The story of Beatrice Moioli: from Bergamo to the USA for one year,
with Intercultura and the support of Fondazione Pesenti.
First Trimester: September 2017
Second Trimester: December 2017
Beatrice tells us about her fantastic experience abroad, thanks to the annual Intercultura program in the USA.
Fifty days ago, I left with few words but countless thoughts toward something I had long dreamed of.
My suitcase, which I mistakenly thought was too small, and I were so sure of everything. I believed I was self-aware, I thought I was a person with certain traits, and I expected nothing less than to come here and start reevaluating everything. Uncertainty allows you to thaw what was your daily routine, your life, and look at it from a new perspective: new angles, new words, new people, new cultures.
Looking back on those certainties that made me so proud fifty days ago, I can only now consider them useless expectations. Nothing I imagined has happened. Every second, every moment of this special life surprises me with disarming power.
When I look back, time seems to have flown. I have done so many things, felt so many emotions that I wish every day of my life could be like this. I have learned to wake up every morning with the desire to discover more and more.
I left convinced that I wouldn’t miss my family. I was wrong. Being in contact 24 hours a day with a new family, seeing (when you still feel like a stranger, a guest) what once seemed normal and was taken for granted, makes you appreciate and become more aware of what you had and still have. You realize you have always looked but never admired. Here in America, about 9,000 km from my beloved Bergamo (which I am rediscovering as immensely magnificent), I have found wonderful people. I am enormously grateful to my host family: it is one of the greatest gifts.
After overcoming the cultural differences that at first made me feel out of place, I started to open my heart and, despite moments of discouragement—which are always around the corner—when I feel a strong desire to run away and go straight back to Italy, I feel happy to consider myself part of my American family.
I have a host mom who is the sweetest, most caring, and calm person in the world, a host dad who is a child in the body of a giant, a host sister who you better not stop for a moment, and host grandparents who are showering me with unconditional love.
Thank you, immensely, thank you.
America, Seattle, with its multiculturalism, variety, and diversity, is showing me a completely new way of living.
From Monday to Friday, I wake up at 5:30 a.m. and go swimming on the other side of the city before school starts. The journey that takes me from north to south of my Emerald City (Seattle’s nickname due to its vast greenery) is, in my opinion, the interpretation and exaltation of what the United States are. In an electric car, I leave a quiet and friendly neighborhood with green and flowery backyards, cross a downtown full of contrasts, where shiny, perfect skyscrapers alternate with ever-moving construction sites, and take the highway to avoid the morning traffic in the south part; all this in 20 minutes, in one city, speaking English with my host mom about time, politics, and travel.
Here you can find anything you want. This is a state hostile to waiting and patience. Spaces are big, but times are short.
The truth is that little or nothing works like in the movies that so excite us. I have learned to judge less and know more.
School is the most important part of my day: it starts at 8:45 a.m. and ends at 3:35 p.m., six lessons, one break, and a lunch break; advanced physics, math, humanities— a fusion of literature, history, and philosophy—environmental science, and journalism.
The possibilities are endless; every student has the opportunity to choose what they believe is best for themselves and their career and life path, respecting certain criteria and obligations imposed by the national school system.
I had to dispel the myth of American school as easy and fun: it depends on the individual’s will to choose easier or more difficult subjects. A big difference between Italian and American schools is that here students are encouraged to work together, to build not just a group of friends, but a future community able to respect and help each other.
I have been here for 50 days and I am experiencing emotions I had never felt before: I go from moments of happiness and excitement to moments of discouragement and nostalgia. It’s the rollercoaster of life. I have friends from India, Turkey, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan, and other wonderful places in the world that I will surely visit one day.
Everything I see and taste is an incentive to explore new experiences; thanks to my Humanities teacher, I am facing a challenge that consists of not using my phone for 30 days. I think in Italy I would never have had the courage to do that.
On Sundays I wake up and, together with my family, we prepare a classic American breakfast with pancakes, eggs, bacon, and other steaming delights. During the week, I eat Chinese (Teriyaki chicken is out of this world), Japanese (my host dad is perfecting his sushi-making skills), Mexican, Indian, Italian (I have cooked Italian dishes several times and they went crazy for them; their favorite is pasta with oil and parmesan, obviously with strictly Italian ingredients), and inevitably American food.
I will never forget the feeling of being at home in a city, in a country that is not the one where I was born and raised, the happiness of being able to navigate a metropolis after just a few days of Google Maps (in Italy we underestimate the potential of this tool; did you know it tells you if buses are late or early?), the joy of feeling part of something so wonderful and new, the awareness of doing what your heart, mind, and body truly want—you feel so free.
www.intercultura.it