Time to give back
14 years ago Estepona became our new home, I was 3 months pregnant, and we were already parents to a toddler. We had no contacts, no friends here and no work, we did have savings but that was about as far as it went. We had however done our research, and visited many times.
On our previous trips, we were told that Neil´s building experience was a gift, that tradesmen were sought after on the coast and that would be enough for us to earn a living. Seen as I had left a crazy busy corporate role, and was desperate to bring up the kids we were happy to make financial sacrifices and through ourselves into our new life. Then the 2008 recession hit, overnight we saw people who had been prospering lose everything they had, many struggled or just packed up and left. For us, it was a difficult time, we were not established however, Neil threw himself into spreading the word and during that time we were lucky to stay in work.
But the upshot for us was that during our first few years, we were greeted with overwhelming kindness, by the spanish and expat community. We never felt alone, and in fact we felt that the warmness of the spanish helped us through. The kids were welcome everywhere, and when we need time alone our neighbours would offer to babysit, in fact with their child growing into a young adult they loved having babies around again.
In short, the community got us through, and they still do, when we have had problems there is always someone to help or offer a shoulder to cry on. There is always something to get involved in, from cold water swimming to mountain climbing, padel groups or intercambio sessions to brush up on your spanish. Around every corner there is someone to speak to, or new things to try.
There is also an enormous amount of charity work carried out on the coast, and for this reason we want to give back to the community that has helped us so much. We commit to give 10% of every commission we earn to a local charity, it is not much but we hope that in a small way we can make a difference to a wonderful place.
Trace x
