The smile shining under a hat made with love

by Wissal Ben Atigue (Tunisia)

Making a local connection Tunisia

With the hot weather that never fails to chase me till the end of the world and the burning sun rays around me blurring my sight and consuming the little drop of energy I was just hanging on to on that day. An energy that was drained after running and playing with the kids at the Kindergarten I was volunteering at in Novi Sad, Serbia. Being around kids helped unleash the hidden kid inside of me, I was running after them, rolling on the grass and filling my lungs with signs of Time. Meanwhile, even as I was enjoying myself for the first time in a while, I couldn't ignore the feeling inside of me that there was a missing piece in the map of my experience. It was the feeling of wondering for something that would make my soul waver and spread its frightened wings high to the sky. So as the break time approached and as I was almost out of breath after running with the kids my eyes got glued to an approaching silhouette. This figure coming out of the shadow wearing both black shirt and pants absorbing all the light around it and mirroring it in her style of walk, a walk that isn' too slow nor too fast, it is like a walk that's savoring each moment without missing a beat of life. Like a shield on her head, the blue hat stands high. That color reminding me of the sea my beginning and my end. She waved at the students and her smile widened when she saw me the newcomer volunteer. Our first talk is now blurry in my memories but the emotions will always be forever engraved in my soul. It was just as I found an undiscovered landscape. I got an exclusive snippet of this unique personality. This woman was a book that was a must-read for me. Her present was the portray of a rich past. She was the proof I needed to believe in great things and hang on to my faith. In my second week of volunteer, I got to tour her classroom. I had to contain the waves of awe that came crushing inside of me as I heard her speaking about her collection of handmade hats with flowers. She was transforming plastic into hats of all colors of the rainbow and matching them with her style of clothes. Moreover, she was a member of the national dance crew competing in national competitions. Besides another passion shared with kids is turning old magazines into boxes where you get to put jewelry or anything. Blessed to savor all of this, my mind kept bouncing back and forth Lavoisier's saying:" nothing is lost nothing is created everything is transformed".In the heat of that moment, I only kept thanking her in Serbian: "Hvala". As my journey was about to finish she invited me to her house, my expectations with her had no ceiling and the unexpected was her signature. An aspiring woman with a strong life motto that was tattoed in my subconsciousness "Be Happy with what you have while working on what you want". Along the way, I was living the moment, enjoying the breeze that kept dancing with his favorite partner: her short silk hair. As we arrived in front of a big yard, my heart skipped a beat. The smell of freshly watered plants crept its way into my soul and washed away all the worries I had. Her big dog came running to us offering us a warm greeting and then guided us to a small wooden house. Later, she told me that it was the fruit of the love she had with her husband and as they had no resources but every possibility with their love they built it. I was speechless. If I could bottle up all those emotions so they wouldn't escape, I would fight every obstacle afterward and probably win it. She is the reason I turned into the aspiring person I am today and I keep reliving our cherished memories. Words fail me when I want to say how grateful I am for that encounter.