Graduation
week.
In Brazil, getting to university – and going through it – is a big, big
deal. Specially if you are a Med student. We start paying for the graduation
party in the first year of university - I mean, the parents start paying for it, because being
full time students, there is definitely no
time to do anything else.
Well,
preparing for the big thing is not simple: there is a church service, then
there is a cocktail (expensive dress), and then there is the graduation ball
(even more expensive dress). Fortunately, I had already chosen my clothes, but I
hadn’t told my parents about my ‘job in Italy’ yet. I was planning to do it
during the graduation night, raising a toast with all my family and closest
friends. That way, my parents wouldn’t do a big scene. I’ve already
mentioned my family, right? They are a bit too traditional. So you're thinking that waiting to tell them in front of everyone else was a smart move, eh? Well, not that much.
My dad
nearly choked! Honest, I thought he was going to have a heart attack when I
told him that my next big step in adulthood would be taking a break – and
making money – in Italy for a year! My mum started to cry,
‘Oh, Carolina, I wish I could
go with you’; my middle sister said:
‘Are you out of your mind??’ and my oldest sister just smiled. I knew she
meant: ‘Go for it, girl!’ My older aunts looked at me astonished, like they
couldn’t believe I had spent all that time in university to become a doctor, and
now I would just ‘have a year break’ in Italy, teaching English.. And I
thought that at least my father and his sisters would be a tiny little bit happy for
me, their grandparents being from Italy and all. But I was wrong. They thought I was joking. But I wasn’t. I was taking it very seriously, and I was only doing
it because I wasn’t going on my own. If Lisa gave up, I would kill her!
Anyway, the
decision was made, the flight had been paid for with the savings from all my
years of receiving my pocket money from dad (I’m glad I’ve always been a saver), and we would leave in the last week of August. I couldn’t be more excited,
but at the same time, still wondering whether I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of
my life.
(...)
The day had finally come. My parents still couldn’t
believe I was really going. I tried to comfort my dad, telling him that now I
could at last track our ancestors in Italy. But still he wasn’t convinced and
asked me many times during our trip to São Paulo if I didn’t want to
reconsider. The fact that I was going to meet my older sister in
London and spend the weekend with her made things a bit easier, although it didn’t
stop the recommendations: be careful, pay attention, God bless you and the guardian angels protect you... Hehe. Fathers… I
think they are all the same anywhere in the world.
Our flight
was scheduled for 16:15 and Lisa wasn’t at
the airport yet, as usual. Argh, does she always
have to be late?? I was there, so anxious, biting my nails, listening to all
the announcements at the airport, trying to catch something like ‘the British
Airways flight to London has been cancelled forever’ etc. But nothing. I had a
really bad belly. I don’t know if it was fear of flying or just fear of what I
was about to do: leave my degree behind, not apply for a residency anywhere,
and try my luck making a living in Euros, teaching English in a foreign
country, which language I only knew the basics. Too late to change my mind, I thought. Let’s go and do it. The only
thing comforting me was that I’d see Clara and she always had encouraging
things to say. Nothing like some “older sister’s therapy”.
Time passed
quickly, and Lisa arrived. My parents, Laura, with her family, and I said our
goodbyes, with lots of promises of writing every day, phoning every weekend bla
bla bla. I promised I would be very careful and wouldn’t be naïve and wouldn’t
walk in dangerous places and wouldn’t be alone with boys I didn’t know.
And so Lisa
and I went on that flight.
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