The month of October came to our volunteering life with new experiences. Like new colours in the palette of the artist, they brought different feelings to the daily routine. Those, are nothing else, just honest excitement and love. First baby steps to become a better person were taken in mensa which belongs to the local church. Here two great ladies, brighter than the lights on the Christmas tree, have been making and serving food for people in need. They have been doing it for ages! For free. Just pure volunteering as they say. What they get in return is a daily “thank you” and the feeling of doing something meaningful for society.
Inspired by their generosity and vivid souls, we put the apron on (masks were already adorning us) and started to learn what does it mean to love purely, without expecting anything in return. Every single day we started with the feeling of becoming a better human being. Every bag of bread prepared, every pasta made (and they make different pasta every day, I am not kidding!) were leading us to...joy.
During this volunteering experience, we not only met two walking miracles, learnt a lot about Italian cuisine, but also had a chance to get to know better what does it mean to give. Now, a day without mensa, seems a day waisted.
If we have Venus, we need Mars too! So, after a while, we have started to volunteer in “Caritas”, which also belongs to the same church as mensa. Here, two men of noble-hearts welcomed us and shown how the distribution of food products and clothes work. We were welcoming loads of people with empty bags and leading them out with full ones. Every pack, in addition to the daily use food products, got a piece of warmth those men put inside.
These two volunteering activities describe the month of October best. When I will be packing my luggage to go back to Lithuania, no doubts this will be travelling back home with me. Oh, and there is one other thing worth mentioning! Yet, I do not speak Italian. As well as people in mensa and Caritas do not speak English, Spanish or any other language I know. But we found a way to communicate! Maybe because we are talking with our hearts more than words.
