Day Four: Love your enemies

I am bursting with gratitude that I've been given this opportunity; it just keeps getting better! I am so exhausted at the end of every day, but filled with a sense of worth. Peru was a huge step in opening my eyes to the world, but Italy has busted down the floodgates and I can't get enough of all the new culture and new friends and new places I'm experiencing.  I love that I can see relationships developing and things getting less awkward among the members of our group, and I can't wait to find out how close we get by the end of the semester. It's only our fourth day here and it already feels like home. I was homesick a lot in Peru, and as much as I grew to love our group and the work that we were doing... being here is so much more FUN. Ramona and Robbie are absolutely phenomenal to work with, and the Burks (sponsors/professors from Searcy who live with us at the villa) are starting to branch outside their comfort zone and really get to know us. 

We spent the evening at a tournament with students at the local high school and members of the office of the mayor. We had white shirts, the students had green, and the cabinet members wore red; in true cheesy American style, we took a huge group picture in which we looked like the Italian flag. There were games of soccer, volleyball and basketball all going on at the same time, and the only sport we were really good at was basketball. Typical. We are so American it's almost painful! I met several extremely nice Italian kids from the high school and although it was a challenge to communicate, I think I and a couple of others made several good connections. Eliza, Kiara, Sarah, Julia, Matia, Francesco, and Roberto were a few Italians who really made an impression. All of us had SO much fun dancing, to both Italian and American songs. There are apparently a lot of Italian songs that have some fun, innocuous group choreography that goes with them, cause all the Italians seemed to know the dances. They obligingly taught us the steps on one of the open volleyball courts, and we were only too eager to learn! I was especially glad for this spur-of-the-moment activity because clearly sports are not my forte.  Dancing, however, is another matter entirely.  We danced for at least 2 hours. No lie. We taught them the Cha-Cha Slide and Whip yo Hair and Bye Bye Bye, but those were the only appropriate songs to which we knew any movements.  After the game playing and dancing was over, we all trekked into the cafeteria of the church/activity/youth center and had a huge buffet spread out over several tables with enough food for a small army.  I tried so many things that I don't even know the name of. My favorites, of course, were the homemade pizzas and pasta. There were also some really good pastry things that had various fillings such as pesto, pimiento, and chicken liver. By the time we left I was too full to even walk, so I waddled back to the Bible school.  On the way there we encountered a large wall with a locked gate that we needed to get over. After a few moments of indecision, the boys climbed over like monkeys and then helped us girls.  So now I feel like I've accomplished something brave and crazy, namely hopping a fence in Europe. I have the skin rubbed off my thighs where the top of the concrete scraped them to prove it.

I forgot to mention we started classes today. Not much to say there, but I am reeeeaaaallly dreading the workload that my Biology class is going to be. Also, I'm going to have to start making use of the CAPPUCINO MACHINE we have in our villa! Surprisingly, I actually really like Italian cappucinos. I've never had one in the states that I liked, but that might be because they never put in enough sugar to sate my need for it.

I cannot wait to see how the rest of this semester plays out! My life is so blessed.

Til tomorrow!

Molly
P.S. The title of this post comes from an incidence in which my friendships with several of the boys on this trip were strengthened.  We made a treacherous trip (two bus stops and a tram ride) to the Co-op (basically Walmart) to get lotion, pens, and various other necessities. They were constantly being mean to me so I started calling them my enemies and being SUPER nice to them. I'm sure our interactions seem extremely strange to those around us, but we couldn't care less. I love this group!!