By : Alya Faytza Azzahra ( Siswi SMAN 1 Makassar peserta AFS di Italia)
CIAO TUTTI! I’m Alya Faytza Azzahra, one of the student of SMA Negeri 1 Makassar who will tell you about all of my experience while i’m in Italy. I’m doing my Exchange year suported by AFS (American Field Service), i’ve got a placement in a country of pizza which is in Italy.
Okay let’s talk about my life in here.
What do you think when you heard something about Italy? Most of you will think about pizza, pasta, cheese right? But for me Italy not only all about pizza, but about life. I’ve got a family, a lot friend, I’ve been traveling in many beautiful place, and most important is I’ve got my second life in here.
It has been 5 months since i left Indonesia, and being in here as a representative of “Pemuda Indonesia”. I myself never thought before that I can have a beautiful unforgettable experience like this, however not every story is perfect right? I have to go first through a period of adaptation, for example I have to learn new language, I have to face a new environment, qnd the other stuff. Being in a new place isn’t that easy, but in here, i’ve meet many person who support me a lot to survive through my struggle. So that eventhough I was having a difficult time, I always learn from that and I was enjoying it.
I’ve found my new home 11.678 km miles away from Makassar called Cellole. A beautiful calm small town with the lovely peoples there. I used to grow up and study here with a different culture and life style with the place where I’m coming from. And miraculously I still survive until now. While I’m study, I also introduced Indonesian culture and the unique thing is all of the people i’ve meet here really curious about Indonesian culture and life style.
Living in here taught me a lot of this life. Taught me how to be an independent person, taught me for always using general transportasion or using my feets for going to some place in order to caring our environment, taught me how to manage the money, taught me about how important time is, and a lot of thing that worth it for the future life.
Speak about my typical day as an Exchange student here. So while I was attending science school in Indonesia, here I attend linguistic school which a school that more focus on study languanges. I choosed Germany, English, and Italian as my language lesson on my school. Not only grammatical things here that We are study about, but also We are study literature (it’s like history) in a different language. In my school there are also another lesson like philosophy, history, math, history of art, physical education, also science.
I always go to school with the train, and We start to study at 08.20 and finish at 13.20. While in Indonesia i have to do my lunch in the school, here i do my lunch in my home with my host family. And after that I have to do my piano course, the thing is my piano teacher can’t really speak in English so we are always talking in Italian language so “sambil menyelam, minum air” while i learn how to play piano, I also learn more Italian language in a different way.
Every weekend my family bring me to different place that I’ve never been there before. Italy is such a historical country, so I can traveling and study about history at the same time. And while when it’s free time, i often going for hang out with my friends at my little town.
Here there are also many of big important festival, for example Christmas day. In that day all the family are gather for eat together,and doing some traditional games (one of them is called la tombola). And in February there is a big festival called “Le Carnevale” from Venice city where all of the peole using an unique costum.
Here I’ve also learn more about respect the difference. Language, culture, life style, school experience, new family, new friends, foods, places. Change me become a person who has courage, and always being grateful about this life. That’s why I always said to myself “This isn’t year in a life, but life in a year”. See you on the next story.
Sukses selalu nak..