… every day is like being at a training course!

It’s February and Chiara, at the post office in Pontevico (BS), tells me that the preparation of the VOICA volunteers for the summer of 2007 with various destinations in the world, is starting at the Canossian Sisters of Brescia: Africa, Indonesia, Brazil

Six months pass and I find myself sitting on one of the planes that is taking me to Togo wondering if I really made the right choice given that I have 48 kg of luggage of which 24 are just medicines and an envelope of cash donations equal to 7,000 euros…!!

And above all, for 10 hours the only white woman on the flight … luckily, I was calm and I was not afraid.

The house where we lived was very simple and each volunteer had her own room and bathroom. There was no hot water and very little electricity. It was surrounded by high walls and every time we went out a large gate is opened for us by the caretaker Cocou.

From then on you are in Africa.

The landscape is all green, there are plants of every shape and shade of green, baobabs, palms, pines, centuries-old trees, unkempt grass more or less as tall as me and the earth is completely red. In our area the roads were not paved and the roads were sometimes impassable especially when it rained.

The further you look the more you see. There are expanses as far as the eye can see, there are no skyscrapers or multi-story houses so you can always see the whole sky! Day and night.

My job in the reception centre is in the pharmacy. It is a slow and responsible job, but as soon as I can I go to visit the Togolese colleagues and the Italian volunteers who do the dressings in the infirmary or in the ward to visit the children or the elderly sick with malaria who are on drips.

For three weeks you have a parallel life: a new house to live in, some friends united like sisters, your job (8 hours or more), the car, the washing machine, Africa.

Every day is like being at a training course! Everything is different from us. The people, the goats, the chickens are all black, you are a white dot. Everyone looks at you, especially the children, especially those who have never seen a white person touch your arms and hair with wide eyes and an open mouth and say “yovo”, that is white man!

You feel like the only one different from everyone! In the capital, instead, the looks of the people are sharp and piercing, here you feel a bit like an immigrant with the difference that you are the white man and it is synonymous with wealth! Everything you buy is the result of a long and unnerving negotiation! On Sundays we go to Mass and it is beautiful because it is played with jambè, bongos, maracas and sung in gospel music and everyone dances and claps their hands creating a common swaying of colours. You can’t help but be ecstatic. Africa enters your heart. The emotions that Africa gives you are difficult to describe:

there are moments when you cry for what you see and moments when you laugh.

You feel like you are hit and sinking. Everything or job is extremely simple and everyone

wants to understand from you what the rest of the world is like, but how do you explain to them that where you live there is progress?

The VOICA missionaries you know are extraordinary and exceptional people and allow you to make a unique, unforgettable and indelible experience in your heart.

The mission and Africa open your heart and mind.

It was difficult to sacrifice three weeks of summer vacation because I came back tired

physically and I lost 4 kg, but I can’t say how much it enriched me internally.

When you return to your usual life, the word “bullshit” is erased from your personal vocabulary and you can only continue to tell yourself how lucky you are to have everything and even more! And above all that following your instinct always leads to doing the right thing for yourself!

Thank you VOICA and see you next time…

Annalisa G.

… the most precious egg I received in my life

It is difficult to describe the many experiences I have had in Africa, from Uganda to Malawi, from Togo to the D.R. of Congo and the splendid Sao Tome. So many small and large things have happened that my heart can barely beat normally.

I arrived knowing very little about Africa, after all I had only done holiday trips, photographic safaris and nothing more, but today I can say that I left, from all the missions, knowing something more, loving more and more, dreaming endlessly and this has changed everything in me.

The first time I arrived and I did not know anyone on the mission, but I left with tears, crying as I said goodbye to M. Imelda, the guardian angel of the volunteers, and then adding to this face with an ever-ready smile, other Sisters, other Volunteers, other African friends …. Africa has a spirit that contaminates you, a heart that penetrates you.

