I Could Have Filled The Pool With Tears

Thursday April 17, 2008

Today was officially the last day of normal classes here in Spain, ah! I cannot even believe it. These past couple of days have been really stressful because all we have been doing is reviewing for tests, asking questions and clarifying things. It’s been stressful, tedious and boring to say the least. But enough of school…

 I got a DVD from Aaron today that he made, its cute…but it made me look forward to coming back home even more…it had a slideshow of all of my friends and such. It was fun to watch, even though it wouldn’t play on my computer so I used Allison’s (thank goodness). Yet another thoughtful and creative gift…I don’t know how he does it.

 It was also my last day at the swimming pool for my ONG today. I had a blast swimming with the kids. We played a game where everyone had two pool noodles and the point of the game was to take other peoples noodles. I have some war scratches on me, but as a whole it was a great time. One of the kids that I work with really warmed up to me today and we decided that we have our own “team” and he now loves giving me high-fives. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that he tried to eat my foot. Here’s how it unfolded: I was playing around with him and sticking my feet up above the water and he was in front of me trying to grab my feet but he was consistently too slow to actually get them. At last when he did get my foot, he attacked it. It was a great night but it was really really sad. These were the first people that I have made relationships with here in Spain that I have had to say good-bye to. I know that I’m leaving, I’ve been thinking about it, people keep saying it…but until tonight I didn’t really understand the extent of it all. I told David, the director of the water therapy program that this was our last week and he looked at me like he wanted to cry. He told the kids that it was our last week and I got three different reactions: (ps. I'm abbreviating their names for privacy reasons)

1. J.M. asked why I had to go back and if I was flying back to the States. I told him that I thought that I would just swim back instead because I’ve had a lot of practice in the pool. This is where he began to laugh at me and told me that he could out swim me from one side of the pool to the next (completely true)…sad! I ended up telling him that I had a personal boat so he didn’t need to worry. He also proceeded to ask David when we were going to come back…tear.

2. M. just kept asking David why we had to go and why we didn’t want to stay. I had to tell her that I wanted to say, but I couldn’t.

3. A. can’t really talk, but he said a quick “adios” and just stared at me in disbelief. Afterwards as I was walking out of the pool, he was clinging to my arm…I could barely take it. Talk about heart breaking!

 All of the kids and David kissed us on the cheeks good-bye, which was the hardest part…some of them can barely talk or walk, and yet they managed to kiss us good-bye. I’m really going to miss them. I’ve had a completely amazing time working at the pool and volunteering in Spain. This is a part of the program that I am going to take with me for a long time. A lot of people can say that they have been to Spain, but very few can take with them the experience of volunteering.