About mediteraneo 

European Voluntary Service

EVS on Sicily

I'm an experienced volunteer - now I can say that. I've just come back to Poland from one-year-stay on Sicily within the confines of European Voluntary Service (EVS). I made this decision at the beginning of year 2002. I didn't know then what a great adventure I would come through and how much I would learn during a year spent in Italy. However I can't say that I spent that year in Italy. It was a year on Sicily. Sicily is an autonomous region and the residents of the island feel first of all Sicilians, then Italians. This I learned at the beginning. The trip to Sicily was my big dream and the news that the National Agency had approved my application made me very pleased. After the preparations, that took more than half a year - application procedures, nerves whether the project would be approved, whether all the formalities had been made - I left from the Warsaw Central Station and started my journey to Sicily and Italian-Sicilian culture.

THE JOURNEY

The trip from Warsaw to Sicily took almost 4 days. On my way there I called on some people - volunteers on projects in Vienna and Rome, because those were my stops. A journey by train is probably the best way to travel. You can see the most, meet interesting people and although you are more tired, the adventures reward you for that. Parents are obviously the most terrified with the vision of a journey by train to the end of Europe. It's the most difficult to explain them that everything is going to be fine.
The train from Warsaw to Vienna is empty. In my compartment - a mother with a child. She turns out to be Norwegian, wife of a diplomat from Vienna. We are talking all the time during the journey. She's a journalist from a Norwegian magazine for women and she occupies herself with social matters. We give ourselves a very warm goodbye at the train station. In Vienna a friend is waiting for me, a volunteer from the EVS - European Voluntary Service. I met her in Cracow during a training before my departure. We spend several hours together, wandering through the city. I'm staring to feel that my volunteering is beginning. I also meet other volunteers - Tina from Finland. She's just finishing her stay in Vienna. She doesn't want to come back to Finland but she misses her family and boyfriend. Vienna is a beautiful city, but it's just a stop in my trip. In the evening I get on a train to Rome. The company is interesting - three American girls travelling through Europe, a Hungarian going for a study, a Pole from a seminary in Vatican and me - a volunteer from EVS. In the morning I'm awaken by the sound of violin - the Hungarian made a musical wake up for us. Behind the window - Italian landscapes, so different from the ones of Poland or Austria. The green is not the same - Italian green is sunburnt, almost absent. I reach Rome at about 10 am. And a shock from the beginning. Mess and noise on Roma Termini stupefy me. I'm also already tired with the journey. The suitcases - and there are so many of them - weigh me down. Crossing several platforms to a left-luggage office takes some time. I begin to regret that I took so many pairs of shoes, trousers etc. Finally I reach the office, where I leave my burden until evening. In the meantime it turns out that my friend, a volunteer also, can't meet me, because she has to work. Too bad. Rome is huge and terrifying for a person that doesn't know it. It's my third time in this city, but the Eternal City still embarrasses me. I wander without purpose, but in the direction of St. Paul's Basilica. I'm not one of many tourists in Rome. This country is going to be my home for the next year. I don't speak Italian good enough to ask passers-by. For now I use English. After the whole day in Rome I'm really tired. I want this journey to be finished. I don't want any more suitcases, I'm fed up with it... I'm waiting for a train that will take me to my destination.
A crowd of passengers gets on the train, whole families, mess, I want to run away... I panic, because it seems to me that I got on a wrong train. It was supposed to be one with berths but it is a simple slow train. I want to get out, I can't... The train starts moving. I ask someone in my poor Italian, if it is the train to Palermo. It turns out that... it is. A charming man, festooned with gold, helps me to put my suitcases on a shelf without asking me. I'm a bit embarrassed when he asks me, what I packed there. An older Italian couple enters the compartment. They are quarrelling. And all the way long - like this. I feel as if I were in an Italian film. I don't understand a thing, I know they're talking about me. Maybe they don't quarrel. After a few months in Italy I will have understood that this is the way the conversations here look like. For us, northern Europeans, not used to raised voice and gesticulating, such a conversation seems to be a quarrel. The journey proceeds smoothly. I'm already so tired that stimulus from the outside world don't reach me. In Naples some more people come to the compartment. It is full. I go to sleep. The tiredness wins. In the morning strange voices reach my mind. It turns out that we are just crossing the Messina Strait, dividing Sicily and Italy. Finally I'm on Sicily. Three hours more and I'll be a real volunteer on EVS-project. Behind the window the famous Sicilian see can be seen. I reach Palermo. I can hardly believe I got here.

