August 29 - Alby's English Class Essay
I'm doing very good especially at school, and meeting
a lot of new and interesting people; I'm not having the time to be bored! I
would write you a paragraph that I had to do as homework for
my English class. The name is "Be Born Again". Sorry, I wrote in a
really elementary English, but I'm learning fast, and I think the emotions are
more important then the words.
Be Born Again
I guess a lot of people in their own life hadn’t had the
possibility to be born again, to start a new life; but not only a simple job
change, a divorce with their wife or husband, or something other people can
think that represent the begin of a new life: I talk about leave everything to
start the greatest adventure of their own life.
This is that I did and I am doing, I'm born again.
I left a beautiful island in a beautiful country that is
called Italy, however somebody calls it “pizza”, all my life, all that I
built in sixteen years of existence: I left a family who loves me and who
spoiled me in a lot of ways, especially during my last weeks in Sardinia; I left
a lot of friends who prayed me to don’t leave them, that they need me; I left
the sea, the sea where I spent a lot of time counting the waves, hearing
seagulls, playing with elements of the nature, flying with a big kite on wind’s
wings; I left somebody really special, risking to loose them forever.
"I’m leaving so many things?" Thought every
night in my bed, "Why? Only to learn a language? To add to my future
curriculum 'Graduated in FOREST HIGH SCHOOL Ocala, FL'? Because I am unsatisfied
of my life here and I want to change?" I was really satisfied of my life
there, and however was not for one of these reasons. Now I know the answer: for
the challenge, to be one over one thousand people who have been born again.
I did a big party before leaving, organizing it with two other
exchange students who had to leave with me: being only three why invite two
hundreds and sixty people, dancing and swimming with us all over the night,
celebrating us having the best fun was possible.
I took the plane that changed my life the day after, sharing
this experience with three friends: I will remember forever that one of them
said me arrived in Philadelphia: "Alby, we are in America!".
Yes, he was right, I am in America, in the country of
opportunities, in the land where not really today but one hundred years ago
everything a person thought could became real; I am in America, studying in a
High School, doing my homework sometimes in a public library, like that I have
seen before only on movies; I am in America and I went to the beautiful islands,
Bahamas, where I had a great time; I am in America and I’m meeting a lot of
interesting and friendly people; I am in America and I had a great time with
about ten exchange students like me, from all over the world; I am in America
and I realized a thing that I could only dream before: I slept on a boat called
“Freedom”.
I am in America and I have been born again, because I had to
start learn a new language, have a new family, meet new friend, ask to do
anything: all things that I did when I was a child; but now I am not a child, I
am ready to taste anything my life, here, is going to propose me.
January 4
 So
you really want to know what am I feeling after 5 months of this experience?
How my thoughts
are and what am I doing?
Are you sure that
you actually want I’ll tell you?
Alright, you wanted it and I’ll do it:
everything is pretty much like this, you know when…
…the alarm
clock starts ringing impatient at 8 AM and I slam my hand on it, trying to catch
a little more of sleep; after a while, when it starts ringing again, I finally
stand up and start saying a whole bunch of “colorful happy words” in pretty
much three languages, and I slowly walk into the shower.
As the warm water
starts coming out I think that actually I should have studied for that test of
“American Government”, subject that until 5 months ago I didn’t even know
it existed, that I have today, but, with a “too bad”, I usually forget about
it and turn on the radio.
An old song is
playing, a song that I used to listen at when I was a little child, and I feel
that suddenly I understand the words, being surprised that actually not only the
music but also the lyrics are pretty good.
I get dressed and
go in the kitchen, understanding pretty quickly that the bag of bagels, my
favorite breakfast ever and a food completely new for me, is empty: the shock is
too much and I crawl on the ground gasping, feeling that my heart has stopped
beating; usually someone walks in the kitchen and, viewing me almost dead, opens
the refrigerator and takes out another bag of bagels, daily saving my young
life.
Usually when one
of my friends, driving a car and not a motorcycle as I was used to before coming
here, comes to pick me up I’m still wearing my shoes, and jumping on only one
foot, I get in the car; five minutes riding to school with full-power punk music
in the head and we arrive to what the first time I see it I called “the
factory”, because of the huge amount of despaired buildings all around.
While I’m
walking from a class to another class and smiling to some blonde girl, I think
that I actually do like the fact that the students have to switch room and not
the teachers; 6 hours of school with, in the between, 30 minutes of lunch when,
with a little bit of patriotism, I proudly eat a 1 dollar pizza bought in the
cafeteria.
As the school
ends I ride home with another friend, I change my clothes and I grab the
racquetball racquet that he, a kid that I didn’t even know was alive 6 months
ago, gave me for Christmas; we play racquetball for some hours and then, bruised
and happy, I ask him to bring me to the green house that now I actually call
“home”, because the people who I call “family” are waiting me for
dinner.
After dinner, if
I’m not invited to a party, movie, videogames tournament or just hanging out
with friends, I sit in front of the computer and write for a my country’s
magazine about the last American news and cool stuff.
A good book of my
favorite writer, but in a complete different language than what I was used to,
and I pull down the “Sponge Bob” puppet attached to the light’s switch; I
close my eyes and wait to fall asleep, enjoy some bilingual dream and start
over…
… a new day
that surely is not going to be like the last one.
Because everyday
is different, better and a new chapter in the greatest book we all are writing.
March 29 - Alby Follows in His Father's Footsteps
 In 1987, a Rotary Group Study Exchange team from
Cagliari, Italy spent a month in Monterey, California. One member of that
team, Ciro Dolci, showed his hosts pictures of his 18-month-old son,
Alberto, and they gave him a teddy bear to bring back home. As often
happens in both Youth Exchange and the Group Study Exchange program, Ciro
has stayed in contact with his hosts, who have watched the little boy grow
up through photographs.
Today,
of course, Ciro's son Alby is an inbound exchange student,
and in March he was invited to visit the family that had hosted his father
16 years ago. It was a wonderful trip for Alby, who performed his
ambassador role on the west coast as well has he has done in Florida:
"I talked about the exchange program during a Rotary meeting... can
you believe that this 75 years old club doesn't sponsor any students? I
hope to have convinced them that it is really a good thing..."
While in California, Alby also received a special
certificate from the mayor of Monterey! Perhaps that was something to
make his father jealous! No report on whether Alby took the teddy bear
with him.
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