After four months

This is the fourth month here in Spain for me and life is almost completely familiar. Now I don’t have to make mental efforts to change the habits I had in Italy to adapt them to the Spanish ones, I’m starting to understand that maybe it will be difficult to change the habits that I’m internalizing here when I’ll back to Italy. The people around me are no longer foreigners, they all have a name. At most I can’t pronounce their name without putting on a bit of an Italian accent. In the employment center where I carry out my volunteer work I know all the workers and all the users, I know the psychologists, the accountant, the social worker, etc… I also know some of my girlfriend’s friends by name because my trips to Zaragoza now are frequent. Of course I’m continuing to call my family and my Italian friends, physical distance alone cannot break emotional bonds or even my professional interests: one Saturday a month I have an online psychology course which keeps me busy all day and every day I alternate readings in Spanish with readings in Italian.

Until four months ago I would never have dreamed of being able to had a conversation in a language different than Italian and two weekends ago I translating Spanish and English for two people who spoke only English and the other only Spanish, obviously not without difficulty, in a very basic way and with the help of a few beers, but it still remains satisfying.

Coming into contact in an intimate way with another culture is allowing me to be able to see the one I come from in a more critical way and for this great process I have to thank the European Solidarity Corps and all those who make its existence possible and they keep its vitality active.