“Beata a te Süm, che bella vita che fai!”
I think this is the phrase I use the most these days. Since the quarantine was over, I laughed and enjoyed a lot and after I learned this phrase, it didn’t make me feel wrong to match these moments with this pattern. If I didn’t have to write this article today, I’m not sure if I would have been aware that I had been here for a month yet. The people I met, the places I greeted as I passed the street, the places I went to, in short, everywhere and everyone here make me feel so warm and safe that I sometimes forget how far I am from my country. In fact, I would like to talk about a scene I saw while passing a street in the last few weeks. Salsa! People prepare tomato paste (I guess so) for winter. At the same time my grandmother and my grandfather are also doint the same in this moment in Turkey. I literally felt myself in my village for a moment as I walked through the door of the house. Anyway, there are so many things that sometimes come up when you start to write that it is really easy to get the topics spilled around.
Today is the 15th of the month and a month has already passed since I came here. Maybe there are moments when I feel like I am still in the first week with the effect of being out of quarantine. In any case, I have completed my first month here. I guess the mood that generally enveloped me for this month was that I was constantly jumping into something new. Time has flown like water while getting used to the association and planning what we can do within the project here, on the one hand, harmonizing with our colleagues, socializing, etc. What is left to me is the weight I get from the amazing food I ate by saying “oh look you can’t eat this anywhere else than Puglia” everywhere we are invited, and the feeling of being used to when I realize that I am asking people less questions when I go out or when I need something. For example, even having a cafe I go to routinely now makes me very happy. Maybe I can’t focus on everything as I should, maybe I can be a lot less productive than usual, but every day I spend here I feel that I am improving more and learning new things. You know, when faced with a situation that you have never encountered before, people are surprised at first, sometimes even stunned, but at the same time, they learn to step more firmly after getting stuck and falling. I am happy to be in this project to constantly find myself in something new because it allows me to meet a side of me that I have never discovered before. Of course, it cannot be said that we worked hard during the first month, and our time was spent traveling more and exploring the surroundings. We travelled around with my roommate on our vacation, the second week after the quarantine. We saw places that we can easily reach by train, such as Trani, Bari, Barletta. My God, You are the One who knows my heart, Bari… Especially Bari Vecchia … I remember feeling like a dream as I walked its streets. Later, as whole team we made our first journey together and visited an association in Calabria. We spent a two full days, during which very good friendships were formed, when I breathe in the fresh air of southern Italy, and of course we did a lot of eating and hiking at the same time.
We have a whole nine months ahead of us, who knows, maybe I will have moments when I stop and say what I’m doing here, when I say how to leave this place. But my plan is to stay in this moment and spend this unique experience to the fullest, making friends, between the past and the future. Also, the memories I have are already pouring out of my pocket. So dear Orta Nova for now, I’m already impatient for the next nine months.
