Volunteer guiding has been part of our company since we started. We love it!!
Spanish organitation for the blind.
A lot of people ask us what do we do during the rest of the year. Well, we are a local tour guidding company, so we work as guides all year around. We welcome tourists from all over Spain and many from everywhere around the world. It is a very fun job. We show beautiful places to people that are in a great mood. Well, they are on holidays.
When we started with our company 16 years ago, we realized how lucky we are, and we decided to give back to our community. And we decided to do some volunteer guiding. Every year we get in touch with a non governamental organization and offer them the possibility to guide, for free, groups of people that probably would never hire a local guide.
We have guided people on week chairs, the gypsy community of Pamplona, the prostitutes of the city. We have also guided the refugees, and the elderly people in town. The retired priests of Pamplona where a fun group.
This last year we have guided provably the most challenging and rewarding group we have ever done. We have guided the blind association of Spain (ONCE). At the beginning we where all nervous. Because, ow do you discribe the light that comes through a XV century stain window? I guess we were lucky, at the moment we entered the Cathedral, the sun was projecting the light in the floor of the temple, so I made them stay in those colored shades. It was incredible to see them enjoy the red, the blue, the yellow. At the end, one of them ask me to join them and with my eyes closed, I felt the difference of the colors. It was incredible!!!!
Another thing that was shoking for me is that blind people know they are blind, and they joke around it. For example you can not imagine how many times I use the expressions “look to your right”, “look to your left”, “as you can see”….I was prepared not to say any of those expressions, but of course a couple of them come out of my big mouth. The answer of them was “well, I will look that way, but you better expalin what is there….LOL” You can imagine I blushed and turned as red as a tomato and they said “you are red as a tomato, and I have no idea how red is….LOL”
After that we all went to have a couple of tapas with some wine. They all gave us a big hug and thanked us for that experience. To tell you the truth, I think we should thank them. Thank them for their strength, their love. For the passion they live their lifes. And I would specially want to thank them for the lesson I have learnt. No matter what happens to all of us, we have to “look” for the bright side of life.
