On-Arrival Training in Benicàssim

A few weeks ago we had our on arrival training in Benicàssim. For the days leading up to it I was nervous and not very excited although that was probably because I had no idea what to expect. After meeting with the organisers and other volunteers I very quickly found out that I was worried about nothing and I was going to have a great time.

At the on arrival training I got to try a lot of new things and I had to force myself out of my comfort zone more than I had ever done in the past. We did a lot of different team building exercises my favourite was when we had to design a safe way to throw an egg off of a building, my group affectionately named our egg “Kike Jose Manuel” we put him in a paper case lined with balls of cello tape and tied a balloon to him. Amazingly he survived the fall, the other eggs weren’t so lucky. Some of the things we did felt ridiculous but everyone was always willing to get involved which was great; it helped to make the whole experience more enjoyable.

Our hostel was almost on the beach it was so close to it, of course during our two or three hour lunch we all went to the beach together and sat in the sun, we of course went to the beach at night as well because… well because we could! My favourite thing about the training was getting to know everyone, specifically getting them to teach me how to swear in their language, I can now swear in 5 languages! Who said EVS is a waste of time!

One of the days we went to a town called Vilafamés we were given tasks to complete in groups that included swapping a pen for other items off of random people in the street, singing songs with people and climbing a rock. It was great however we got into the town at 3pm, the start of siesta, on Sunday… We easily outnumbered the Spanish people there although the people we met were great; one guy gave everyone a bottle of wine simply because we asked.

To sum it all up I absolutely loved my time in Benicàssim with the other volunteers and I can’t wait to see them all again!

Michael Niblett