Do you want to run with me?

Since I arrived here at CICD, I feel as if many moments of the day are acquiring more value thanks to the sharing of them with other people and I'm very grateful for that.

There is a place in Yorkshire, lost between the fields and the English farms, able to recreate that harmony between man and nature that today seems to have been lost. Here you can walk alongside the trees with squirrels, rabbits and, when you’re lucky, roe deer. Peace and silence accompany you throughout the day, especially in the early morning or late at night.

In the midst of this authentic context, a group of people live a community lifestyle. I am talking about CICD, College for International Co-operation and Development. Here we can find teachers, students, workers and volunteers who together take responsibility and perform tasks to keep everything running and maintain the structure. It is therefore obvious that much of the day is spent sharing with other people, sharing meals, cleaning, free time, lessons, sports activities and so on. It is a continuous giving and receiving, an exchange of thoughts, emotions and words.

 Today I find myself writing about an experience that I lived at CICD and that moved something inside me. It was a simple and genuine moment of conversation and sharing with a girl, her name is Paloma and she is part of the Gaia Team, so she is supporting the clothes collection to raise the amount needed to then start the study program.

Well, back to the experience I want to tell you about. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, I had some things to do, but before it got dark I wanted to make time to go for a run. Here around the college there are many paths in the middle of the fields and nature where running becomes a pleasure. I crossed Paloma and I decided to invite her to go running together, she also likes to run so did not hesitate to accept my proposal. So we set up for 5:15pm and started running. It is well known that running requires a lot of breath it is advisable not to talk too much during the race, but instead we talked all the time.

I don’t know why but I perceived this chat as very significant, despite the effort of the race we were able to maintain a very active dialogue and with interest in the conversation from both sides.

So why did I decide to tell exactly about this, among all the experiences I had at CICD?

Maybe I can’t find an answer either, but I would like to try to explain. So, as soon as I finished running and talking to Paloma in my head I thought: wow! I’m usually used to running alone, thinking a lot but not sharing what’s on my mind with someone else. This time it was different, I had a person by my side and this gave an added value to a simple activity like running, making the moment more pleasant and interesting.

Since I arrived here at CICD, I feel as if many moments of the day are acquiring more value thanks to the sharing of them with other people and I'm very grateful for that.