In the year of my 18 years I was a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps... Volunteers say
It was the end of the school year, the baccalauréat (the final high school exam) was approaching. It was a beautiful sunny day, rare days in the capital. The morning was well underway when I received this long-awaited email. Hopeful and feared at the same time.
Open it,
Read it,
To smile,
Let a tear flow.
I was going to live in Italy.
As I was leaving, I left a cosmopolitan, lively, vibrant city. Molfetta was practically all its opposite. The culture shock was both minimal and immense. In fact life in Paris is a rush, in Molfetta it feels more like a nap. I remember spending whole afternoons doing nothing, just thinking, sitting on the balcony of the apartment. The time that extends indefinitely, without yet another appointment on the horizon. Today I smile at this thought because I begin to tame time and accept the silence of life without constantly trying to fill it.
Beyond these small and big life lessons, I learn from this experience the encounters. The meetings of a few minutes and those of several months. The smiles of strangers, those you will never meet again and those you meet every day without ever speaking. Those who were unknown and became friends. Those who have told us three words that mark us forever.
I also hold back the lack. From my country, from my city. Leaving was also for me to fall in love again with my life in France. Smiling at the simple smell of rainy mornings, the taste of a baguette just out of the oven, in the freezing cold of the Parisian winter. Leaving was growing up. Grow up and fall back into childhood. Living in a group that speaks a mixture of languages and voices that rise under the emotions. Living under the blue sky of southern Italy. Live as they say in France; "D’amour et d’eau fraîche" (of love and fresh water), and of pizza, of course.
I learned a lot this year, but what remains of this adventure are the tastes, smells, noises, laughter, images; the smiles of strangers and the heated discussions. For me it was the taste of the ice creams of the communal villa, the scents of the sea and its salty smell, the laughter of the young people who fill the streets until late in the evening and the noise of the night crowd. The horns of Italian cars. The green grass that extends far away and the wind in my hair. The evenings sitting on a beach or on a balcony, the trains that we get on and take us to what seems to be the end of the world. Midnight discussions and next day coffees. Those little moments that made my year an adventure much more than just a civic service.
In the year of my 18 years I was a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps.
And it was one of the best experiences of my life.
And this is my conclusion.
Thanks to Luca et Maria for the correction,
and thanks to everyone who inspired me so much.