I arrived expecting to find poor children with nothing, desolate, deserted and arid villages and instead I saw children smiling and having fun with that little they had and giving me something not even remotely imaginable: a caress! I found adults ready to host me in their hut or in their dilapidated house with the most beautiful smile that a man can give you: they only had a smile… and you say that is little?

A very poor child, almost naked, just because I had painted his classroom, gave me an egg… the most precious egg of my life. Once a week I eat an egg and only because I want to remember that face!

I arrived with many doubts knowing perhaps that I would not find answers to my questions, “is it right to come all the way here? To change some of their ways of living and seeing things? We white people have failed in many ways?”

I did not find an answer and now I do not look for it anymore because those I met taught me the value of life, the great gift of hospitality, the burning desire to live, the joy of believing. Why answer?

Then I think about what I left behind in that splendid red earth: the dispensary, the farm, the cybercafé; the school in Bethlehem, the disabled children and those from Aguaizé, the splendid young people who play football or study, crammed into the bare classrooms, their parents and above all the Canossian Sisters. And I understand that the work done is fantastic and this is the path to follow.

All that remains for me to do is thank VOICA from the bottom of my heart for the experiences it has allowed me to live.

All that remains for me to do is thank the many volunteers who have shared these joys and who I carry in my heart.

All that remains for me to do is thank the good Lord who has allowed me to live my mission with his eyes.

And may Africa always be with us!

Claudio 

… they changed my outlook

I am writing to you from Ariwara, when the intimacy of the night and the silence of the cicadas descend.

Don’t ask me to explain Africa to you in a few lines, because it would be like finding the secret of a child’s smile.

Don’t even ask me to tell you why I came here, from my little village in the area of Como, from my beautiful job as a literature teacher, from my comfortable home: it would be like finding the reason for a love that can change your life. If I can be honest, it wasn’t a drastic or courageous choice at all, but rather the natural continuation of a journey. Even if I had never thought about projects in Africa, almost out of curiosity in 2015 I left for about a month of voluntary work in the Bethlehem mission, in southern Uganda. The strong emotions experienced, the fundamental support of VOICA, having found unique and enriching travelling companions, the desire to learn even more pushed me to experience a deeper experience. So, I asked for a year off from work and here I am. Something simply natural.

I can only tell you what I see, the people I meet, the thoughts that pass through my head.

One day I met a young girl in the hospital, Grace, just 16 years old: she had given birth to her baby a few days earlier but her man had fled who knows where, abandoning her alone in the hospital, without even money for a meal. And she was smiling, a smile as enveloping as the light of this land. To me, who stupidly wondered, she showed her baby, Mungutsi. He was enough to give her all the joy that the world can contain.

Here, the first time you get to know Africa you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, the poverty, the indolent calm, enjoying the moment without worrying about the future; then you simply learn to smile.

The real difficulties are not the heat, the malaria or the totally different food, but the impact with a harsh reality like the one you encounter here, a reality that is hard to interact with without first entering the cultural universe of the people who live there. Only here, in our small hospital, children die every day from malnutrition. You touch situations of poverty that in Italy we only know by hearsay or that we cannot even imagine. But after having lived here, with them, after their home has also become yours, even the situations of their near future begin to weigh, with these continuous reverberations of violence and exploitation. It is precisely because of these difficulties, however, that you have to move forward and have courage. Sometimes I begin to think that the poor, the oppressed are one of the few riches left to this humanity.

Now I struggle to call them “poor”. Maybe they are not poor, they are just different from this world of ours, maybe the poor are others, but who knows who or what will establish who, between us and this “first world”, is truly better. Maybe we are not the norm, but the exception.

Africa is like a woman who carries the world on her head. The country where complaints and tears have no space, the country where joy costs nothing.

Africa is truly a different world and, as I often like to think, a world not primitive, but “first”, that is, more tied to the essentiality and authenticity of existence. This is why this different cultural and social fabric dismantles you piece by piece, but then rebuilds you with a new vision, in which even poverty, illness, death acquire new meanings.

