We started Saturday morning Peter and I, armed with sleeping bag and Canada (courtesy of a couple of friends) to give our help as volunteers at the Tent City of Acquasanta set up inside the Stadium of L'Aquila Rugby. As they said there ... you came on our honeymoon!
I never thought that such an experience would enrich me so much, so much to still be shaken, so much to think we can retool to return there again.
As we arrived we were immediately welcomed with open arms and made immediately work within the "warehouse" surrounded by boxes of clothing, pants, sweaters, shirts, pants ... An unbridled commitment interrupted by lunch breaks and dinner during which we were able to meet other volunteers (other Florence, Turin and Rome) and the organizers of the collection, Aquilani displaced citizens.
In all that time I was able to absorb like a sponge all the sadness, the anguish and devastation of these poor people: I will never forget the eyes of the Arch. John (evacuee volunteer) that were filled with tears when he spoke of his city and he found some solace in sugar bags that depicted in full of her beauty and that, as a souvenir, also wanted to give me and Peter, it was incredible to see how those images as if they were stroked part of his heart.
Devastating was the Sunday when, as warehouse workers, I had to fill the "shopping bags" with underwear, socks, undershirts, pajamas, golf, trousers ... and anguish that I rode when I could not find anything or something decent, something dignitosaogiusto to give a little 'comfort to those who were beyond the barricade, without running the risk of stifling even more conscious of to wear their clothes from who knows who! And nobody ever made me feel so good, As the lady who came to ask for a wild belt for her husband who lost his pants, he seemed to have asked for the moon, but then I remembered that in the morning I busted a box and in there was just a belt (l ' only) for men. Happiness in having been found not get enough of it as that given to the lady in the knowledge of having "made rich" ... it took a belt to lift a 'soul from the darkness!
I would never come away from there .. and when the time is as if my time had stopped!
While I was there I had no way to process, metabolize the environment ... processing is started as soon as I set foot in the house and I found my children when I lay exhausted on the bed and I realized how much our reality at that moment stridesse with the one just experienced. That was unbearable!
I spent the day on Monday, completely stunned and my mind just stopped in front of everyday life, my eyes were weeping uncontrollably!
But in the end processing is fast, the greater was the feeling of having done the right thing, so now I'm happy about all this, happy to have met wonderful young volunteers, happy to have made a bit ' of material aid to those who have those stores made their life ... glad I drank all the wine around that big table along with Aquilani, laughing, joking, to dampen the atmosphere stifling, to profane sadness of those days!
The weather was not much but I think he tried to breathe for a while Aquilani 'air of solidarity in qaulche way to help give the push, many of them no longer have their roots, but we can help to spread their wings and start over.
And in the face of all those who think that starting as a volunteer is a form of leadership rather than a way to shake your soul, please read the blog of Anna, Aquilana earthquake homeless and jobless:
"Yesterday afternoon I entered the center with a team of firefighters. I was hoping to recover even one in my house. Even the photo of my father. This was not possible, since the scale of my building collapsed. What led to the attic where I lived. But what my eyes have seen, for the first time after the earthquake, is indescribable. Imagine the places of your soul, your life, your memory turned into a clearing of debris, with very few landmarks. In that moment I thought it would be better to die. I see my grandmother looking out the window for the girl who called me that I pranzo.Papà took her hand and took me to school. Myself that I went out dressed as a nun to go to the white First Communion. Little things, but my life. And I understand the loss of identity. The loss of everything. An immense grief. Common. But terribly individual. Your existence shrivels. E landslide ... "
