Mondo's volunteers in Ghana

 It's 2am and I'm in the international airport in Accra waiting to board into my first flight towards Italy.  I can't even describe all the emotions that I'm feeling right now, I feel very sad of leaving my Ghanian family but also excited to meet my family and friends again.  What I know for sure is that Ghana has a special place in my heart, and all the memories and all the people will always be with me wherever I'll be. Ghana leaves me with a lot of professional and personal skills, in this 9 months I explored a new culture, embracing any aspect of it, and I have pulled my self out of my confort zone, looking for opportunities to learn, especially at work.  What I know for sure is that Ghana made me realize how strong my values are and how much I want to advocate for them and keep them as engine for my future choices.  I think this collage represents my experience the best. Same pictures but a bit different, that's exactly how feel. The same Maria Andrea, but ...

The 16th of July, I celebrate Fire Festival, a local festivity that symbolize resilience, strength and unity. It is celebrated at night and Dagombas gathered together to celebrate, showcase and honor their ancestors. The legend tales that many years ago the king's son got missed in the forest, the king then ordered people to go around to look for him. There was no electricity so people used grass torches. After hours of searching the king's son was found sleeping under a tree. The community used then the fire from the torches to fire the tree as they considered it as having stolen the kid.  Since then, every year, the local community commemorate this event. The day of the fire festival changes every year since it follows the lunar calendar and it marks the beginning of the Dagomba's year. It falls on the ninth day of the first month of the Dagomba lunar year, the Bugum Goli (the month of fire). The festival normally begins at night, on hour or two after the muslim evening p...

 Bela Bela  For some months I have been taking Dagbani lessons. I found Dagbani very fascinating, one of the most beautiful thing for me is that is has no gender, words have no feminine neither masculine.  Learning Dagbani is immersing me in the Dagomba culture, both because my teacher tells me a lot about it and because words in Dagbani are also related to traditions/events. All the words have special meaning and their sentences, most of the time, do not make any sense when translated literally, they gain sense and meaning when put into the Dagomba context.  For example, to say "how are you?" they say "Ti gbihira?" that translated literally means "how did you sleep?", this is because in the Dagomba culture being able to sleep well is synonym of health and wealth.  Even though understanding conversations in Dagbani is still far  from my abilities, I'm very grateful because this lessons are giving me the basic knowledge to greet and have small conversat...

  400 hands, 200 women  From the 19th to the 21st of March 2024, I implemented my project in empowering women through soap making training. Three days, three communities, 200 women. A project that exceeded my expectations before, during and after it.  The preparatory period has been rather stressful, an endless list of things to worry about:  Budget  Monitoring  Materials  Contacts with the communities  Facilitators  Transports and so on And the funniest and craziest thing is that when the project starts there are some many unforeseen events that most the things need to be re-designed.  But then, when you are there, surrounded by happy, grateful and enthusiastic women, even the things that are not working start working.  What did we do?  The training consisted in showing these groups women all the steps needed to produce liquid soap. The training started with a " theorical part " where the facilitator was explaining all the ste...

 A messy amazing evening.  Driven from my friends' requests, I decided to organize a pizza workshop to teach my local friend how to cook pizza. Since we organized on a sunday, the plan was to meet at 2pm to have the time to get everything ready without finishing too late. But here is something you have to know about ghanians, they are always late. So what happened in reality?  We started very late, we were 15 and we only had a small gas oven. To be honest, I can still feel the stress I felt when I realized what was happening, but as soon as people came, having them there, and being all together calmed me down. I realized that everything would have worked out even if the original plan changed.  I settled ingredients for everybody, each of us was having it is own bowls and it is own instruction sheet. I was so happy to see all my friends very interesting in getting to know my culture. Baking pizza is a main thing in my family, we use to bake every saturday night and be...

Since I am a kid I have always loved drawing. It is my go to activity when I need time by myself, when I need to break from reality. It is something I have always preserved with care and attention, knowing that wherever I was, whatever happened, drawing would realign everything.  However, one thing I realised over the years was that while drawing fascinated me, painting scared me. I still do not know why, maybe I just love the idea that people can imagine the colors they want when looking at my drawings, or maybe I am just scared to ruin something I care so much about.  Tamale has been life changing in this regard. I love to think that is something that was planned for me. Next to my place, just beside the forest, a guy is providing free paiting sessions during the whole week. After a full month in the city I had the courage to step there and join one of these sessions, already knowing that It would have leave my confort zone and face my "colour fear".  I found it a ...

  It’s not the first time I’m doing such an experience but the reality is that you’ll never be 100% ready. The first few days you’ll always miss your home, your people and you will feel lonely. I guess it is important to realise the normality of the process to avoid being overwhelmed by it. Here is the thing I’ll try to do in the next few days: I will try to find small things that make me smile, things that make me feel better and that remind me why I am here and why it is worthy to be here.   As soon as I entered the meeting room for my welcoming meeting, I read this write on the board. It was meant to be for me but coincidentally it was exactly what I needed at that moment. “Nothing last forever!!”, I think that is something we should all remember when we begin a new path: with time everything gets smoother and easier. The sense of loneliness had fastly faded and for how much I miss my family and my home, I know I will find home here also. Yesterday when I came back fro...