I spent Friday afternoon, kind of by accident, marching down the streets of Madrid protesting poverty and the lack of action by the main countries involved in the Millenium Goals. People in Madrid seem to love their protests (this protest garnered 3,000 people, anything in Seattle would pale in comparison, unless it were anti-Bush or anti-WTO) and the police seem to have the coordination down, it barely disrupted traffic. I hadn't exactly planned on going, since that morning I didn't even realize it was going on, but I went in to Solidaridad Internacional, an NGO started in Madrid, to interview for a volunteer position at a fair trade store. Sandra, the volunteer coordinator, and I bonded over food (Venezuelan food is similar to Colombian, where she is from) and she invited me to the protest. We spent the first half on the street catching large balloons that were being thrown from the windows three stories up, while dodging cars and motos, and trying not to pop the balloons. The organization I marched with is affiliated with Pobreza Cero and they are organizing marches to hold governments accountable for poverty reduction, and to not use the financial crisis as an excuse. The protest was very spirited but I was a bit disappointed to see that at the end, a majority of the people (teenage girls) skipped the first part of the march and waited at the end near the stage because Dani, the singer of El Canto del Loco (a Spanish pop band) was there to perform. But I guess people don't show up if there are no big names. Sadly.
I head to the fair trade store on Tuesday to begin training and figure out my schedule, but I am excited to finally start volunteering and feeling as though I am giving back in some way like I am used to doing in Seattle. The store is in La Casa Encendida, which is a cultural center that has exhibits and film screenings which is pretty cool (even though it is run by Caja Madrid, a fairly large bank).
