Volunteering

Well, I’ve started some textbook, and at first it was taking my 30 minutes a page. Excellent…I know I just need practice at reading just like listening and speaking, but I find it harder to make myself sit down and read.

Yesterday I went to a meeting of people working with and volunteering for the Adsis Foundation. It’s a group I found here in Salamanca. The organization itself is much larger (www.fundacionadsis.org sorry, it’s in Spanish). It’s basically a NGO that work on various social justice problems. The group in Salamanca has 4 programs. They work with disadvantaged youth by providing afterschool programs and tutoring. They also work with children with learning disabilities and finally with older youth who for whatever reason didn’t complete the required schooling. They have tutoring and classes to help them take and pass the equivalent of our GED. They also have a group of volunteers that run some programs in the prisons, taking time mostly just to visit and talk to the inmates. I forget the 3^rd, but the 4^th is Comercio Justo. This is program where they get products produced in the third world under humane conditions and for better pay, and they sell them here at prices that are higher, but better reflect the real cost of things when people aren’t exploited. The people I met were very friendly, and Miguel reminded me so much of John Lehnerz (whom only my family will know. Suffice to say, good man.)

After Mass today I went to talk to one of the Trinitarians about the mass schedule. We ended up talking about much more. He’s from Columbia and has been studying here at the Universidad Pontificia for two years. He showed me the house for the 14 Trinitarians here in Salamanca. I don’t know what you’d call it. I think he said Monestary, but they’re not cloistered. Meh… He also let me borrow a Bible in Castellano. As I’ve been informed by multiple people here, they do not speak Spanish here. They speak Castellano, or Castillian in English. The Castillian region is where the pure Spanish language comes from, and Salamanca is the center of it. There are 3-4 different dialects here in Spain, all of them Spanish, but none of them referred to as such. That’s all for now. I hope to understand more as I start the 2^nd week of classes. Hopefully I haven’t missed any assignments yet. Vamos a ver. (We’ll see.)