The Fede e Luce camps at Alfedena began with a simple need: to take on vacation some young people living at the former Serena school who, because of the severity of their handicap, had never been able to travel. This year, for the first time, the Vojta Center (formerly Serena) organized a summer stay by the sea with 60 of its residents and several parents, siblings, and staff members with their families. An experience so meaningful we felt it deserved a place in our magazine. The report is by Manuela Bartesaghi
Twenty days by the sea. There and back by train. For some, it was a first: the first time boarding a train, or the first time feeling salt water, or the first time sleeping in a hotel, having a room all to themselves, with a shower of their own. For many parents too, it was the first time their child had left for vacation—a different kind of vacation from the usual camp or day trip to Fregene. So many firsts, each one adding to the thrill of heading to the seaside.
Even the train itself broke protocol. It was an express, the kind that stops only at major stations. That day it stopped at Marina di Camerota to let off the "new tourists." And the new tourists were ready for adventure: fashionable haircuts (hair no longer than half an inch), pails, shovels, life vests, sun hats, and a burning desire to return home darker than coal.
But the day they arrived, black hung only in the sky. Preparing itself for twenty days of perfect weather, the sky decided to dump every drop of water it held. A storm like nothing anyone had seen—but maybe necessary. It stirred up everyone at Marina di Camerota station: passengers waiting for other trains, railway staff, local teenagers, everyone pitching in to help the "tourists" down from the train.
And then, finally: twenty days of vacation with sun, sea, meals, and new experiences. Cristina recalls: "It was beautiful because there was the sea and good air. The air was really good. And then there was the hotel—I'd never stayed in one before. So one morning I decided to do what they do in movies on TV, and I called down asking for café au lait in my room. They all started laughing."
Cristina is twenty, articulate, and if you don't stop her, she'll never quit. She explains that the best thing at the sea was a jukebox with records: "You see, handicapped people can get sad sometimes, poor things. But there was this jukebox with music, and when the music gets in your ears, it's like a gathering where you're not sad anymore."
Sadness never found Cristina by the sea. She was so happy to be there with her friend Mariella. "She's a dear, but she was tired from having so much to do with the handicapped people—organizing, talking, keeping up with them. So I helped her. I'd take a little girl and feed her, so Mariella wouldn't get worn out. That's what I did at the sea, and it was wonderful. And I went swimming too and never drowned, because Mariella was there teaching me to swim safely. We took walks on the beach and local boys would come along."
Marisa and Daniela, inseparable friends, also speak of how kind the people of Marina di Camerota were to them. Marisa says: "Here in Rome, sometimes people stare at us, really stare. And I think: there's nothing to see—I'm a person just like you. At the sea, people didn't look at us that way. They came to listen to the records with us, sang with us, talked with us. And at night, Daniela and I had so much to tell each other. It was amazing even without going anywhere, because as soon as you looked out the window you could see the sea." One parent adds: "The people of Marina di Camerota are simple, but from that simplicity comes a very deep culture. They showed they had real sensitivity and weren't shocked to see so many needs gathered in one place all at once."
The staff report that the hotel kitchen workers would appear at lunch and dinner to check that everyone had eaten enough, to ask if anyone needed another dish or extra helpings. The fact remains that, whether from second portions of pasta, the air, or the sun, the young people from the Vojta Center returned to Rome transformed. Parents notice changes: some sleep better at night now; others are always eager to go out, when they never wanted to before; still others have lost their fear of taking a shower. Marisa speaks for her companions: "Even those who can't speak much, or at all, it was definitely something beautiful for everyone." So: twenty days of happiness. An experiment that worked well, one that will surely happen again.
Above the heads of Cristina, Marisa, and Daniela—residents now at the Vojta Center—hangs a small plaque with words from Confucius: "Better to light even the smallest candle than to curse the darkness."
So the train ride, the seaside vacation, swimming without drowning, the music and the kindness of the town, the extra helpings of pasta—they become so many small candles that together light the hopes of so many young people and so many mothers.
Manuela Bartesaghi, 1980
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