A gift is different from a present, a token, or an offering.
There is something reverent and profound in this word, something that conveys the full force of choosing to part with what is vital, personal, and intimate in order to entrust it to someone else; of accepting to lose something so that someone else may cherish and safeguard it.
Indeed, when we give a gift to someone we love, we reveal ourselves; we allow ourselves to be seen a little more deeply.
On my first day in Greece, I received a gift, a true gift.

Last week, we accompanied some members of the Peace Community to agricultural work on some of their lands, a six-hour trek from San Josecito de la Dignidad, where I live.
During the five days we spent there together, we had the chance to share quiet moments at home, celebrate E.’s birthday with a lovely cake - and an egg on the head, as per the Colombian tradition - and join them in their field work.

But what does it actually mean to "accompany"?

Diary of Francesca – 4

Me and Murim
Me, Murim and her fear in a waiting room 

I pick her up in the hotel she has been living in for a few days, after having slept for many long nights on the streets, without shelter, with her son, without a place to stay
Today is suffocatingly hot, I keep sweating
She has a fur instead
In my broken Arabic, walking by cars and construction sites, I try to laugh with her at this difference, to break the ice 

Diary of Francesca – 3

Yesterday it was my birthday
And I spent it as a Colomba volunteer.

 I woke up happy, here in Athens
Happy to be here, happy to be part of a peace to be built every day. 

The other volunteers showered me with attention, they cooked spaghetti “cozze e pecorino”!
And some little ice-creams appeared, as my birthday cake. 

I struggle, however, to describe the beauty of our afternoon

Diary of Francesca – 2

A painting workshop has become a canvas on which to weave relationships and trust. A chance,
Time to share,
A small breathing window in a daily life full of problems to solve. 

Safiya is 24, her daughter Nawal, 4.
We go pick them up at the place they are staying, take them with us to where the workshop will be held and walk in together, into a big, decorated room.