Here I also met my friend Justin: he comes from Lamila, a village lost in the savannah a few kilometres from here, a village of huts and goats. As a child, he would walk two hours to go to school at dawn, to carve out a future for himself. Now he is a nurse in the paediatrics department of the hospital and, when I ask him what he thinks of this hospital lost in Ituri, he speaks of it as an extraordinary gift. Soon he will build a small house on the land bought thanks to his small savings and will be able to marry his fiancée, give life to new beginnings and a new phase.

The other day Moise was telling me about the civil war, not even twenty years ago, when he hid in the forest to escape the militiamen who went from village to village to recruit children. Now, thanks to the help of the Canossian Sisters, he studies at university and dreams of becoming a teacher, of educating the new generation.

I thought that their absolute Beauty lies in the fact that they have seen the harshness of life in the face, in all its difficulties, and they have faced it, Life, the true and authentic one, sometimes even wild. They have won, they have lost: it doesn’t matter, they have faced it by looking it straight in the eye.

Don’t think that I done something special: here at the Ariwara hospital, after an initial period of settling in, of entertaining the children and doing normal maintenance work, since I don’t have any specific medical training, I have done a bit of everything. I have worked at the pharmacy, in the midst of medicines and dosage instructions, at the cash register, dealing with changes, accounts and exotic languages ​​to decipher, in the administration, I have tried to lend a hand for the hospital’s IT system, but I have also learned to lend a hand to the nurses in emergencies, to assemble gynaecological chairs or for example to chase away snakes.

You see, it’s nothing special, sometimes I myself have the doubt of doing nothing at all, and yet I remain. I remain and present myself as I am, I remain and see their difficulties, often their pain too, I stand and look them in the eyes, I say “I am here, I am by your side”. It is this being that for me gives value to that useless nothing that I do. The fact is that I believe in Heaven, I dream of it, but now I know well that you cannot enter Heaven alone, that you have to create it here, among us, with our brothers and sisters. And that no, it is not even that far from here.

I don’t know how much I will miss them, but I am sure that I will, I will feel a terrible emptiness: the lack of music, the chaotic and very lively noise in the streets, the lack of their faith, their intensity, but what I will have an even harder time leaving here will be my friends, the many people with whom I have shared so much: Madimi, Bolingo, Mauwa, Claudine, … but can a friendship ever be told?

Emmanuele P.

… Africa and the poor had already taken over a large part of me

For some strange reason, we often feel freed from running the risk that our existence might appear better or simply different in the eyes of that infinitesimal fragment of the world that we already know by heart.

But I wonder what the point of all this is. What is the point of lingering, settling,

precluding ourselves from happiness, giving up answering a call, as if it were enough to pretend not to hear.

I recently made the decision to spend a year of my life thousands of kilometres away from home to dedicate myself, full time, to serving the needy.

For someone like me, used to rationalizing everything, it was unthinkable, until some

time ago, to leave a secure job, my family, my friends, a seemingly perfect, serene life from which I could not have asked for anything more. It satisfied me, just as it was. It made me happy until one summer when I chose to spend a month on a mission in the heart of Africa. From there, all the satisfaction accumulated over the years began to run out because Africa and the poor had already taken over a large part of me, so much so that that sporadic “breath of fresh air” that, for a month in the summer, allowed me to catch my breath, was no longer enough.

It is no longer enough for me to stand still in front of a world that fights, that is consumed and that suffers, that is born and dies every time you stand by and watch. It is no longer enough that you have to decide. It is when it is no longer enough that you understand that taking a risk is necessary.

It is necessary to get involved and firmly believe that every life can be different. This can only happen if we really want it, only if we are ready to destabilize and shake and harass our being human with love. It is natural that certain choices, in addition to generating numerous unknowns, involve sacrifices and often leave ample room for anxiety and fear … but now that I have finally decided, everything seems simpler, even dealing with the bitter reaction of a tenderly protective parent or the strong embrace of a friend who will suffer in seeing you leave but for whom the emotion of knowing you are happy will be stronger than nostalgia.

