Day 5

Monday we had even more meetings, felt like work, haha. We were told that Stephanie, the Italian girl would be leading the first workshop, so we were all a little bit relieved there. We all 5 got together and prepared what we would be doing the next day.

We also went to the “reunion” for the 22 people living in the community. This is kind of what you would expect for an addiction class (the reason I know is because I actually had to go to some in Nursing school). Everyone goes around and says hello, and then tells how they are doing, how their day went, any frustrations or positive things that happened throughout the day. Sometimes they would comment on something that happened with another patient, and say sorry for something they did, or just talk about anything. At the end of all 22 people talking, the person leading the group would comment on what they said. If something needed to be resolved, they would talk about that, or they would just say they are proud of the person or something along those lines. It was difficult for me, because the patients talked really fast, and it was really hard to understand all that was said. So I just sat there and acted interested. The first day us 4 volunteers had to introduce ourselves and say a little bit about us. I was super nervous for this… But it ended up working out.

Some of the staff at the treatment center were very nice, as others were not nice at all. There were 2 younger staff, I am not really sure what their roles are, but they are there either during the day or night, and just talking and hanging out with the patients. The nice ones were Ferran and Asusanna. The thing that we didn’t understand, is that ALL of the staff is constantly smoking with their patients and talking to them like friends. I understand you want to have a good relationship, but many times it seemed like it was beyond a professional relationship. Whatever, not our problem. But anyway, some of the staff also seemed like they were threatened by us, or just not wanting us in their space. So we kept our distance from those people. The patients all definitely liked us, so they may not have liked that as well.

And tomorrow begins our work…