CAROLA AND OMBRETTA

Carola and Ombretta, my mentors, are waiting for me at the station. They will take care of me and other volunteers for the whole year. I'm very excited. Everything is new, different from what I know. The girls are very nice, they ask me about my journey, my first impressions. I look out of the car window. I drink in everything - buildings, streets, and people. All this will be "mine" for the next year.

THE APARTMENT

My prejudice of Palermo: "an old, destroyed by the war, not rebuilt city". The first impression: "high, modern blocks of flats, no ruins". Ma apartment was on the third floor of a modern block in one of the best quarters of Palermo. The staircase - very elegant, with a doorman, who bows every time I pass him. A spacious lift. A nice surprise. The apartment will unfortunately turn out very cold in the winter. The Sicilians don't heat their flats, as the winter is short and warm. For me it was the coldest winter ever. During the stay we had to change the flat after 7 months. The second one turned out to be even bigger and perfect for summer. Apart from the living part, there also was a garden, which saved us from heat and hot sirocco wind blowing from Sahara in the summer.

THE VOLUNTEERS

Before my departure from Poland I knew that two more people would participate in the project: a French girl (oh great - I thought) and a Belgian girl. A Spanish boy and another French girl "worked" in another project of the same organisation. We were supposed to live together.

Virginie - a French, with whom I will share my room - opens the door. She welcomes me with a smile. I must admit that I am prejudiced against the French. I don't know why but a thought of two French girls in the same flat terrifies me. Eventually I made close friends with both of them. One of them became my best friend, with whom I went through much. After a moment the Spaniard comes. He welcomes me in Spanish, kissing my both cheeks although after 4 days of journey I must appear pretty unpleasant. They show me the apartment, my room. And the astonishment grows even bigger. The flat is huge - 50-square-metre hall, huge rooms, two bathrooms, a big living room, although a kitchen very small - but we always fit well, without problems or quarrelling. Only sometimes, when you need to do the washing, some problems occur, because someone else's washing is more important than yours, because she or he ran out of socks or underwear. A few hours after me Dominique - a Belgian - arrives. This time I'm the one to welcome her. In the evening, last but not least, Enora comes. My future friend. We're in full force. For now we speak English. Virginie and Emilio speak fluent Italian. For a Spaniard the Italian language is not a big challenge. For me - a bigger one. We're in full force - my "family" for the next year.

PALERMO

Palermo is a huge city, fifth in Italy but the last according to the "friendliness" towards citizens and conditions of living. I will fall in love with it. Palermo, surrounded by mountains from three sides, goes down gently to the sea. Monte Pellegrino - Mountain of a Pilgrim towers over the city. Sanctuary of St. Rosalia, a patron saint who rescued Palermo from destruction, is located on the mountain. Palermo is stuffy and dusty. I find the historical centre, divided by Quatro Canti into four quarters. This is where buildings that remember World War II still stand - not renovated. Old Palermo quickly becomes my favourite quarter. It has its unique atmosphere. This is how I imagined this city. One of the most interesting buildings, and surely the funniest one, is a palace on the Piazza Bologni. There is a commemorative plaque there with an inscription: "Garibaldi took a rest in this building for two hours". For those who don't know the Italian history I explain that Garibaldi united two Italian republics into one country. Only Italian sense of humour and a distance to themselves lets Italians make this building a national monument. I get used to new streets quite slowly, but there are already areas where I fell "at home". I don't use a map, I try to ask passers-by how to get somewhere. When they realise I'm a foreigner, apart from telling me where to go, they always ask me, where I come from and what I do. On a bus a conversation about me instantly appears between the passengers. After one year I know Palermo better than some of the citizens. I'm most delighted when a tourist asks me, how to get somewhere.

