for Theresa having all these familiar faces in this setting. They came to our place and gave us the perfect excuse to make a deep cleansing of the house, and I made some tortillas (with and without cebolla) to welcome them in the Spanish way. It was really funny because we never had these many people in our kitchen, so all the chairs and cutlery were different.
The first week of May, we had some trips planned (yes, we know our CO2 footprint this year is kinda crazy, but we compensate it with our quiet life in Murter I swear). Theresa went to Malta and I went to Türkiye with my other partner. We visited Cappadocia and Istanbul and it was one of the most incredible trips I’ve ever done. We learnt sooo many things and watch sooo many different places and tried sooo many different dishes. It was particularly interesting, coming from a catholic country and used to the song of the bells, being surrounded by the moscows and the sound of the call of the müezzin. I was a little bit scared that the big earthquake of Istanbul was going to happen just with us there, but I was just being a little bit paranoid, as usual jajaja. I’m really enjoying the opportunity of being in this part of the world to visit countries that are so far away from Spain.
During my holidays in Istanbul, life in Murter wasn’t quiet at all. You can go to Theresa’s blog for more information, but in short words: the ceiling fell due to a storm comparable to the Great Flood. I was speaking with Theresa during those days, but I felt so sad for not being able to be there with her. When I came back, a lot of parts of the ceiling were already fixed, but we had to move to the apartment of the volunteers to stay there until Argonauta found a new one.
Speaking about the devil… the new volunteers! They are going to stay on the island all May, and it’s really funny watching this setting through their eyes. So now is the time for getting to know each other and enjoy the month of the flowers with them. Fun fact, we had already met Krista (the volunteer from Latvia) in Sibenik’s bus station when we were going to Hvar. Theresa’s skill for recognizing faces is crazy good, we just saw her CV once, sometimes life is really curious jajaja.
So this was a brief summary of April and the beginning of May. I already feel that is going to be a crazy month. Wish you all a Happy May, see you soon!
Ana, volunteer from Spain
About the ESC: The European Solidarity Corps is a program of the European Union to strengthen solidarity in various areas: from helping the disadvantaged and providing humanitarian aid to engagement for health and the environment in the EU and beyond.
The program offers young people the opportunity to respond to the needs of the community, make a concrete contribution to society, and in the process gain invaluable experience and develop new skills. The program is also intended for organizations active in the field of solidarity that want to involve young people in their activities.
