#diverbo

how could i be closer to someone i’ve known for 10 days than people i’ve known for years? It’s funny how for a couple weeks, they were my whole entire life and then I knew I’d never see them again. Summer camps have that distinct ability to create strong, intense friendships without hesitations in a way that’s different than at school or back home. I think it’s the fact that the friendship is on a timeline that changes things. Knowing that if you desired, you’d never have to see them again - all the embarrassing moments forgotten.

Last summer, I stayed in Spain for 2 weeks to attend and volunteer at an English immersion program and by the end - the teens there were like my family. It was me and about 79 other teenagers, approximately 40 of them from Ireland, Scotland, America and many other native English speaking countries and the remaining half from Spain. We spent two weeks together; a couple days exploring the capital of Madrid with all the other ‘anglos’ and then settling down in a quaint resort in the beautiful Salamanca. Days were filled with community building activities, traditional Spanish foods and cultures as well as incorporating more ‘western’ elements and of course one-to-ones. At the end of my two weeks there, I knew the name and location of all 79 other campers and had built friendships nothing like that of mine back home. Even with the Spanish kids who spoke little English, a connection was created. We broke the language barrier with charades, google translate and my desperate pleas to “habla ingles”. I didn’t speak Spanish back then - I barely know Spanish now, but “no entiendo” and “podo ir al bano” was all I truly needed. The short 12 day timer on us created an impulse to jump right in; to actually be yourself and let it show.

An All-English Community in the Heart of Spain

Greetings! I just got back on Friday from a week at La Abadia de Los Templarios in La Alberca, a small town an hour south from Salamanca. What was I doing in the middle of the Spanish countryside might you ask? Well, I volunteered as an English language speaker (not teacher!) at an English immersion camp called Pueblo Ingles. Pueblo Ingles is exactly what it sounds like. The company recreates the…

So unless things changed this summer, occasionally, you do get to go to the nearby town. Staying in Cazorla, I was lucky enough to be 10 minutes from the village I guess where there was a supermarket and a souvenir store. Compared to back at home in NYC, it was meager, but the fact that we were in Spain and seeing the architecture meant I definitely wasn’t complaining lol Be warned, we only went to the town once at the end of the first week when the first group of Spaniards left. When we met up in Madrid, I talked to other Anglos that traveled to diff places with the program and some of them were almost an hour from any nearby stores, so it’s up to you googling the surroundings of the hotels that are on the Diverbo website. My hotel/resort had a small bar that sold chips and ice cream, so that kept us alive for the 2 weeks!