ARCIRagazzi

That's the name of my host organisation, where the project will take place. What is it about? Before my departure I read that I would take care of children in an local youth centre one of the worst quarters of Palermo. After my arrival I learn that I will also work with unemployed youth. Such a work suits me well, because it is connected with the subject of my studies. Before we start to work, we participate in a few trainings concerning the organisation itself, working with children, leading workshops. It turns out that the way of working here is a little bit different. At the beginning it seems to me that the work consists in constant playing and it doesn't bring anything. After a while I begin to understand that young people here may be encouraged to further education only through playing. Talks or compulsion are pointless. A young person must understand her- or himself that only thanks to education she or he can achieve something and get away from the quarter, where there is a high unemployment rate and you can buy drugs on every corner of the street. The youth centre is designed for children and youth under 24 years of age. I'm a little afraid of them because I'm conscious of a huge gap between us. I'm a foreigner, I don't speak Italian, I don't know Sicilian either, and I'm on their area. The beginning is difficult but trust and friendships come with time. At the end I'm really sorry to leave. I have reached the impossible - I made friends with a girl, who had hated foreigners before. At the end she kisses me and says, she is going to miss me.

FRIENDS

I owe them the most. I learned the most from them. If not for them, I wouldn't have learned Italian so fast. The language course, arranged by our host organisation didn't turn out to be the best one, so we decided to give it up. It is thanks to countless conversations with my friends, often full of mistakes, that I have learned so much. Today I speak Italian pretty well. The Sicilians are very friendly towards foreigners. They are always eager to help and their hospitality is at least as ours, Polish one. It's impossible to count how many times I was invited to family dinners, but it's also impossible to forget. Thanks to my friends I survived my longing for home, which sometimes made my life miserable. It is thanks to them that Palermo became my second home.

WHO AM I?

What has this one year on Sicily within the confines of European Voluntary Service given to me? So much that I can hardly write that. A year abroad is most of all the best school of another culture and customs. And I don't only mean here the most obvious aspects of culture like historic monuments or food. I also mean things that you only notice after a longer stay - to get to know the national character. The Sicilians have a strong feeling of being a Sicilian, but a weaker one of being an Italian. They speak with contempt about governments and the ones "over" them - literally and metaphorically speaking. A year in Palermo means also a study of the language, which I now speak almost without any problems. And I thought it would be impossible... A year in Arciragazzi means also getting to know another style of working, so different from our North-European one, as well as gaining new experience, which will surely be useful to me. This also means great friendships that will last forever.

PARTIRE E ANCHE TORNARE

It is a verse from a song of one of the most famous Italian singers, Fiorella Manoa. It says "leaving means also coming back". It is the way of things. After a year - preparations for coming back. Also by train. Packing the suitcases - too much of everything. Tears, because I have to leave some things. There's not enough space. Maybe the Sicilian friends will bring them. Goodbye to those that won't come to the station, the last Sicilian dinner. The way to the station. The last sights of streets and buildings that became "my" streets and "my" buildings. The station. Tears. Departure. Rome. Vienna. Warsaw. A year ago in the middle of September I couldn't believe that I would spend 365 days on Sicily. It seemed almost impossible. A year away form home, family and friends, in an unknown place. I couldn't imagine how my life there would look like. And now I'm back in Warsaw and again I can't believe that I spent a year on Sicily, that I climbed Etna, I survived an earthquake, I worked in Arci with children, that I couldn't understand at the beginning, that I met so many wonderful, remarkable people. But I know that I was there. I brought hundreds of pictures. And experience that will stay in my heart and my mind forever.

Agnieszka Moskwiak