In all honesty, at this moment it is very difficult for me to imagine where a similar path, begun a few days ago and already uphill, will take me … but I know that the breathlessness of this journey will only allow me to breathe more deeply the joy of loving.

Laura G.

… accept life as a celebration

We would like to try to recount our summer experience starting from some words of a song that accompanied our African days. The things we saw and experienced cannot be conveyed with words alone.

Just as no photo, video or comment will do justice to the beauty of Bethlehem, the small village in Uganda where we went last July to volunteer, thanks to the VOICA association. A school, a handful of houses, a Church, the five of us volunteers and so many people: a world to tell. Here is what we saw.

We saw children wearing the same t-shirt, dirty and full of holes, from the first to the last day of the mission.

Children who were aware of how lucky they were because others didn’t even have one.

Those children are inexhaustible: they never get tired, even though they have been working since they were little and they always want to do things, to learn, to understand. Playing with them is a lesson: they never give up, they fight for every ball; they are barefoot on a field that is red earth, dry grass and stones. Plants to avoid and doors made of stones or whatever you find around. It’s all too beautiful: realizing you have nothing and in that nothingness finding everything you need to be well.

We have seen children walk for miles and miles under the sun, with heavy cans full of dirty water, which they bring home to their families to wash, drink and cook.

We have seen boys work and break their backs for a salary of a few bananas, mangoes and pineapples a day.

We have seen many people in difficulty, who don’t have the money to pay for their children’s school registration, or don’t even have money to feed them. But we have always seen them with a smile on their faces, kind and welcoming, ready to thank you and share the little they have.

We left with the idea of ​​helping those who were worse off than us and we returned with the awareness that they helped us understand what true happiness is. The full one, that takes your breath away, that puts a smile on your face that you can’t take away. We came back with a little less money and fewer clothes, but our hearts full of joy: maybe that’s the only thing that matters.

We managed to do a lot, maybe more than expected. Every morning, buckets, brushes, gloves and all together we went to work. We painted some classrooms of the school, the secretary’s office and some offices.

With the money raised in Italy, also thanks to the Easter eggs sold in Alfianello, we expanded the dormitories (where the children who live far from the school sleep) and built the bathrooms and showers.

Yes, we built the bathrooms, because before that their bathroom was a field of wheat and their showers a glass of water in the courtyard. These jobs were certainly demanding, but they made the school – the place where those fantastic children spend practically the whole day, from sunrise to sunset – a little more liveable and more pleasant.

We also spent part of our time painting the inside of the convent of the Canossian Sisters who welcomed us: four fantastic women, full of vitality, welcoming, kind and caring.

But above all, we were always with the people. With them we played, laughed, shared experiences, walked: we joined our lives with theirs.

And so, as the song said at the beginning, we understood what it means to have a festive heart.

We understood what it means to do something useful.

We have understood what it means to truly smile.

And we have understood, far from our certainties, how much can be found in so little.

As for VOICA, we will still be present in the province of Brescia, with various initiatives to raise funds for important projects.

I assure you that seeing that every small donation becomes, in Africa, something concrete (classrooms, bathrooms, support for school fees) and that nothing is wasted, is a satisfaction that repays all the effort.

We wrote these lines because, returning home, the only thing we thought about was that, if we had managed to recount the experience of Bethlehem to even just one person, we would have done our duty.

Really, seeing is believing: those who have a similar experience, can no longer do without it.

Marco S.

… they tell me that when I talk about Africa my eyes shine.

