voluntario

every tuesday night at 9 i go to a corner on the outskirts of florence. hop a bus- sometimes by myself, sometimes i go with others. seven of us total but not every week. so we stand on a corner. and wait. and finally figures emerge from the shadows. literally. have you ever seen walking dead? kind of like that. and they kind of circle us. homeless people. between 20 and 40 of them depending on the week. so the seven of us (little, white, non italian speaking american girls, by the way) stand in a circle and wait. eventually a car pulls up with food. pizza, paninis, pastries. leftovers from nearby restaurants and bakeries. so we grab rubber gloves and as soon as we take the food out of the car we're surrounded. and we hand out food. they stuff plastic bags with as much food as we will give them. sometimes we talk. most don't speak very much english. there are a few characters i've become quite fond of. a few others i do not prefer. touchy ones. i've found the most common ground language to be french which is cool. i don't get to use my french that often. so we bring out a couple rounds of food and just love on these people the best we can. some are friendly and appreciative. others are rash and grabby. it's a weird experience really. interesting. humbling. but weird. after a while they start to wander off. except yolanda. yolanda picks a fight every single week and always ends up screaming at the top of her lungs at someone. usually for laughing too much or looking at her funny. it's just a little act. every week i just pray it's not me she gets mad at. and then we go home. usually the volunteer guys drive us home or we walk. it's about 3 miles. and again the next week. it's funny. like an unspoken meeting. we just all show up at 9 tuesday nights and then part ways. sometimes it's a bit scary and i've been quite uneasy at several times. unpredictable really. but i have the world and these people do not. so i will give them what i can of mine.