[Santaco EVS] June: "Sh **". It was February and suddenly we are at the end of June. Sh**. Just one more month and it's almost over. It is so difficult to see things with a clear perspective and therefore tell past stories when everything is too close and going too fast. Sometimes it's like you're eating live things. You are not able to really tell how it has been until you have digested them. Other times it is enough to see a photo of a specific moment to give it a certain nuance of nostalgia and tell a story under the influence of idealization.

The truth is that this month has seen some goodbyes that, of course, also mean bittersweet celebrations and smiles.

Guillaume said goodbye to his French students and, considering that if you look under his carefree attitude for certain things (first of all his food) he is actually the most sentimental of us, for him it was a rather sad circumstance, although he will see them again in one month when they finish their practice in France. The end of the year party was also held in Mans a les Mans for the boys who participated in the activities of the center this year (photo below). The guitar student from Guillaume gave her a handmade card that certainly took more than half an hour to make her say “thank you for teaching me to play the guitar”. The same day he finally went to the casino (a whim he had long ago) and won 50 euros, but if you look on his Instagram what is there is a story about that card and no mention of either the casino or the prize.

In Rialles there was also a farewell party in which Nico accompanied some of the boys from the center with the guitar. They played "House of the Rising Sun" and "Highway to Hell," which was quite impressive, given the general preference for reggaeton. The party was also for Pepa who, after having been an educator in the center for 18 years, will leave to be an advocate for citizenship.

The children of Rellotje participated in the activity that Selin organized for them and had a great time especially at the station dedicated to dancing. A week later it was his turn for the end of the year party and they prepared for Selin a small poster with the photo of each one and his name, writing something and signed back (they are only five years old) and of course she already got a little emotional but will see some of the children again during the summer camp.

The farewell party for the children of the Center Obert Moises was held in a church and Sari was quite astonished to see them dance a reggaeton song in that context. They rehearsed for a long time so she also learned the melody by heart and sings it while dancing while cooking when she arrives from work. She is very happy when she talks about the activities in the center and loves the atmosphere and time with her classmates. He says that his life has almost everything he wants: he likes his job and during the weekend he dances salsa and practices yoga. He went to Agni, a festival of yoga, music and art in the mountains and returned from life without having taken anything (it was an event without drugs).

Among all these farewells, the language workshops were also held with a picnic by the river. The first guide and friend of our EVS, Manu, will also go to Romania for a month and return on our last day to cry at the airport while saying goodbye to his favorite volunteers. It is sad that we can not laugh more about his obsession with getting "strong", which really means looking like Ken de Barbie, and see him on our floor eating potatoes and never sweet because he is following a very specific diet to reach the desired "strength "

It is inevitable that saying goodbye to all these people, although we continue to meet new people and keep coming friends from all over Europe, make us think about when our projects will end.

One Thursday night Selin, Guillaume and I, while we ate our beloved King's kebab on plastic grass, we decided that the five of us will meet in different countries at least every February 7 and August, the days of beginning and end of our EVS.

The other day, after five months, I finally decided to climb the hill behind Santa Coloma. I could see the whole city, but while I was up there the first thing I looked for was our flat and it was weird to see it from outside and far for the first time. It is the building under the birds in the photo. The warm orange light of the afternoon, just before sunset, illuminated every brick of the building and I imagined the floor under that light, although we have sun only in the morning, and now every time I think of our house the I see under that orange hue illuminating the posters of the room and the faces of the people with whom I have shared these last five months. Some of those faces are what you see in the photo below in the portraits that one night we decided to make of each other in a "circle of portraits." We don't have a special talent, or maybe just a little, but we can draw each other with a charcoal laughing until one in the morning in our living room under the pale neon light that I actually remember being orange.