A couple of weeks ago, I said goodbye to the office, to my tutor and to the amazing team of the Associação Viver Telheiras. Leaving my key in the key stand on my last day was an emotional moment that all of a sudden took me back in time to one year ago when this experience had just begun and little did I know that I would have become a Telheirense by adoption.
It has been maybe the most fulfilling year of my life, full of personal growth, healing, beers with amazing landscapes and friends. I am forever grateful for the chance I had to do my ESC in Lisbon; grateful for the experiences I lived, the skills I learned, and all the people I met here.
I am thrilled by the fact that I decided to stay in Lisbon some more time and I challenged myself to continue supporting my community in Telheiras as a personal volunteering project. Volunteering at Viver Telheiras taught me that people’s daily involvement in society is real and satisfying, that neighbours can join and create something amazing for their community; that interaction and cooperation with the authorities are possible; that change is possible.
After one year, I can really say that ESC changes lives, it broadens your horizons and offers new perspectives to look at the world around you, As I said in my very first testimony, when I arrived in Lisbon, it felt like I belonged here. Antonio Tabucchi, “the most Portuguese of Italian writers”, wrote in one of his books about travelling in Portugal that a “place is never just a place”, somehow, unknowingly, that place is part of us, we were carrying it around, until when, one day, we arrived there, by chance.
You know, I am not really sure I arrived here by chance, but maybe it’s true, I was carrying this country in my heart until the moment I set foot here and who knows this will be my place still for a long time. Obrigada, ESC. Um brinde à vida, um brinde a Lisboa, um brinde à Europa!
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