What was your last day at Picaflor House like?
"It was my last day as a volunteer at Picaflor House and I was thinking back, a little nostalgically, over three weeks that had flown by. The song's opening lines – about sitting at the end of the day and watching the children play – described exactly how I felt.
"Sitting there watching the children against a panoramic backdrop of mountains, with the sun setting over Oropesa, I was bursting at the seams with mixed feelings. I was happy to have got to know these children and, through them, to relive many of my own childhood days. Yet I was also saddened that our childhoods could not be more different."
Playtime at Picaflor House: swings, seesaws and climbing frames against the mountains of Oropesa.
What did you learn about the children's lives?
"Their carefree play could hide a thousand thoughts that volunteers like me would never know about. Outside Picaflor House, many of them carry heavy responsibilities at home from a young age, taking on adult roles early and helping their families get by from one day to the next.
"Yet I found joy in their moments of pure exuberance – chasing a ball, skipping, monkeying around on the bars and swinging high on the swings. I loved how fiercely they stood up for what they felt was theirs, and how free they were of the rules many of us grow up with. I saw what living in the moment really means: a few hours of fun away from a harder reality that volunteers will never fully understand."
How did volunteering change your expectations?
"Before I started, I had grand ideas about changing the children's lives. Armed with lesson plans that I thought could spark the interest of even the quietest child, I had to abandon ship many times and throw those plans out of the window to keep the lessons afloat. In that short time I became a believer in Julius Caesar's Veni, vidi, vici – with a twist at the end: I came, I saw and I accepted what I could not conquer.
"I came, I saw and I accepted what I could not conquer."
"I accept the children as they are – their reality is different from mine, and that's okay. Their classroom rules and behaviour will never be the same as the ones I am used to, and, although I'm quite the disciplinarian at heart, I think that's okay too. Their schooling will never look like the education many of us received, and I have learnt to accept that with grace."
What is the biggest lesson you took home?
"My time at Picaflor House taught me to truly embrace the children and their reality as they are. To come back to that same song: money can't buy everything. My time and money as a volunteer cannot give the children a different reality. But I hope the good intentions behind it can draw them into a loving environment that lets them keep singing the tunes they know – and gently encourages them to better themselves, in their own way, in their own time and in a world they recognise."
- Read more: Maria's two weeks at Picaflor House
- Read more: David's month as a student volunteer