Terribly homesick

I bet that I know what most of my family and friends have been discussing the whole day today. It’s hard to immagine that anyone in Europe woud miss the shocking news of the terrorist attacks in Paris and could resist the urge to share their thoughts on it (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/14/syrian-greece-refugee-paris-attacks-killers).
Can you guess what I have been talking about today?… Nothing. I preferred to keep my mouth shout for the whole day rather than to participate in conversations that had no meaning to me.

I spent the day in a neraby national park Morro do Diobo. I went there with students from UNIP, another university that we have in Assis. If I had gone with European students, I know what we would have discussed. Unfortunately, among the Brazilians only few heard about the news. Those who have, did not see a point in having their day spoilt by discussing dead people. Here in Brazil (quite understandably) the attacs are nothing more than a disaster that you notice in the news but you keep on talking about your shopping. I guess it is processed similarly as most of us process the news about the fires in Indonesia (so far the worst ecological disaster of this century, yet most of us have not heard about it or we have but we do not pay enough attention to how disastrousit this is, http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/34787289 ).

Thus I spent the day in a beautiful place, with group of young people who are full of life and energy. They talked a lot and they laughed a lot. And I was upset and irritated and I wanted to be in a bar with my friends, discuss what happened and more importantly what is going to happen with Europe.

I made a weak attempt to explain to my Brazilian friend why I feel so upset about the news. How worried I am for the reaction that is to come from the opponents of the immigration from the Arabic world to Europe. How upset I feel when I immagine that we are going to tighten our security measures, close our borders and refuse to provide shelter for refugees. This is not the Europe I grew up in. But I am worried that this is the Europe where I am going to return. How can I possibly explain these worries to somebody who has never been to Europe?

My friend stopped listening. Possibly because my Portuguese is bad, but even more likely because this is simply not something she could relate to. It’s too abstract and probably boring. So I stopped talking and I spent the whole day just with my dark thoughts.

For the first time I see how incredibly incredibly far away I am from everything that is the most familiar and precious to me. I miss my friends who organise trips to refugee camps to delivere humanitarian aid. I miss my friends who spend their weekend picking litter to make their local area more beautiful. I miss my friends who have visions and they beleive that they can change the world. I believe they can and I want to be part of it.

And don’t get me wrong. I know that Brazil is full of people with great visions. I’ve been just failing to join them.