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Italian roots

Ciao to everyone! 

My name is Max Figuerola, I am 18 years old and I arrived in Jesi on the 3rd of July 2023 to leave on the 31st of January 2024, I come from Tarragona a city in the south of Catalonia with a great past directly related to the Roman Empire, which I have been studying during the last two years of my high school, also my grandparents were from Naples so I have always had a great appreciation for Italy.

Now that you know who I am and where I come from I will give you a little introduction of why I am here, I do not come from a family of great resources so I have always been aware of the inequalities that exist in this world, That's why I wanted to start a volunteer project with the aim of being able to help and improve the lives of as many people as possible who are in an unfavourable situation, and when I turned 18 I saw this advert for volunteering for Caritas in Jesi, Ancona, so I took it as a sign that this project was the ideal one for me. Now I've been here for two weeks and I want to share with you what has been this wonderful experience (at least for the time I've been here), well, let's start with the first day; since I left my house to go to the airport of El Prat in Barcelona where I took the plane to Bologna (I have to say that it was the first time that I took a plane and that I was leaving the country alone so I was nervous, but I have always liked challenges so I went ahead) once landed in Bologna I have to confess that first I was a little bit lost, because I didn't understand 100% Italian even though I have a good command of it, because of the fact that I do have a good command of Catalan and Spanish which are two different languages, but in the end they share a mother tongue which is Latin, the same as Italian, and so even though I was lost at the beginning, I was able to orient myself by the similarities between the two languages; once in Bologna I took a train that was in the same airport and that left me inside the main train station, once there I managed with some difficulty to buy two tickets, one to Ancona (a journey of 3 hours) and one to change trains and go to Jesi (40 minutes), So I arrived in the afternoon where my tutor Margherita and my new flatmate, Simona, were waiting for me. Once there, we went by car to my new home and place of work during this experience, the Caritas headquarters.

During the first week Simona very kindly offered to introduce me to everyone and show me what jobs I would have to do regularly while I was here, among which were the Cucina (the kitchen along with the soup kitchen), the Magazzino Rivestiamo (which is basically a clothing warehouse where clothes are picked out if they are suitable for people), and the Rivestiamo Negozio (which is a shop with a points system for people in need of clothes). So, I finished my first week already knowing how everything works thanks to Simona; now I can't wait to see what the future holds for me and what new personal and professional insights I will learn during this new journey.

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