Needless to say, the journey was terrible: long, heavy, tiring, hot. We arrived in the evening, it was late, and we were tired. Then I don’t know what happens, but when you realize where you are, it doesn’t matter how you got there. You’re there, and it’s the best place you could have ended up. It wasn’t easy to get into gear, at first. The heat, the rain, the insects, I even heard of someone curled up all night on a suitcase for fear of cockroaches. Then it happens like magic, and everything comes by itself, Africa overwhelms you, literally. The smells, the colours, the sounds: the music of the bongos, the voices of the people; the hands of the children, always holding yours, touching your hair, clinging to your legs. And the looks: some of their eyes seemed to borrow your heart and gave it back to you renewed. There were many projects: the summer camp, the work at the hospital, at the container and at the VOICA house.

We worked hard, and the results were not long in coming. The two weeks of summer camp with the children put our physical and psychological resistance to the test, but at the end of each day, seeing them run with their little works of art that they constructed together with us, was truly an infinite joy. Seeing the satisfaction in their eyes, and the happiness of those who know how to be content with little, which is not little. It is little only for us, who are no longer able to smile at the little things. Things that for them, instead, are important. Children at 6 years old should carry a school backpack on their shoulders, and instead they carry their little brother there, who they must learn early to take care of instead of their mother. Children at 10 years old should be holding toys in their hands, or maybe books, and instead sometimes you see them there, at the edge of the road, and in their hands, they only have hoes and axes, to work and provide for the sustenance of their family. At 18, girls should graduate and live their adolescence as everyone has the right to, but instead they are often already married and pregnant.

There are many children in Congo. And we smiled at everyone we could; we made them play, sing, laugh. We spent all our energy to see them happy… and if we succeeded even a little, then it was worth all the hours spent thinking about what to do, and preparing the material to make nice games with them. We ran, jumped, danced…and we made fools of ourselves for them, who laughed at us and we laughed with them. And the children who couldn’t laugh with us at the summer camp, who fortunately were few, we went to look for them in the paediatrics ward, with soap bubbles and balloons. Then we worked on the container: it was old, dirty and rusty. We washed it, peeled it and painted it and soon it will be a market that will serve to raise funds for the hospital and yes, we also worked at the hospital.

It is a harsh reality, which we have been able to see very closely thanks to M. Marcela and those of us who have worked there directly. Bare operating rooms, and doctors who, despite having nothing, manage to do everything. We have fixed up some of the hospital rooms, painted furniture, refurbished old rusty beds. And we have learned together that diversity is not an obstacle, but a resource. And I look at my shoes, which bear the marks of all the road we have travelled; and I look at my clothes, which bear the marks of the paint used that month; and I look at my heart, which bears the marks of the smiles shared with my travel companions, of the happy memories at the summer camp, of our walks, under the scorching morning sun or under the afternoon storm, of the mornings seeing the sunrise, the evenings watching the sunset, and of the nights spent looking at the stars sitting among the sparkle of fireflies, of our discussions and our confidences. And I look at my mind, which bears the marks of the screams coming from the hospital, of mothers who have lost their children, who with the means that we have at our disposal, they could probably have been saved and I look at the faces of the older people, who bear the marks of a not-too-distant slavery and I listen to my ears, which have heard stories of children who are still kidnapped and turned into soldiers, of abused women, of ruined families and broken dreams. Because if there is one thing that these experiences have taught me very well, it is that in a world where everything has a value, and everything has a price, the truth is that in the end the most precious things are those that are free: a meadow to run in, a sky to fly your kite in, the stars to which you can recommend your most intimate desires, the sun to watch rise when the rest of the world is still sleeping, the wagging of a dog’s tail, the echo of an uncontrolled laugh, the surprise of an unexpected hug, a song sung in company… and the right people next to you.

And so, if they tell me that when I talk about Africa my eyes shine, it is because it does not matter about the insects, nor the long journey, the cold showers or the trips made on unlikely means… what matters is being there, and trying to make a difference. Because in a world where still too few are willing to make some sacrifice to help others, I thank those who every day choose to open their eyes and take an interest… and those who will. Because Africa is not just a piece of land… it is a universe of history, culture and traditions that have so much to teach us. And sometimes it would be enough to just open our minds and hearts a little, to help it, instead of turning away and pretending nothing is happening. Because after all, “if nothing matters, there is nothing to save”. Right? “What matters in life is not the simple fact that we have lived. It is the way in which we have made a difference in the lives of others that determines the meaning of the life we ​​lead.” (Nelson Mandela)

Margherita B.

