Sara, 38 - turning 40 as she says, from Milano, Italy
She was born in Italy in a loving family that was growing vineyards on the hills of Lombardy. From the age of 18 to 24 Sara lived on the streets of Torino. Yes, that is the story of her first 24 years.
She speaks with courage of her years as a homeless person. A painful turn of fate made her choose to live on the streets. But it was her choice. And that makes all the difference in how she talks about that experience today. It was a lesson she proudly learned. And her heritage is to be able to have lived and experienced both worlds. The one that we all know as “normal” and “civilized” and the “other”. And about the “other” we like to know less about. But Sara smiles from her heart when she talks about it. Not because it is an experience she would recommend you to have, but because it was far from what anyone of us would expect it to be.
I was intrigued at first, as any genuine ignorant would have been. As any citizen of a shallow society that is used to put labels on people, based on what others tell them. For a second I was there, stigmatizing, thinking what could be enlighting about living on the streets? But things are much more simple than we think.
Here is a short revealing interview:
Where did you sleep six years?
In parks, in trains, on mattresses, other homeless people offered me, but mostly in abandoned buildings and social shelters.
What did you eat every day?
What others gave me or what I could afford. With 5 euros I could buy bread and something else and could share it with 2-3 other homeless people.
How did you make money to buy food?
Asking strangers for money every day or every other day. When you live on the streets you don’t have the organized days and scheduled breakfasts as you do when you have a home, a kitchen a bed and a fridge. On the streets when the need calls, you get up and full fill it. It is instinctual. When you are thirsty, you look for water, when hungry you ask for money and buy food right away. You don’t postpone.
Did anything bad happen to you in these 10 years? Were you abused in any way?….Her answer stunt me.
No. You know why? Because for ten years, I tried to die every day. I felt unloved by the ones who once loved me, unwanted, rejected, with no purpose of existing. I did everything I could to stop living. And it must have been the look on my face that kept any wrongdoers away. Nobody ever hurt me. I was too empty to get hurt.
Sara tells me there was something amazing about living on the streets. It was the fact that everyone shared everything they had with the others.
The homeless people don’t keep assets for themselves. On the streets, you always think of others. Not of you alone. Street people are a family. They share everything. A piece of bread, a blanket, their warm coat, a place to sleep, a penny, a tip where you can take a shower. Nobody expects you to repay them. But you do. Because you care. Can you find this kindness in the civilized world today? Civilization made us individualists, made us grow apart from kindness and humanity. We hurry to jobs to make more money to buy things we think we need. If you want to find humanity, look at the life in the streets. And mostly at people who have less. For they usually give you everything.
Listening to Sara’s story I remembered my work with an NGO some years ago. It is trough their projects that I came to realize how many of the people that we see on the streets are actually doctors, teachers, musicians, loving mothers and fathers. Some turn of fate brought them on the streets. But never, never disregard a person living on the streets. They might have much more to tell than you could imagine. Better take a minute of your time and sit next to them, ask them how they are, treat them with consideration and be ready for amazing life stories.
Sara says: “I am not sure which world is better. The civilized one, or the one on the streets. Actually, more often than not, the people having a home, a job and assets live for themselves and rarely share a bread, a smile or an act of kindness. While life on the streets, it is the scene of tens of acts of kindness daily. Homeless people help each other in ways people, in the normal world, have forgotten to”.
Sara would have still lived on the streets today if her mother wouldn’t have tried to find her over and over again. Her love made Sara return home and live with her family again. She looked for Sara throughout the 6 years but never succeeded to convince her to come back home. Until one winter day when she found Sara again and told her:
Look my child. My car is parked right around the corner. I don’t want to take you home. I won't even ask you to come. All I want is to drink a hot chocolate with you in our hut in the mountains. It is half an hour drive from here. I will bring you back on the street, on the exact same spot where I picked you from, in 2 hours. Let’s have that hot chocolate and go to the mountains you love.
… Sara went. And she did not think she would not return to the streets that day. Or any other day. They remained in the hut for four weeks. And her mother never left her side. She hugged her, brushed her hair, held her to sleep, wiped away her tears. Sara learned again that she was a daughter. A very loved one. These four weeks were like the six years they never had.
Sara could have left any second. But she stayed. For she felt her mother’s immense love that was unchanged since the day she left the house.
The life on the streets contributed a lot to the person Sara is today. She is first of all funny. Actually one of the funniest and wittiest persons you could imagine. If laughing every 2 minutes about something makes one funny, then Sara is the definition of it. She is self-aware and aware of others, meaning she has a detector for fakeness, masks, and superficiality. She is very blunt when it comes to choosing the people she spends time with. Her time is precious and so is her company.
When Sara was telling me her life story, we were having dinner in a small pub in Lisbon. My food went cold for I couldn’t do anything else but listen. I shed a tear or two, some of joy, some of sadness. But I was so grateful to be in front of this wonderful woman that very moment and be part of her present.
After coming back to her family she graduated Foreign Languages University, worked in a travel agency in Berlin, opened a travel business in Italy and now, lives in Lisbon. She fluently speaks French, German, English, Italian, Spanish and is now learning Portuguese.
Sara wants to travel, to meet people, to experience new things, to taste life, to smile at the sun and bathe in the sea. In 2017 she will go to Peru.
She is one of the most active people I know. If there is a concert tonight, Sara knows. If there is a good new book, Sara knows. If there is an interesting cultural event, ask Sara.
What makes Sara’s heart sing:
The little things in life: a sunny day, making her friends smile, walking her dog
