I decided to participate in this project with zero expectations and I think it’s vital to keep an open mind when it comes to experiences like this. Because if you do you’ll have the time of your life.
I joined the CESIE project during my sabbatical year when I took time off from my job. It was a turbulent time for me and I took this opportunity to try and explore what I like about this little life again in an attempt to get more inspiration and perspective.
This year proved to be pivotal in my journey to bring back some easiness into my life, especially after the war started in my home country. I believe that Palermo experience played a very important role in this process. It allowed me to see life from the perspective of people who are not as lucky as I am.
The people I met, the local centers where I worked, and the vibrant Palermo with its crazy atmosphere, incredibly delicious cuisine, and peculiar people were true inspirations to me. From the moment I joined this project both people from CESIE and fellow volunteers embraced me and were very supportive throughout my journey.
One of the best experiences during this project was the ability to learn Italian which was my long-time repressed dream. And the ability to practice it while working in local centers. To be honest, it was challenging to work in an environment where Italian is the main language and most of the people don’t speak English. But it also taught me to be more flexible and definitely more creative in my ways of expressing myself. I truly enjoyed all of the Sicilian dialect lessons that I got in one of the local centers (kudos to my peers at Caritas). They were funny and only sometimes inappropriate 🙂
What was the true discovery of this journey for me is that I enjoyed working with kids (at Ubuntu local center) which was not the case before coming to Palermo. Even though working with kids is always chaotic and unpredictable I would say I was pleasantly surprised by how I handled myself with the kids in this situation. This was an interesting discovery for a person in her late 20s.
But my favorite local center was Caritas because of the people who worked there. It is a vibrant place with charismatic characters who supported me all the way and were always helpful and open to all my questions. The people who work there have the best intentions and values which is the most important thing when it comes to working with people who have fewer opportunities in life. I was working in the kitchen canteen that fed around 50 per day. It allowed me not only to become a proficient onion cutter but also to communicate directly with some of the people who attended these lunches and try to understand their situations.
The energetic Palermo and Sicily in general could be a topic for a whole separate article. I was mesmerized by the beauty of this island, its traditions, people, and history. I had the ability to travel around and visit Taormina, Catania, Cefalu, Agrigento, Favignana, and Termini.
Visiting all of these places with the other volunteers was one of the best experiences of this trip but my one and true love in Sicily will always be Palermo (Forza Palermo!). I think it is a very complicated and ambiguous place and that makes it so enigmatic. It has a very important history and brilliant architecture but it’s also very alive. You can truly see the people who live there trying to make this place better. It’s still a work in progress and requires so much more resources but I feel the spirit of improvement thanks to the people who care. It speaks very much to my own experience about my country, — Ukraine, and in some way I feel connected to the people of Sicily by learning their hard history and relating to it.
Overall, this was an experience of a lifetime that allowed me to learn so much about myself. It taught me to be more flexible, open-minded, and generally more open to accepting the unknown in my life.
It showed me how privileged I truly am and made me reconsider some of my life choices. It was an interesting experience to live so closely with such different personalities that might not always work well together but still be very connected by this particular situation we are in.
But if I had to choose my true addiction in this whole experiment it has to be Sicilian food. Without exaggeration, that was the best I’ve eaten in a long while and I’ve eaten some amazing food during my lifetime, including in other parts of Italy. Lemon biscotti stole my heart.
For any future volunteers who are considering this opportunity, I would advise not to overthink too much, just come and see how it is to live in Palermo and I’m sure you won’t regret it.
Yuliia Simashko
ESC volunteer
Youth Unit