… all together on the pickup truck, with Sister Giusy

Malawi, the “warm heart of Africa”. This summer, I spent the month of August there, together with 9 other boys, M. Antonietta and Claudio, a deacon. It was not the first experience, but it would certainly have been new, original, unique. We went to a place that I think many should look for on the map to see where it is located precisely. A quarter of the surface area is covered by a large lake, tiny among the vastness of the African lands, but which overwhelmed us with its grandeur.

The project that brought us there and that served to animate us and those close to us,

before leaving, and that gave concreteness to most of our days in Malawi, was the construction of two classrooms and the repainting and the creation of some murals in other classrooms of the nursery school of the Nsanama mission. This small village is far from the main Malawian cities. I don’t know how many inhabitants it has, nor exactly how many kilometres it is from Lilongwe (the capital), but numbers and distances are not that important, certainly not decisive. Once we reached our destination we began to observe what was around us, to timidly take our first steps, often even trampling precious flowerbeds without realizing it; this can happen when you meet with diversity.

Our days were marked by work, by visits to the villages, by exchanges with the people of Nsanama, by community life within the mission, by mutual knowledge in the group, by apparently simple gestures… but only apparently. We learned that we were in a very poor country, with potential resources, subdued and submerged, such as water resources and land that is often in serious difficulty, based on essential and family-run agriculture, approached and crushed by HIV infection, with many orphans and great hardships. However, we also learned that it is a country that has never had wars, where Christians and Muslims live together amicably and pleasantly, where time is a precious resource to be enjoyed and a welcoming smile is an abundant raw material.

Our knowledge, passed through degrees, filters, sensitivities, desires and personal prejudices occurred through the meetings. The meetings were first and foremost between us, regarding the expectations of each, the previous impressions about the experience and the reality that we would encounter, with the contribution that each of us wanted to deposit in that fraction of common space and time. Then the meetings were with the Canossian Sisters present in the mission. Sister Giusy first of all, but also Sister Cecilia, Modesta and Anne were bridges with the people and with the reality around them; they too were also an experience of growth for us. Observing the simplicity, the intensity and strength of their actions, the solidity and trust in others, their loving care towards us, able not to make easy judgments, surprised me, moved me and nourished me. The meetings were then during the Masses.

In the month of August, the main sacraments were celebrated, events that involved

a lot of people from the village and the surrounding area; they showed us the intensity

of involvement and participation of everyone. We enjoyed it, we shared with them, some concelebrating, some singing, some praying or clapping our hands: being together. The meetings were on the streets, in the villages we visited. All together in the pickup truck, with Sister Giusy or Kateri (an American VOICA long-term volunteer), we crossed splendid natural landscapes, for many hours and we arrived at our destination. The goal was not to do things, but to be present, to exchange knowledge, participate in Mass together or visit a school. This is strange for us, since each of our movements, “in Western realities”, must have a concrete, factual objective, produce something. There the results were not of concrete substance, but they were there, without a doubt.

During the period in which we were in Nsanama the schools were closed and so we were able to prepare the buildings for the start of the new school year. We worked hard helping the local bricklayers. This was one of the most intense encounters, which made us struggle not only physically, but also raised questions. It did not allow us to give immediate answers to methods and concepts of work and life that were sometimes so distant. And so, dialogue and perhaps even some small answers regarding the wall that was built up, raised by many hands, coloured, with and without gloves, that went up straight.

How much more I could say about this experience, describe the faces, the dances,

the music, the colours, the emotions in encountering children, but also the smells, the deprivations and the hardships of poverty. How much I could say about the questions that exploded in my mind, about the contrasts that were so vivid. The contrasts fascinated us, they excited us, but they also hurt us, they made it difficult for us to understand their meaning. So much to say, but maybe it’s better to conclude with… zikomo kwambili! (thanks a lot).

