The End?

I know there have been times when I've managed to lose your attention throughout the year during my periods of silence. Think of it as a good sign though, if you can. Imagine that I'm so busy and having so much fun that I don't honestly have the time to sit on my bum and talk about how great Italy is for the billionth time. The best part is that's the truth. The end of school led me to a life of freedom that I had (and hated) back in September. Without jumping into school upon my arrival, it felt like I had nobody. I couldn't speak or even leave my front steps without getting lost. That was the most suffocated this free bird has ever felt but thank the Lord our #1 man kept me on my feet. And Fede continues to do so because when he wakes up, the house wakes up. The max I've managed to sleep is 10.15.... WHAT IS SUMMER BEFORE NOON?! The tables have turned and I'm has happy//free//busy//tired as can be. So what's the lastest news, what's the hot gossip, the latest jams? The first week of summer I took it slow. I caught up on some sleep and fooled around with some friends. But then Thursday I hopped on a pullman with my usual crew and made my way to Tuscany. Remember Rome Camp, Cesenatico Camp, Middle-Year Camp? It's only logical with such little time left that AFS would prepare a final camp. 

 

Thanks to the earthquakes, we had to ditch the campus-pool-food hall destination much to our dismay. However, the pullman brought us somewhere nearly as promising and twice as beautiful. The nature reserve was one of the most calming, organic and water-dried areas I've visited. You can imagine their delight when we couldn't resist the 90 degree heat anymore and broke out into a water fight battle. oops! We're just a bunch of foreigners who apparently didn't think twice. Their consumption of water is kept low and their plants seem nearly starving but it's a way of life proving how little we are capable of using while staying well and healthy. Minimalists - I love them - they hate us! 

So Thursday afternoon arriving after the longest, most boring ride of our lives, the jokes and the languages and the camp games started up as fast as if they had never stopped. I don't remember the last time I've had such an abundance of time with my foreign freaks. I'm proud of the distance that we have between each other - it means that the Italians are keeping us busy and treating us right. Above all, I'm proud of the family that we are. In the time that everyone was organizing their bags and dorms, I stood in the hallway leaning against an emergency exit. It looked like a mini-dorm hall and sounded like one too. How blessed am I that I could enter into any of these rooms, crying or laughing or embarrassed or confused, and be understood, comforted and helped by any of them? Obviously some of us know each other better than others but that's never mattered. Leaving familiarity, nobody can understand you as someone who's just as out of their element as you are. Our volunteers know us well enough by now - zero productivity will be seen until we're all caught up and find our normal intercultural living style again. The excess of card games, ball playing and Ninja jumping made me feel 11 years old back at summer camp again. I still cannot find content in any other way that compares to the one of the simplicity of a ball and good friends. The fun had and the scratches scraped create a summer, no?

What AFS event would be an AFS event without someone asking us questions in order to steal the breath right out of our throats? The emotional roller coaster they put us on in those four days has clearly been tested and successful in its days. It started the first night as they sat us around a table of half lit candles. They encouraged each of us to stand before the group and blow out a candle for something that went bad this year or light another for the good. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What was said I'll never reveal! I listened as my thoughts fluttered from the lips of these people who have lived such incredibly different lives as mine but who feel exactly the same.

Ti Voglio Tanto, Tanto Bene :) 

That's Pronpon. Or Pompron. Or something like that. Whatever, the Thai guy.
I had barely said two words to him since the beginning of the year since he
remained with headphones in his ears and books in his hands always - completely
unapproachable and really closed off. I couldn't even recognize the open, laughing
and loved little guy who arrived in Tuscany. He's very reserved and has such respect
(especially for us girls) but the life leap he's made this year has left me with my jaw
dropped open wide. I wish him nothing but the best of luck. 

As if the first night wasn't hard enough, they really wanted to knock us off our feet in round two. Laying down in groups of seven, heads touching to form a star form not nearly as beautiful as the ones that shined back at us, we spent the night in complete silence. A volunteer read us a list of questions in order to imagine life from the station of Bologna until the end of my summer in the States. What will it be like to touch your parents? Will they see you differently? Who will understand you? Can they comprehend the impact of your experience? How fast can you recuperate ten months of distance? Will you be more likely to make the typical PB&J lunch or the typical pasta with ragu plate? What can you consider your culture when you stand between country lines? Will the consistency of hearing your mother language overwhelm you? If Ela wasn't such a little cuddle monster, I think she would have been tired of wiping my stupid tears by now. I don't think I have the emotional capacity to keep doing this!

My Norwegian princess already on her way home!
Miss you, doll.

The volunteers got the hint and let us have some real fun in our last full day, Saturday. The Talent Show that night would offer German dancing, Thai singing, Russian bar songs, South American I've-got-dance-in-my-blood moves, Japanese kid games and of course the Norwegian hipster guitarist. All this culture in all its beauty makes me super ashamed of the dancing that goes down at prom and Karma. Geeze louise, my awkwardness makes where I'm from obvious but my curiosity has made me become the "citizen of the world" AFS was pushing for (I still hate giving them credit - it's just as painful as confessing to your mom when she's right). My last name and newfound passion for the Spanish language find me always in the middle of the South Americans. I can pick up a little on their language and well enough on their jokes. I've been accepted as the wannabe and loved as one too because even sitting down for a meal, I'll suddenly find the table fills up with these kids and I can't help but wonder, "How do I always get here with you fools?" They tell me that, like it or not, I'm one of them at heart.... I just need a little.... tweaking. 

Oddly enough, our bond created some tense conversation. Passing the year with my "overly passionate" classmates, I've gotten incredibly used to making a good social or cultural argument. The difficulties USA citizens inflict on those of South America aren't accurate to my fellow USA exchange students. The racism, immigrant difficulties and stereotypical impressions aren't entirely clear to them. The US kids were right to tell the South Americans to back off by pointing off that this year has taught us to disregard any "typical" views of a country - you cannot generalize any population (I'm not the States. Ela isn't Honduras. Marie isn't Germany.). However, their inability to recognize the actions of the rest of our population had me on my feet admitting that we aren't nearly as glamourous as we'd like to think we are. Playing a game in which, after stating a social/political fact, we stood on one side or the other to declare our position got some real blood moving. Oh goodness gracious, one year in Italy and they've taught me how to raise my voice! I got a little heated up before shutting up for a minute and realizing my tone was higher than I intended. Italians are destroying me; this is ridiculous. The best part? The Italian versions of ourselves that we've become had us hugging and laughing all together five minutes later. 

So all that nonsense I said about living in the moment, not thinking of the negative, YOLO, etc? It's all disappeared. I'm getting nervous. I realized my problem once one of the kids this weekend asked of if she should feel like she's going home or leaving home. That's what this is for us. This isn't two months in a dorm room in another country. This is a life created from scratch learning to love new people and new ways. The cool part is that we did it together; the best part is that we all pulled through personally on our own. 

 Norway got all worn out heheh.

"You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and place because you’ll never be this way ever again."