L'Arche Bologna

Three weeks have passed since our first day here and I can easily speak for the both of us that time is flying by so quickly! At first, the days seemed to go by extremely slow. I felt bored just sitting around not doing anything, waiting for the next meal or activity. When minutes felt like hours, in my head I constantly thought, what am I doing? Why am I here? How is sitting here benefiting me or the community members? I questioned the purpose of my position. As a volunteer, I initially thought that I should be helping clean, cook, or do some sort of physical work instead of just sitting around doing nothing. It wasn’t until a fellow volunteer gave me some advice when I better understood my purpose. He told me that we don’t need to be doing something every second, that our job is not only to do chores but it’s more so to spend time with the community members. That advice changed my perspective and attitude when sitting with the community members. Even though I can’t speak much italian with the community members, sitting with them is not doing nothing, but it is being present with them, enjoying each other’s company, and sharing a common experience. I realized this opportunity I have right now isn’t like most volunteer experiences I’ve had in the past. L’Arche is so unique because we are living in community with intellectually disabled peoples. And living in community with people can be very similar to community living, such as dorms or even our own homes, where everyone contributes to the running of the house or building, and we do almost everything together. With this new knowledge, I now know that my job here is to be just another member of the house, to eat, to relax, to dance, to pray, to clean, and to participate as the other community members do, even when that involves sitting around. As week four comes to a start, days seem to be going by much quicker, days are more routine, relationships with community members, other volunteers, and assistants are growing stronger, and every day challenges are getting a lot easier to overcome. I can say with much confidence that I am loving it here and I do not regret coming here one bit!

During this past week, there was a big celebration in the town of Quarto Inferiore, where L’Arche Bologna is located just about 20 minutes outside of Bologna. The fest, Quarto di Luna, included specific events every day. Two events that we participated in as a community was the parade and the Open Day. For the parade, the L’Arche community formed a marching band. I had the pleasure of representing L’Arche Bologna by marching along the main street of Quarto Inferiore with my new community, loud and proud, banging on cow bells. The following day, L’Arche Bologna hosted an Open Day where we opened the gates to anyone in the town to come check out the community to get to know the members, eat some cake, watch performances, play with chickens and turtles, dance, and release balloons into the sky! It was a busy week preparing for and participating in the festivity but it sure was a lot of fun!

May 22-24, 2018

Pre-departure thoughts and my arrival in Bologna:

As Asia and Julia embark on their journey to L’Arche Bologna, I wanted to reflect on an idea that Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, speaks about often in his writing. ‘The first call’ is a moment when people start the journey towards wholeness, of becoming more in touch with one’s own being by being with others. He goes on by saying,  “The call [to community] is  an invitation: come with me. It is an invitation not primarily to generosity, but to meeting in love. Then the person meets others who are called and they live together in community.” Julia and Asia have been brave enough to step into this first call with curiosity, excitement and openness. I look forward to hearing all they encounter in Bologna, with and among others, who are also so called to meet together, in community and in love.

Good luck, safe travels and many blessings on your way Julia and Asia!!

Quote from Jean Vanier’s “Community and Growth,”  p. 71 (revised edition).

As I approach the last week of my journey I wanted to share about two topics that have impacted me and my time at L’Arche.
The first is the language barrier. I came to L’Arche knowing little Italian. (I thought “ciao” was spelled “chow”. Very wrong I quickly learned!) Luckily, Spanish is very close to Italian, but they are definitely NOT the same. I took Spanish classes throughout high school and my father grew up in Mexico, so I grew up hearing Spanish being spoken.

By knowing some Spanish, I started off being able to understand the topic of the conversation but not all of the words and what people were saying. Often when I do not know a word in Italian I can try in Spanish and sometimes it is similar enough that the assistants understand what I am saying!

As my time at L’Arche progressed, my Italian improved tremendously. I can now speak much better and know many words. Each day I try to learn a word that I can use in conversations with the rigazzi (residents) for everyday L’Arche life. Today I learned how to say “Set the table.” As I learn to speak more Italian, my comprehension has grown as well. I can now understand much more in conversations and when others want to tell me things they can do so in Italian. Also I can understand what the rigazzi say to me and can respond to a certain extent.

