Viva la Revolution!

This is the story of how I completed a revolution around the sun, while the Italian school system is creating a teenage revolution in itself.

October 9th, 2013:

Auguri a mi, auguri a mi, auguri a Kara, auguri a mi! It was my birthday yesterday, and not only any birthday but the first that really actually matters in life. I'm now sixteen!

I celebrated my sixteenth revolution around the sun with no party, but what I am going to go ahead and say was my best birthday yet. I woke up with my hair in my eyes and as tired as every other day, got out of bed and did my morning routine. I went downstairs and nothing special happened (as in no one jumped out at me or shoved me down the stairs or something), but I didn't mind. I wouldn't expect them to know it was my birthday after only living with them for a little over 2 weeks. So my host sister Gaia and I walk to school, and I walk into my classroom and they scream "AUGURI" at me, which is basically the "happy birthday" slogan of Italian. That made me really, really happy.

The rest of the day, I had my first French class with first years (since I don't speak a word of French and I would like to learn it). So I repeated the "I'm from America please don't touch me" routine with the 13 year olds in my class, then went back to my third year class. When I walked in, they not only sang, but screamed the happy birthday song at me, in English and Italian. My love for my Italian class is like how they serve gelato here; it runneth over.

After school, I normally walk out the doors and wait on the steps of the church connected to my school (since it's an ex-convant we have that), but instead of going home, my sister walked by me, told me to wait, and came back and got me. So she made me follow her up the street to where all of our friends sometimes congregate after school. And they sang again.

God I love my life.

But the reason my sister made me wait on the steps was because she was buying me some cake things, one chocolate cream, one strawberry. We ate them, then went home to eat the best pasta to come from Sicily: pasta al forno (pasta of the oven), that my host dad made while we were at school. So I ate until my already full stomach was up to "basta on the pasta" on the scale and then we changed and went downstairs to have what we know as "reunion".

"Reunion" is where I start to bring in the teenage revolution in. My host sister, Gaia, is part of the school political realm. There are two parties (just like the Republicans and Democrats), Trinacria and Liberamente. Gaia is part of Trinacria, and I'd like to consider myself as part of it too, yet I am more like an english-speaking minion. I attend most of the meetings (even though the only reasons I attend is because Gaia is there and it's hilarious to watch/listen to the kids scream in Sicilian at each other) and know what's going on most of the time. This reunion was about an assembly that would happen the next day, which I'll get to later.

For dinner, Gaia and I went to her best friend's house and made pasta and meat things that are hard to explain. Kind of like pork wrapped around cheese. Then we ate nutella. It was a good night.

October 10th, 2013.

Today, school was boring. Until our break time, when I was working with Trinacria, and then we had an assembly, which is really just a group of kids with a bullhorn. So Trinacria stood on the top of a ramp in front of what was probably most of the school, and talked about the protests that would happen the following day.

The Italian government is cutting funds from the schools, and in response, we are going on strike. Tomorrow, in one of the plazas, what we are guessing will be 3 or 4 thousand kids will be on strike against the Italian government. And I'm part of it.

This afternoon after my AFS Italian lessons, my sister picked me up and we went to a park to spraypaint banners for tomorrow. I love her group of friends so much, english speakers or not at all.

So now, we are sitting around, waiting until tomorrow when we go all out Les Miserables. We are the barricade in this situation. UGH LIFE WHY ARE YOU SUDDENLY SO AWESOME

Why Italian teenagers are pretty friggin' awesome.

I've told Gaia this about 235693237849653 times, but where in America would you see like, 50+ kids meeting almost every day to figure out a way to save their education and get hundreds of kids involved without any adult revision at all? You try to start a music group in America with 5 people and it goes down the crapper within 1 day. My group of friends in Italy is proof that in order to change something, you gotta do it yourself. Nothing is just going to come to you the way you want it. Even though some of these kids have morals about what they do that I don't agree with, they are more active and determined than even I am. They want change, and they're striving and struggling to get it. So, do you hear the people singing the songs of angry men? Or angry teenagers with bullhorns and a few liters of Coca Cola, but really. This is amazing.