Silvia A.

… “the value of a bucket of water”

“It’s a beautiful mission,” they said. “I left a piece of my heart there” and “You’ll see how the people will welcome you with open arms.” Very poor people who, however, give everything they have,” they said. This is how the boys who last year, for the first time, set foot in a Ugandan village as VOICA volunteers, described the Bethlehem mission. With these words in their heads, a group of eight young people, accompanied by Sister Amelia, headed to that small village immersed in the banana groves of the plateau on the border with Tanzania.

“Why are we going?”, the young people asked themselves in the days before leaving. “What can we do for them? Teach them something? What? Help them paint? Five thousand kilometres and twenty-four hours of travelling to learn to paint? And what can we learn from this experience? Free will? Hospitality? Love? And how do you learn these things? Who can teach us, explain to us?”. Beautiful words, those that described the mission. High expectations, those that had been created in the hearts of the ypungsters. But who would have ever thought that reality would surpass the promises? A small convent, two Sisters, a priest in the house next door, the Church, the school and a few huts. Poor electricity, non-existent running water. “You can’t take a shower, otherwise you will use up the already scarce water reserves. Here is a bucket and a bowl: you will use them to wash yourselves, in the evening. Don’t worry, with a bucket of water you can do a lot of things!”, said M. Magdalene. “How many things can you do with a bucket of water…?”, thought the boys. And so, little by little, they were entering that world, poor, sometimes miserable, but at the same time with such a big heart. Between building and painting the school buildings and the new toilets in the morning and organizing the summer camp for the children in the afternoon, the days passed rich, intense, full, in the simple routine of ordinary life, inside the convent. Cooking pasta, with a bucket of water. Washing the dishes, with a bucket of water. Cleaning, another bucket of water. Shower, yet another. “Well, actually with a bucket of water you can do a lot of things,” they began to think. “And the locals? How much water do they have? Where do they get it? What do they use it for?”. There is a pump, in the middle of the village, and we notice that the children carry large yellow cans, every day, to bring water to their families, even walking for miles, loaded with that commodity as heavy as it is precious. “So maybe water is not only useful, it is also a gesture of love,” the boys guessed. “Yes, what is behind those few litres of ‘blue gold’?”. Behind is the hand that holds the handle of the can, there are the feet that carry it home, where the family is. Behind is the smile of M. Josephine who gives up washing clothes to leave the volunteers the chance to wash themselves. There is the sense of the essential, there is the sense of gratuitousness, there is the meaning of Life. “Here are those who can teach us these things. Here are those who explain to us the meaning of words like gratuitousness, welcome, love.

These are the people, they are the teachers. Silent teachers, without words to say, who teach with the testimony of their simple life. Here is the lesson, one of those that you don’t follow in a classroom, one of those where you learn simply by observing people living their lives and, if you’re lucky, sharing life with them, for a little while, for a little bit of road. Then you go home with some lessons learned, with eyes a little different, with a heart a little more attentive. You learn not to waste water, because even if we, in Italy, have a lot of it, other people, many people, who after our trip are no longer “people”, are no longer numbers, but are faces, are voices, are smiles, tears, hugs, handshakes, prayers, wishes, well … they don’t have any at all. So it’s not right to waste it. But there’s something more. You learn to appreciate the essential, to savour the truly important things in life. And then life is no longer made up of “I don’t have…”, of “I miss…”, but is enriched with “How beautiful it is…”, of “How lucky I am…”, of “Thank you for…”. You learn to be grateful for the wonderful lives that have been given to us, to appreciate the fortunes we have, which are no longer things owed, taken for granted: they are gifts.

