Running With Water

I’m sitting on a stone outside the B’n’B’ near one of Mantua’s outlying villages at 7am on a Monday morning, waiting for my camp director to pick me up so I can begin my ninth consecutive week at camp. There is no one else around. Just me, sat on a stone, with an empty b’n’b at my back and a maize field stretching out in front of me.

I’m preparing to move on once again, with the paraphernalia of my identity as an ACLE Tutor scattered around me and my rucksack at my feet. Not just through my time working for ACLE, but throughout my life, I have become comfortable with my identity as something of a nomad. I spent years fighting it but I finally surrendered – catchword of the summer – and the liberation and growth that has happened since then has been immense. Perhaps that’s why I travel.

‘What was it my dad called me the other day? Ah... Transient One.’

We are all transient. Coming to terms with our transience is one of the most difficult life lessons we all have to learn I suppose. And so, sitting on that stone outside that nameless B’n’B’ in rural Lombardy, feeling very smug about having just applied a Very Big Life Concept to a Comparatively Small Occasion, the name of this blog was born.

This entry is dedicated to documenting those glorious, transient memories I made over the summer, because despite thinking we’ve come to terms with the transient nature of everything, we will still try to contain, to quantify and keep hold. This is a re-living, a re-telling, and a re-sharing of moments with those I made these memories with, as well as evidence of the fact that you can never predict what is going to happen when you travel.

#1

Looking out of the coach window on my way from Ciampino airport into the city centre upon my arrival in Rome, I spot a man headering a football right in the middle of two rows of stock-still traffic.

#2

The scent of honeysuckle that coats the walls surrounding the garden at the back of the Vatican Museums.

#3

Selfie sticks are possibly the most irritating things ever invented.

#4

When your amazing Sicilian host family take you to the opening night of a beautiful club on the beach and you dance until 3am and they arrange for the DJ to give you and the friends you’re travelling with a shout-out on your last night in Sicily,and Jellyfish happens on the dancefloor, and lemon vodka is literally a cup of vodka with a slice of lemon in it (well, not literally...), and Giovanni ‘Travolta’ Cilia OWNS the dancefloor with his moves and then you go to bed with your head ringing and knowing you have a six-hour coach journey the next morning but sod it that was amazing and you LOVE ITALY!

#5

Eating pecococca per vino for desert; a variety of peach that is ONLY eaten after being steeped in red wine. My host father said he’d let me know when it was ready to eat, so there I am, patiently contemplating my wine-soaked fruit, when my eight-year-old host sister appears and swipes my host father’s cup from under his nose, scoffs the fruit, drains the glass and smacks her lips in satisfaction.

#6

Singing along to ‘See You Again’ in the car on the way from Rodia to Messina Coach Station, where we took the coach to Puglia, and struggling not to cry.

#7

Flashmobbing Alberobello the night we visited the trulli.

#8

Steaming along the autostrada from Rodia to Messina on the back of Giovanni’s motorbike.

#9

Watching the energy in my class turn from borderline chaotic to totally Zen in the space of one David Gray song.

#10

Host father: Don’t worry Charlie, tomorrow we will stay at home and eat soap.

#11

When your incredibly sweet host mother turns to you and announces, ‘But Charlie, it’s SO DIFFICULT to cook for you because you’ve been all over Italy and tasted so much already!’

#12

Sitting at the table with my host family in Savona while my sweet little host brother recites a poem he wrote in Savonese dialect for me, which his father translates into Italian and then his mother in turn translates it into English.

#13

When your nine Level Threes burst into song in the middle of your lesson, and you realise they’re singing ‘Glad You Came’ just for you.

#14

Falling asleep next to Ewan on a mountain-side, surrounded by surely the most beautiful panorama the Little Dolomites have to offer.

#15

Sitting outside ristorante ‘Algiubagio’ in Venice, twizzling our Spaghetti Primavera, watching the boats going to and from the Fondamente Nove. Ewan chuckles and observes that we’re seated in the romantically lit outdoor area of a posh restaurant overlooking the lagoon...right next to a bus stop.

#16

Sitting in the kitchen with Susie one day after camp, scoffing Sicilian biscuits and discussing the beauty of travelling. I speak no Italian, German or Portuguese. She speaks no English. It doesn’t matter.

#17

Wednesday of my final camp. Our most adorable camper can only come in for the afternoons because his school has started already, and as he enters the canteen at lunchtime, the whole camp erupts into a huge round of applause and cheering.

#18

Lexi commenting on the pizza in da Michele, Naples:

‘I feel more strongly about this pizza than I do about some men that I’ve dated.’

#19

Every time Brigitte tried to speak Italian

#20

Giovanni on the dancefloor in M’ama Club, going crazy for the Black Eyed Peas.

#21

Giovanni modelling his new beach shorts and shuffling around the garden in his six year-old daughter’s shoes, singing his shoe size, because the flip-flops his family got him to match are too small.

#22

The Thursday of our last camp together, Josué and I are ‘hiding’ from the children during a scavenger hunt. He is balancing and bouncing on a row of low bike railings and I’m sat with my back to the school wall. We’re chatting about life, about knowledge, about work. He starts to bounce with a look of intense concentration and then announces, whilst bouncing and frowning at his feet, arms out for balance and lips slightly puckered, ‘Yeah... I really want a proper job. I think. I mean, I like wearing a tie, you know?’

#23

Host brother: What is the name of the wife of the chicken?

Me: Dorothy.

Host brother: ...

#24

Being thrown around in the waves the day we went to the beach at Tono, Viola shrieking with euphoria and somehow managing to jump on top of me every time I succeed in regaining my balance. Something is hilariously funny and for some reason I just can’t stop laughing, which doesn’t help the falling-over situation. Water in my mouth, nose, eyes and ears, sun on my head, the sound of five people screaming with laughter and, through the spray, Viola, Morgana, Brigitte and Josué’s faces mirroring my own, Carlotta sat on the water’s edge and Mia barking at us protectively.

#25

On Bergiggi beach with Becci, the waves are too rough to swim so we’re concentrating on just staying upright. A particularly strong wave sends me crashing into Becci, who has her back to me. She whoops in surprise and flings her arms out in a fruitless attempt to break her fall. Snorting with laughter and spitting out sea water, we struggle back to standing and brace ourselves for another wave.

#26

Becci coming out of the toilet at the Centro Nautico Vadese and announcing, ‘It’s a squattie. I just pissed all over my shoes.’

#27

Just had the strangest encounter in the McDonalds at Verona Porta Nuova station. A lady (she was a bit rough-looking but she didn’t look totally destitute) came and asked for my fries. Now, I’m really not averse to sharing my fries with a roughish-looking lady who is polishing off a burger I guess another generous-looking traveller donated, so I told her very clearly (in my baby Italian) that yes, she could take one or two. But when she went to take the lot, I became a bit confused. I removed her hand from my lunch and repeated my offer of a few, not the lot. But I guess that’s an all-or-nothing situation, and she obviously felt I should check my privilege, because she told me to go fuck myself. Now why did I come out of that feeling like a bad person? And why, if she was so hungry and I so stingy, didn’t she just grab the 5 euro note and my purse, which were sitting right next to the tension-inducing fries the whole time? 

#28

Asking the bus driver for my ticket to the airport in Italian, and HE RESPONDS IN ITALIAN! Well it only took until my very last morning...

This is just a handful of the most precious moments I shared with just a few of the people I had the pleasure of meeting over the course of the summer: mostly fellow tutors, travel companions and, largely, the wonderful host families I had the luck to live with. Once again, thank you.