{"id":30175,"date":"2021-02-08T12:38:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T10:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arsis.gr\/?p=30175"},"modified":"2021-02-08T12:38:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T10:38:15","slug":"ilaria-miaoli_january-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/ilaria-miaoli_january-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilaria Miaoli_January 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

SLOWLY BACK TO\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

January was the month of returns…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Christmas holidays, I was ready to\ngo back to Greece. However, the flight I had booked for 3 January was cancelled\nand so I extended my stay in Italy by a week. On 10 January, everything was\nready. In the morning, due to the coronavirus checks, I almost missed my\nflight. In a desperate rush I arrived at the closed gate, but the stewardesses\nlet me on. I am seated. We take off!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I relaxed, but the adrenaline didn\u2019t\nleave my body. After about two hours of flight and some turbulence, the pilot\ninformed all the passengers that, due to the weather conditions, it was not\npossible to land in Thessaloniki. The flight was diverted to Sofia in Bulgaria.\nBULGARIA??!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We landed in a snowy Sofia and, after a couple of hours\nwaiting on the plane parked at the airport, we discovered that it was still not\npossible to fly to our destination. We had no choice but to take the bus that Ryanair\nhad kindly organized for us. It was a five-hour journey along a section of the\nBalkan route. There were less than 20 of us on the flight, almost all Italians\nwho had moved to Greece for love, study or work. We immediately made friends\nand became fellow adventurers! I am pretty sure that when we will be able to\ntravel again, I will certainly have many people to visit scattered around\nGreece! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 9 p.m. we\nfinally arrived at Thessaloniki airport and, exhausted, I went home to my\nflatmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thessaloniki was\nin lockdown for the whole month of January, but there were improvements. Some\nshops have slowly started to open again, more people are moving through the\nstreets, all diligently wearing masks. I tried to go out as little as possible,\nonly for shopping at the supermarket and for my daily walk. It is very\nimportant for me to take all possible measures to avoid being infected, because\neven though I continue my project thanks to the online, I hope to return to\nwork in person soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patience and\nshrewdness have somehow paid off! Since a couple of weeks, we have been allowed\nto visit our projects in person once or twice a week! it was great to go back\nto the puppies at the House of Arsis!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Everyone – the children, the young people,\nthe staff, the coordinator – welcomed me back with an affection that squeezed\nmy heart, and I really felt at home again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was difficult to explain to the children\nwhy I had been away for so long, but patiently, one by one, I tried to stress\nthe importance of their health and mine, and I understood their difficulties in\nmanaging online activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In just a few days, they made me feel part of\ntheir everyday life again: school, games, football matches, just dance and the\nplay station, English questions, French homework, new haircuts…!! Yeees, I am\ndefinitely back to their realities!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My return also caused me a note of sadness\nwhen I discovered that 8 of the children and young people I had met had been transferred\nto other facilities, more compatible with their needs. In their place, new\nchildren, some shyer, some more outgoing. The life of these children and\nyoungsters is constantly changing, my task is also to accompany them on this\nhard path of obstacles and many changes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been back this month: back to Greece,\nback to my housemates, back to work, back to the House of Arsis\u2026 But the only\nthing I have to do, is looking forward!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilaria Moioli \u2013 ESC Volunteer (Sep. 2020 \u2013\nMay 2021)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SLOWLY BACK TO\u2026 January was the month of returns… After the Christmas holidays, I was ready to go back to Greece. However, the flight I had booked for 3 January was cancelled and so I extended my stay in Italy by a week. On 10 January, everything was ready. In the morning, due to the … Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-erasmus","category-european-solidarity-corps-solideers-ii-solidarity-actions-empowered-volunteers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}