You learn that anyone, even the poorest of men, can be a great teacher, if you have the right ears to listen. You learn that wealth lies in giving, more than in having, you understood it well once you have visited that very poor family who did not want to let you go before having filled you with gifts, wonderful in their simplicity. You learn that living by yourself you do what you want, but that living together builds a civilization of love. You learn that a simple gesture, like carrying a bucket of water, shows love, more than a thousand “I love you”. Thanks to Claudia, Emanuele, Marco, Veronica, Cecilia, Valeria, Antonella, who shared this mission experience with me and made it so special for the beautiful people they are. Thanks to M. Amelia, a tireless witness of Love, who was a friend, confidant, traveling companion, teacher and work colleague for us. Thanks to the Sisters and Father Cosmas who welcomed us with the love of a family and who spend their lives in tireless support of these people. Thanks to VOICA who have never disappointed me.

Stefano C.

… every night I fell asleep with a smile and with the desire for the night to pass quickly to start a new day

Many ask what drives people to leave their homeland to go on a mission or to have a more or less long experience of voluntary work… leave their homeland in which their life, their loved ones, their home are inserted, to go to another nation or continent, to people with different cultures, traditions and lifestyles?!?

I left for a month of voluntary work with VOICA (after various formation meetings) in Togo, in Agoè, in the Yayra community …

I didn’t suddenly make the decision to leave, but I think that the Lord from above guided me and made something click inside me that despite my young age pushed me to leave; the right opportunity was at this moment: I had to seize it on the spot, despite the insecurity of my parents and the amazement of my friends. These are the people, dear to me, who inadvertently gave me the strength to leave, even though they were assailed by doubts and insecurities, I was sure of my decision and I truly believed in it. I had exuberance, enthusiasm and strength to sell before leaving and on my return I had even more, so much so that I lived intensely and fully the purpose of the mission: to give oneself.

The more I worked hard and put myself at the service of others, the more satisfaction and desire I gained: I think I really lived the most beautiful and intense month of my life! With all the other volunteers, both short-term and long-term, I worked at the “Centro Medico Sociale VOICA S.ta Bakhita”, which provides low-cost healthcare, and in some cases free, to cope with the Togolese healthcare system in which “only the rich have the possibility of getting treatment”. Each volunteer had his or her own task, those with health skills or who those who collaborate where there was a need, accepting everything proposed, no matter if it was a small or large job, of which perhaps we do not understand the importance because we do not immediately see the fruits, but without realizing it we have sown something that only with time and with other people who will continue our same path, will see the fruit.

And if we are not the ones to enjoy it first-hand it does not matter, because in our own small way we have been great, being a fundamental contribution in a long line of people who share a common project. Every evening, even if tired, I fell asleep with a smile and with the desire for the night to pass quickly to start a new day. Working in contact with sick and suffering people is absolutely not easy, you have to be strong and not be overwhelmed by emotion.

I have seen things that freeze your blood and change your life: a girl dying of AIDS

alone in a hospital bed and knowing that there are a thousand others like her and watching her helplessly, unable to do anything to avoid it, except to be close to her and make her feel loved in the last minutes of her life. It makes you so angry to see certain things and they are not easy to accept, but the desire to fight against these injustices gives you the energy to continue, just as it gives you joy to see the light in the eyes of people who help each other, even if they are strangers, speak another language or do not understand why we help.

I miss all this… the people, the sky, the red earth, the scent of Africa, the community.

In the morning when I wake up I feel like I’m missing something, something that wasn’t missing in Togo; it seems like a contradiction considering that I’m in my house, with all my things, with my whole family. It’s hard to explain, but already from the very first days in Africa it was as if I had always lived there because I was so happy; I think it was the Lord and the great family of the community, who guided me along this path, a path of great experiences that made me grow. I would really like to convey all the emotions I felt, to the people around me, but it’s really difficult because you can never tell them the way you would like.

I haven’t really understood if I left my heart in Africa or if I have Africa in my heart… I want to go back there to find out, I hope I can let myself be guided by the Lord…

Carolina C.