Calahonda

Youth Retreat in Calahonda

Alright, we’ll see if I can catch up with some stuff here. The weekend of February 26-28, I went with a group of young people who have “Convivencia” or a form of Sunday school / bible study every week at the Granada Seminary. As you know, I’ve been going there on Sunday evenings, when I’m around, but this was my first chance to actually get to know a lot of the people.

We left Friday evening and went to Calahonda, which means “deep cove”. Calahonda is in the Granada Province and is only about an hour drive from my house here. We spent the rest of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning (we didn’t have class on Monday) having various bible studies, masses, “personal meditation time”… on the beach, and of course hanging out.

I was the only American and the only one who could speak English, so the weekend ended up being a very enjoyable one but difficult at the same time. We stayed in a house (the building next to the Church) with three floors. On the bottom floor were two main sides – one with a kitchen and dining area and the other just a big room for our meetings. The second floor was filled with bunk beds – guys had one side and the girls had the other.

Needless to say, four days without English was incredible. I got to know one of my host brothers, Pablo, much better (he’s the one that looks almost more American than me… blonde hair), and I also made new friends with most of the students. When I got home on Sunday, I couldn’t seem to talk to my host mom. I couldn’t conjugate my verbs or even think of any vocabulary. Then it hit me how much my brain had been going nuts all weekend.

Although the water wasn’t very warm, it was the first real stretch of sun we had had. What better way to spend a weekend than at the beach in the south of Spain?