a caritas getaway

and i couldnt get away fast enough.

*gino, il capo di caritas italiana here in siena, finally gave us a date to our visit to l'aqulia, after he told us we would be going since our first day here almost three months ago. italians dont understand time really well which can be good but in this case bad...anyways about three years ago there was an earthquake in l'aqulia that really devastated the area and the good'ole capo thought it would be neat for us to see what caritas has done in the area to help the people and the community. neat right, a tour of aqulia and the effort of caritas.

we thought this would be a great opportunity to see more of italy and for free--all expensive paid--well it wasnt exactly what we were expecting, which wasnt much seeing as gino gave us no details at all except when he came over to ask if we had sleeping bags and when i said no he was like okay dont worry about it i'll take care of it. i have learned form later experience not to let him take care of anything.

so he comes to nonnas at like four to pick us up. that was a long awkward car ride. in short he enjoys acting like he can keep time to music by hitting his hand on the steering wheel dramatically. only high light from the drive was when he said we could spot at a field of sunflowers and he would take my picture (lies!) and when he bought me a magnum bar, almond.
so tasty.

around dinner time we finally reach out destination, a scuola elementare in fossa (small suburb of l'aqulia i think). we were greeted by a room of italian teenagers that gave us the stare down like who are these pasty white obviously dumb americans who dont speak our language, never have i felt more uncomfortable in my life than in that moment when we walked into the room. we sat down at a table and ate some lasagne while the four teens next to us watched me and katherine like monkeys in the zoo until one finally broke the barrier and asked us where we were from. never have i been more grateful to be from california. instant coolness. the teens turned out to be pretty cool even though at first appearance it did not seem like they would be.

once dinner was over gino took me and katheine into the hallway to give us our sheets--um what happened to the sleeping bags?--and showed us where we where to sleep which happened to be on the nasty looking lumpy cot i have ever seen in my life. how was a thin sheet supposed to keep me from getting a disease i knew with every fiber of my being was infested in that mattress.

before we turned in for the night and after we had our "circle of truth" as katherine called the little meetings we had every night to talk about how the day went, i checked with gino, who was leaving the next morning, to make sure that he would come pick us up on wednesday. wednesday was the established day to leave. we told him this before we left on sunday. we wanted to leave on wednesday. wednesday.
guess what we said in reply.

vediamo. vediamo. vediamo. we'll see.

whaaaaa. you best be pickin us up on wednesday boy.

so the next morning we (me and katherine) are split up, she goes to the old peoples home and i go play with bambini. well i didnt really play with bambini because they were not interested in me or any of the other volunteers for that matter and katherine didnt talk to the old people because, as i later experienced for myself, they are literally IMPOSSIBLE to understand. so most of our time that was supposed to be spent seeing what caritas italiana was doing for these people was spent sitting and staring at nothing in particular and chatting with the other volunteers. way to go caritas.
i feel like this next example highlights well the efforts of this organization: when i was talking about my experience in 'aqulia with a volunteer at the mensa, i was telling her about all the abandoned house and she said you know that earthquake that happened in japan this year, they had everything rebuilt in a week. a week! how long ago was this earthquake in l'aqulia? i answered almost three years ago.

now for the cheery on top of this ice-cream sunday experience. tuesday night rolls around and we are sitting in our truth circle and i inform everyone that me and katherine will be leaving tomorrow (wednesday) at 3:30. alessio or alessandro, i cant remember his name, looked at me cocked his head and asked me
-oh are you talking the train?
no, gino is going to pick us up
-you have talked with him
no he told me this before he left
-oh [pause for thought] we'll call him tonight at dinner

whaaaaa! you know we be callin him and tellin him to come pick us up like he said he would that short little round sneaky man that according to miguel steals all the money from caritas...anyways,

so at dinner-we went out to a pizzeria and thank goodness because the crap food italian tv dinner things they had been feeding us were DISGUSTING!- while the teenie bopers were sippin their alcohol, alessio takes ms outside to call gino. they talk for a bit and then he passes the phone to me

ciao you are coming tomorrow at 3:30 (like we previously arranged on several occasions) to pick us up and take us back to siena
-ascolta. its impossible for me to come tomorrow. but we have some options
(oh do we now) here are the options i can come pick you up friday morning.
but you said that you would come pick us up on wednesday
-[he then said lots of things in italian that i didnt understand]
we want to go home tomorrow
-give the phone back to alessandro

that little turd. i bet he was planning that this whole time. he had no intention of coming on wednesday to pick us up.

alessio talked with me afterwards and asked if there was any possible way that we could stay until friday. i told him that it was possible but we didnt want to. we told ole'two face before we left that we could only go until wednesday and if that wasnt possible we couldnt go at all. alessandro was really nice about it, he said that if we really wanted we could leave tomorrow with one of the other leaders who was headed that way, but we would have to leave very early in the morning. i said sure, not a problem we will go with afro man (he had an afro of curly hair hence the nickname afro man)

so insomma, we made it home on wednesday no thanks to ginowho attempted to abandon us. he does not understand who he is messing with.



free magnum bar. only positive thing from the car ride.


where we were sleeping...competes with a mensa floor.


a picture of an area in fossa that is abandoned due to unsafe living conditions.


a schedule. did we follow it? do i even have to answer that question.


t'was a sung little town nestled in the mountains.


the bambini. obvi they were uninterested in us b/c even when i pulled out a camera no one looked my way.


a field of sunflowers that i didnt get to run through




*name have been changed
**please note that this blog post is not geared towards degrading caritas italiana or its efforts to help those in need. the writer of this post has exercised her creative liberties in explaining an experience she had and has no intention of belittling this organization or the leaders of said organization.