
“You leave your mother crying at the airport, you take a plane to a place that sounds as far as other galaxy, you go into the breath-taking beauty of the mountains of Congo, you cry every step of the way without showing to anybody because you have no idea of what you are doing, you get to know some of the most amazing people on Earth, and you start to work. Work eats you alive, it rips your heart in every possible way, it drives you to deepest sadness you ever felt, but at the same time you feel proud of making part of something so much bigger than you. Inside the hospital you get to know the harsh reality of a war zone. Men, women, children shot by a Kalashnikov driven by the ignorance, cruelty and brutality of some that were born condemned to survive without having the chance of thinking what is life all about. You cry the ones that died in your hands on the proportion of the effort that you have put in vain, and you celebrate the victories that your blood, sweat, and tears allow you to celebrate, as if you just discovered the true formula of happiness. You work until your body says “no more”, you show yourself available for the patients 24hrs, 7 days per week, you eat cold food, in some lucky days you drink hot beer, you sleep in a hut, you have bucket shower, you miss your friends and family to the point that you dry out in tears with barely any contact, and yet you find yourself as happy as never before. Happy to love and be loved, happy to come across the deepest eyes, purest souls and a simplicity of being that strikes you as an arrow with a magic potion of inner beauty… Every time we went to or from the hospital, you were “attacked” by groups of kids that cheered, sung and danced along the way, laughing their guts out of joy for reasons that I can only speculate or envy the proper understanding. The purpose of our work becomes diluted in the purpose of becoming part of a world that was until then, completely unknown, as were also these feelings that were always inside yourself, but for some reason, you never found them before. And for that, for the fact that you increased your perspectives towards the world and towards yourself, you celebrate life. You celebrate life.”