January in Sagunto

My January got off to a slightly rough start, unfortunately I caught a flu and spent the first week in bed with a high fever. For that reason I had to skip a few work events that I was looking forward to, such as the Cabalgata de los Reyes, a parade that involves the whole city where children get to interact with the kings who bring candies and presents, however the event itself had to be drastically reduced due to weather conditions. 

Once I got better, I went back to work: after a big celebration ends, in this case Christmas time, we have less activities to prepare and get back to the regular schedule, so it was a pretty soft start, but not for long. Soon after the preparations for one of the busiest events we organise began. The Mangetsu festival is an event for all the manga/anime enthusiasts and this is actually the biggest festival of this kind that’s also completely free in the whole country! We are organising lots of different workshops for all ages and interests, there will also be a few conferences held by artists, stands of small businesses that support us, game and videogame tournaments and much more! This time around, since I’m getting better with Spanish and getting closer to my colleagues, I offered to be involved in the organisational process and my help was well received. Even though the theme isn’t something I know much about, I can’t wait for the festival to happen and see all the hard work we’ve put into it behind the scenes become reality.

Another interesting thing about January was the convivencia. This is a 3 day get together for all the teenagers that are involved in the participation groups at the casal, 90 of them signed up for it, where they have a chance to get to know each other better, play games, sports, do talent shows, karaoke and debate. I was excited about it because I was told countless stories about past convivencias, however this one was met with more than one challenge. When we arrived we were told that there wouldn’t be hot water, there was no heating system, when we plugged in our heaters the electricity would go off, the state of the cabins wasn’t as it was supposed to be both safety and cleaning-wise. There are just some of the problems we encountered so after less than 24 hours there we decided that the best choice was to come back. Even though our trip was cut short, it was a fulfilling experience and seeing all of the people there trying to make the best out of the situation was genuinely heartwarming.

All in all, I’d say the good balances out the rocky times of this month, I’m really looking forward to the next one!