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Monfrague
Entry 54 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
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We spent one week in Caceres, volunteering for a program that teaches English to Spanish Business men and women. The program is called VaughanTown. It is a program to help Spaniards with conversational English, not grammar, and that was a good thing because Jarrett would not be good in helping someone with English grammar. It was a well deserved break from our nonstop travel and from each other, because I am sure everyone will agree spending 24 hours a day 7 days a weeks for the last 4 months with the one you love can be an exhausting period... if not, please let us know your secrets.
The program started out with a 3 hour bus ride from Madrid to Caceres where seating arrangements were set up so that one English speaker (the English speakers where from the U.S., Britain, Ireland) and one Spaniard wold sit together. Conversation was a bit rough at first since you are sort of forced to speak with this person for 3 straight hours if you can. The Spaniards' English was not bad at all because they have to have a certain proficiency level to be part of the program, even though Jarrett had to take a few breaks because he could not think of things to talk about to a stranger, and you also struggle to understand each other at times. After we arrived things immediately began and this is the way it went for the entire week. That afternoon we started one to one sessions, which is one hour spent talking between an English speaker and a Spaniard. We spend six hours a day doing that... the other hours are spent eating meals and when I say time spent I mean it. Meals lasted at least an hour and half and your talking through your whole entire meal. The meals are three course meals which we never eat, so it was like Thanksgiving dinner every meal, every day. Well, maybe not that much food but there was quite a bit. Then in the evenings there is a couple hours of entertainment involved. For our week the Master of Ceremonies was a man in his thirties who used to be a magician and his job is to handle all ice breakers and entertainment. So we enjoyed some magic shows and we were also involved in some skits. Thats right we did some acting. At least tried to.
It was an interesting week and we met a bunch of interesting people from Spain and also the English speaking countries. We would like to recommend to anyone who is interested to participate in this program. It was an enjoyable experience and for us a good break like I said before. Another bonus of the program was that the only thing we had to do was to pay for our way there everything else was included. Which means that the hotel (4 stars) and meals were included (with wine and water), the hotel bar was not. More thumbnails ...
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