What should be the title of the blog? We will see.. :D
In this little or more like long blog I’ll write my
experiences, thoughts, opinions about the voluntary service in Italy. So
attention: subjective report coming up!
I prepared for ca. one year for this service/adventure.
Last summer I had the opportunity to go back in Germany but
somehow it didn’t fit me that time, so it didn’t work out at all at the end.
That time it came up that I should go out too for voluntary service before I
turn 30 so maybe I move from 1 to 2.
So I was preparing for this from last summer. Of course I
had to write the project, and had to pass the interview, where I was so
stressed like everyone else.
The interview went well, I felt that I could answer all
questions just fine, we even joked around, I thought, I got this, still I had
to wait 4 months for the result and 2 more for the agreement, I started having
a guess what is mediterranean life rythm. :D
All of sudden it was so weird when the day of packing
arrived: we should go now? We still arrived 2 days earlier, what was rather a
positive thing, because we could get used to everything and explore Turin
(later we realized how important it was for us).
On the first monday of august the seminar started, with many
community games (if you ever been to childrens camp, you know what I’m talking
about), and a presentation about the weeks program that wasn’t very useful
because we never knew that in the next time of the day where we go or what will
we do.
With the afternoon the endless italian courses began, what
well.. wasn’t useless, but… maybe just I was a failure or unlucky. First we had
to do a test, where I figured that I should do tippmix because I reached 33%
without knowing what I’m answering.
After this every forenoon we had 4 italian classes with 1
break. It was the only fix point in our life in Torre Pellice. Our teacher
didn’t explain anything in english, only in italian, so mostly I was only
staring at her and tried to look smart, most likely unsuccessful. The german
girls were nice, they tried to translate everything for me to english, but not
always, and then I lost the thread. So altogether I wasn’t very happy after the
italian classes, I felt unsuccessful and dumb.
I just mentioned Torre Pellice, the village where we had the
seminar. Look at Beni’s blog, he wrote well about Torre Pellice! Imagine
Szentendre and Sopron old city mixed up near the Alps, well that’s Torre
Pellice.
A few experiences in short words:
Open hours – random, we will see!
Post office? What’s that?
ATM works with random pin code :D
Daytime heat, night time november…
The „soon” for italians begins with 2 hours and it’s
endless..
Altogether I still liked Torre Pellice, as one of our
volunteer mate said, it’s like a small jewellery box. And really. I couldn’t
have say it it better.
Italians are very friendly, and you can’t imagine it until
you’ve been to Italy. Only a few speaks english but it is not a barrier for
them. They use a lot of gestures, they want to communicate so much. Sometimes
they are too direct, for me it’s weird that a stranger, who is my teacher, hugs
me after 5 days… I’m shocked… what? Italians are not strained, they don’t
stress, like hungarians, they don’t try to seem perfect and they don’t expect
it from anyone else either. They have a different work tempo, and now I don’t
think about the notorious late. :D
We hungarians work 8 hours, but we are just being there, not
concentrating. Italians rather work less, let’s say 4-6 hours, but then they
are working full speed. Without break or with minimal break they are able to
concentrate for extreme long time, but then that’s it for them for the day. So
it’s interesting.
Onwards with seminar programs… on tuesday we had a
presentation about the valdensian church that was very interesting. At that time
the valdensian church became very sympathetic to me, because it’s christian but
is more accepting and at the same time resistant (see history), as other
churches. Every valdensian pastor who I met so far were very open and
accepting.
On wednesday we had a social/cultural program, I managed to
get in the social group, where a social
worker made a presentation about how they help the refugees in Torre Pellice.
We had 3 refugee guests, 2 of them talked about how they feel themselves in
Italy. One of them walked through 15 countries without money and papers and he
said he’ll go anywhere on foot. At the moment there are 40 refugees hosted in
Torre Pellice, who are living in 10 flats. When we talked to the social worker,
400 refugees were waiting to be hosted in Turin. I rather saw fear in those
boys eyes than aggression.
On thursday we had a presentation about the social programs
in Italy, what I don’t really remember, but I made notes of the links, when I
will have time (haha), I will check these things.
Afternoon we had a more interesting program, the
presentation from the pastor. She asked to make questions anonymus, and she
will answer everything. So it happened, from her carrier to homosexuality, she
talked about everything. I got to know for example that the valdensian church
accepts gays, for me it was shocking, that there is a christian church like
that.
On Friday we had a presentation about italian history, we
were wondering how will fit tousends of years history in 4 hours? That will be
interesting. Really we just talked about the past 50-100 years history. Main
topics were Mussolini, the Fiat factory, and the maffia. The italians had it
reversed: they had a right side dictatorship, that was liberated by partizans,
it was weird to see the red star as the sign of liberation, well never mind…
From friday night to sunday morning we were in Turin. Friday
night we jumped in the nightlife of Turin and found a nice bar. In Italy the
cocktails are suprisingly good. :)
To keep everything calm, I rather don’t go in details about saturday.
The important thing is, that it would have been better if every volunteer gets
a map and go where he/she wants… but instead of it, we went criss-cross in
Turin, we didn’t get to see anything, but sweated a lot and „ran” 23 kms.
Sunday morning fortunately we went back and they made us
happy with another italian class.
On monday we had an evaluation, wich was good for general
feedback.
The participants – there were about 20 germans (if not
more), 3 french, 5 hungarians and 1 swiss. So we automatically hang out with
the french, cuz of the minority.
We were out pubbing with them, we found a good place in
Torre Pellice, the Britannia Pub, where it turned out that the waiter or owner
is french. When he heard that I’m from Budapest, he said that’s a beautiful
city. We even got free liquers. :)
The travelling, well that… is another thing. The day we
arrived, we waited 6 hours, when we were in Turin, we were rushing around
without any goal, we changed 4 times until Sicily, where we had an unorganized
meeting, where we ran around the bus station 3 times with 40 kgs, by the time
the girl was able to put everyone on the right bus.
And for the end, because the end must have the best things... :)
We had two fantastic operators in Torre Pellice, who worked
hard to make everything go smooth and to make us feel good. These two fine
persons are called Valeria and Davide. Since we met Valeria more, at least we
hungarians did, I can talk about her. She herself worth another blog post. :)
As I mentioned, we were on good terms already on the
interview, but then the welcome was way over our expectations, so really, just
the best can be told about her. They are the examples that the italians can
organize, if they really want. Final thought: as Valeria and Davide are, that’s
how italians are, you say that this kind of hosting exists only in fairy tales,
or not even there.
And when will I write again? We will see… :)
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