The language barrier has been not only tricky for me, but also for the assistants and rigazzi. It has been interesting with the assistants because the assistants fall into 3 main categories in terms of communicating with me. The first is the assistants that speak English. In my house there are 3 assistants who are fluent in English and are very easy to communicate with. One assistant tries to tell me in Italian and if I do not understand she will then tell me in English. One assistant even told me, “speak English with me only, I enjoy getting to practice and keep up my English.” The second category is the assistants who do not speak English but still try to communicate with me. There are quite a few who know zero English but they still try to have conversations with me and try to get to know me and include me in everyday conversations. I really appreciate their efforts to try to get me to learn Italian and treat me as if I knew how to speak Italian. The third category is the assistants who do not speak English, but also do not try to communicate with me because they simply do not want to work around the language barrier. This group is very small and not many assistants fall into this category. But there have been a few assistants who merely ignore you because they just don’t even want to try. I responded to an assistant when she didn’t think I understood what she said, and it changed her outlook. She began trying with me more and wanting to help me. This meant a lot to me because I felt like I had helped her realize that I want to learn and it doesn’t matter that I am not fluent in Italian.

The rigazzi are all different in how they respond to my Italian. A few of the rigazzi are extremely helpful and I ask them what things are and they help me learn new words. One rigazzi even taught me how to count to ten with correct pronunciation. But some rigazzi sometimes do not understand me fully and give me a “huh?” look. There is one rigazzi who does not like my poor Italian and tells me “Basta” which means stop or enough when I pronounce the word wrong or say words out of order. So I try to have my Italian at its best when I am around this rigazzi and am sensitive to his feeling about my Italian. There is one rigazzi in my house that does not talk and does not verbally communicate, and does not respond to any words in Italian. When I am alone with him I practice my Italian with him by saying it aloud and just try to talk as best as I can. He does not respond to any words so it is a nice time for me to practice with him.

The second thing I wanted to describe is communication with the rigazzi. Not all communication and relationships with the rigazzi are ones where I talk to them. All the relationships with the rigazzi are different which makes them special to me. For example, in the morning when we go to the saloon to say good morning to everyone, there is a rigazzi who lives in a different house than mine that says “ciao” to me and then invites me to sit next to him. When I see him I fix his shoes and realign the velcro. After that I give him a short back rub and then we are done. He does not like to talk much to anyone. But that little everyday communication where I fix his shoes and sit next to him is our friendship. It is interesting how each rigazzi wants you to be their friend in different ways and how they interact with you.

With one week left, I will continue my relationships and build on my Italian, but I will also have a hard goodbye.

Ellie

Ciao amici!

A few days ago marked the half way point of our time at L’Arche. It seems crazy that we have been here a month, but also that we are almost done. The time has gone by so quickly. It seems like a long time ago that I arrived, met my house residents, and began this journey. Time at L’Arche is interesting because the days are very long, but the weeks pass by so quickly.

After being here a month, the language barrier is not nearly the challenge it was in our first few weeks. I am comprehending more and more each day and am learning to be conversant in Italian. Each day I try to learn a new word that can help me in my conversations with rigazzi (the residents) and assistants. For example, today I learned what “sit” is in Italian (its sedersi). The rigazzi are also improving in communicating with me. The one rigazzi who refused to talk to me because I was not fluent in Italian gave in and we had a conversation about his band Fuori Tempo.

In my time here there have been many highs. This week I had several things happen that I enjoyed and made me laugh. They are little things but showed me the character of the rigazzi. I listed a few below.

-I got to take one of the rigazzi out by myself for a walk without an assistant (usually there is always an assistant with the rigazzi)

-One of the rigazzi who doesn’t talk to anyone but has a good character, walked past me and put napkins on my head as a joke.

-I had the opportunity to cook for all of the volunteers and my food was edible!. (It’s a lot harder to cook in Italy than the US – talk about pressure to make something good!)

-Played Uno with the rigazzi and they beat me and yes I did try to win 🙂

-I got to do an art project where we made jewelry from clay. I really enjoyed this activity because at home in Boise I teach mentally disabled adults art.

-I was lectured by one of the rigazzi because I didn’t set the table the way they wanted. This was funny because they often care so much about the little things.

-I was able to go with our workshop to the park and have a picnic. Everyone likes getting out into town so outings are always fun.

-I did have one not so great moment. I did not make the bus on schedule and had to walk 8 km back from the train station. While I enjoy a good walk, 8km is pretty far!

These are just a few of the things that happened to me this week and which will be good memories for me. I feel blessed to be able to help the rigazzi as well being blessed by them. They are a very special group of people.
Ciao from Italy!!

Ellie Jacobs