I cannot believe it’s already April! Time has flown by and I continue to learn something new about Spanish culture every day. The first day of the month was also Easter, which is widely celebrated through Spain. Since the country has strong Catholic history, even citizens who are not particularly religious celebrate the holiday. My host family celebrated with their extended family in the countryside and most of Barcelona was quiet on both Sunday and Monday of Easter weekend. It is really interesting to compare this prevalence of a religious holiday to my experience in the United States, where there is more evident religious diversity.
Over the past month, I have become more involved at Sant’Egidio, the church with which I have been volunteering. Aside from helping on Thursday evenings, I have also been able to volunteer for the Tuesday evening shift. This has offered a new perspective on the work the church is doing, and the customs of community service in Spain. On Tuesdays, there is an entirely different system of providing food to the homeless population in Barcelona. Rather than delivering sandwiches around the city, the church runs a restaurant out of the community room. Although slightly more similar to my experience with soup kitchens and food pantries in the United States, this system had stark differences.
Firstly, the volunteers take the restaurant-style food service very seriously. It is essential that visitors are treated with utmost respect and experience the dinner as if they are at a five-star establishment. We set the tables with nice tablecloths and pots of flowers and are each assigned to wait on certain tables. Behind the scenes, the kitchen staff prepares a four-course meal consisting of a salad, soup, main, and dessert. Water and bread are also provided throughout the meal. I ran into many challenges during my first evening with this new format, mostly due to my language barrier. In this setting, there is a much higher need for personal interaction and conversation. Although my Spanish language skills have drastically improved, most of the visitors mainly speak Catalan. Over the course of several evenings, I have struggled on multiple occasions when people have simple requests, like asking for more bread or their next course, simply because they are communicating in Catalan. Additionally, the professionality of the meal is very important. We are instructed not to bring courses out until the previous course is finished unless the visitor requests the next course early. Among the language barrier and fast-paced nature of the environment, I have made a few minor errors with course requests. I was surprised that some of the men we serve got incredibly upset at a small error, but this just further emphasizes the importance of food cultural customs in Spain.
As a whole, my experience with Sant'Egidio has been incredibly rewarding. My work with them offers a new perspective on life in Spain and continually enhances my time abroad in a meaningful way.
