VaughanTown

I've been out of the office for the past two weeks, but Healing Point Therapeutics is open for business today. What have I been doing, you ask? Well, I was in Spain, volunteering in a program called VaughanTown.

Some background: VaughanTown is an immersion program where Spaniards who are trying to learn English spend a week talking to English-speakers from all over the world. The Spaniards are not allowed to speak any Spanish during this week, and neither are we. In fact, getting caught speaking the "forbidden language" will quickly get you tossed out of the program. Since my Spanish is as terrible as my sports ability, this wasn't a problem for me.   

The program began as soon as we got on the bus. Each Anglo was placed next to a Spaniard, and we were told to begin talking. At first it was a bit awkward (the first question my Spaniard asked was "do you like sports?"  My answer: "No."), but after a while we all began to warm up to it. I was told that I speak too quickly (true), so I tried to slow it down a bit, and soon my partner and I began to have an easier time communicating.    

Once we arrived at the hotel, we realized two things: It was beautiful, and it was isolated. Seriously, we were in the middle of nowhere -- although this particular nowhere had an amazing view of the mountains and surrounding fields. There would be no cab ride out to the city, though, if we happened to need some personal space. No, we were in it for the long haul.   

Being forced to spend hours a day speaking to strangers creates quite a bond. Within 48 hours, I felt that all of these people were friends. We would spend hours walking the picturesque road by the hotel, chatting about life and learning about each other's cultures. By day three, I was completely comfortable with everyone, enough to establish my next goal: Teaching the Spaniards the inappropriate American slang.  

Before I started the program, I predicted that I would fall into bed by 11 every night, exhausted from all that talking. But dinners in Spain run late, so we wouldn't finish eating until after 10 p.m. ... and then there would be some sort of fun activity afterward ... and who wants to be the first to cave and head to bed? Not me. So, most nights I wouldn't get to sleep until after 3 a.m. I'll be making up for that in the upcoming days, I'm sure. 

One of the students in the program was a cardiologist, and he was fascinated with the idea of acupuncture. I told him I would love to let him try it out, but of course I didn't bring needles with me. The next day, I was rummaging around in my suitcase when I found ... a stash of needles! I have no idea why they were in there, but there they were.

So, during one of our one-on-one sessions, I treated the doctor to his first acupuncture treatment. He fell asleep, despite the incessant chatter coming from myself and one of the program directors, and he seemed impressed with it. So far I have given treatments in Asia, Europe and obviously North America -- at some point I will hopefully be able to say that I have treated on every continent!