I didn’t know the meaning of this sentence before coming here, but after having experienced two different seasons in the same hour while cycling from San Cesario to Lecce, now it makes perfect sense to me: “Crazy March”. Let me introduce myself. My name is Kevin, and I am a new volunteer from Spain, who is participating in a new project called “Connecting the Community” here at Vulcanicamente, and it’s time to tell you how my first two weeks have been for me here in Lecce and San Cesario. Unfortunately, Lecce is in red zone since the day I arrived here, and there are a lot of restrictions in the city. However, and thanks to the support of the organisation and the rest of the volunteers, I didn’t even notice the effect of the red zone, since these two weeks have been amazing for me! During my first day here in Lecce, Ilenia and Filomena came to pick me up in the train station, and the other volunteers were in the stairs for welcoming me. They ordered some food and we got to know each other with a great Pizza night! The next day, and giving that we had to go to San Cesario to pick our bikes and met Sara at Vulcanicamente, Ilenia came with Kiriaki (the new volunteer from Greece) and with me and showed us the city a little bit on the way to the bus station. In my view, and even if I couldn’t see all of it, definitely one of the best cities in Italy! Two new volunteers arrived to the city after Kiriaki and me: Josi from Germany and Eliisa from Estonia, and we all the 4 short-term volunteers are sharing the same flat, just in front of the long-term volunteers. We ended up discovering that our kitchen haunted: once you enter on it, you will probably spend there a minimum of 2 hours having a conversation, seriously! I turned 25 years old 3 days after my arrival, and when we were getting a break from the Italian lessons, they organised a surprise for me. They bought a gluten free cake and they all wrote a letter for me, even if they barely knew me. That’s a proof of how welcome and friendly these people are! Summing up the first week, we have had many meetings in order to let us know how the organisation, the ESC and the youthpass work. Also, we manage to do mindfulness and the river of life with Sara and Ilenia, a very interesting activity where you can reflect about your stages on life and share with the others your experience, and get our bikes fixed at Ciclofficina. During the second week, we managed to record our presentation video, to go to San Cesario alongside the amazing country side road and to learn about non-violent communication and the intercultural iceberg. I am sure that thanks to that our way of expressing ourselves improved a lot after the activity and that all of us will have it in mind for future occasions We also got the opportunity to distribute our volunteering tasks and to meet our mentors, which are very welcoming as well. I couldn’t meet you in person Gianmarco, but I hope we could do it soon if Covid situation allows us to. And Andrea, I hope we will meet again and that you will take one more time the “monopattino” on your way back home! I will conclude here my story, but not before saying that these two weeks were awesome for me, and hoping that the ones that are coming will be equal or better, both on the personal and volunteer side. Even if I am here only for two weeks, I want to dedicate a few words to the people I could meet here. Thanks to Sara for giving me the chance to participate here and for creating and promoting such a good ambience, to Ilenia for being always there and for always supporting us without asking for anything in return (and the gluten free cookies of course!), to Jacopo for the patience and for explaining us the technical details, to Filomena for the Italian lessons and for listening to our long speeches, to Kiriaki for being always nice and impressed (oooooh), to Eliisa for our political conversations and for Albania (Ö), to Josi for helping me with my funny German pronounciation, to Carlos for sharing your wide knowledge, music and loving my city more than I do, to Pille for being so active and for giving me a pesonalized key ring and to my working buddy Anaïs (that will check this article before being published, right?) for constructing with me the best wooden tower ever before being mercilessly destroyed and for remembering my two birthdays. Stay tuned for the next articles, and don't foget to read the previous one from my buddy Pille, click here if you haven't done it yet. Hasta la vista!
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