Good morning; buongiorno a tutti, e grazie di essere qui.
It’s quite incredible that 40 years have passed since this special place called the UWC of the Adriatic was created. Makes me feel very old! Those were pioneering days indeed.
All we had was a half-finished Foresteria and the Hotel Agip, which is now abandoned. In Foresteria, we had 2 working bathrooms per floor, and one small kitchen, so the variety of smells, was to say the least, interesting.
We had no washing machines, so we made do with our own hands and some help from our Duinese neighbors. We had no school building, no library, no labs, no mensa. So the Hotel Agip became our main campus. It housed more than half the students, all of our classrooms, and served us all of our meals. I feel sorry for the other regular hotel guests and the staff, who had to deal with all these kids running around the hotel, causing all sorts of mayhem. But at least, they ate at the regular hotel restaurant, which was much better than the so called-food that Agip gave us students. So, many of us ended up often at the Bar Europa (now Micky mouse) to have one of their delicious panini, which over time multiplied in number and variety, mostly named after students. I fondly remember the Panino Soraya with Salame Piccante, and the Panino Susanna, with Salame piu Piccante ancora. We had no phones or internet. We had to rely on the Italian postal service to send and receive letters; yes, letters. Some of you might not even know what those are!! So, you would send a letter home, it would arrive a month later, someone would write you back, and their letter would arrive a month after that. No such thing as instant communication back then!!
But we didn’t care about these difficulties; we were having the time of our lives!! We studied hard, and we played hard. We tried exotic foods and customs, from a very stinky seaweed salad to the Scandinavian balloon dance, performed by our fellow students, naked!! That will forever be known as Scandal evening! We argued about politics and history, about philosophy and literature. We stayed up late at night studying for the IB, or singing songs. We learned from our teachers, and from each other. We broke the shackles of our own cultures and opened our minds to new possibilities. A friend of mine recently said she felt free like never before; free to explore and share ideas without fear of judgement on her person. That is UWC.
We didn’t really understand what we were doing, but we were building something special, something unique in the world. Something that we all here belong to. Administration, Staff and Students, not to mention Duino residents, all had to collaborate to transform an ambitious idea into reality, into one international community; a community like no other. 40 years later, my Duino WhatsApp group has over 300 people in it. We still talk, discuss, laugh, cry, organize, fundraise, help each other, and help others. Because the College made us better citizens of the world.
For me, this experience changed everything, except maybe for my height. I was born and raised in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. I won a scholarship to which 100 other Palestinian students had applied. When I arrived to the Foresteria courtyard, the door suddenly flung open and this tall girl came running out to hug me. VERY closely!
She was a very pretty girl, tall and let’s just say, with pronounced curves. That was the first time in my life that my head rested on the bosom of a woman who wasn’t my mother or my aunt. So, I thought to myself: I LIKE this place, I wonder what part 2 of this reception will be. Then she said, Hi, my name is Claudia, I’m from Israel, I’m so happy to finally meet a Palestinian. I was speechless. Let me take you to your room, she said. Then she pulled me up the stairs to my room, opened the door and said: this is Chaim, he’ll be your roommate, he’s from Israel, too. Isn’t that great?!!
At that point, I was more than just speechless, I was in absolute shock. You see, I thought Israeli’s had horns and tails, and killed Palestinians for fun back then. After all, I came from Shatila, where one year before, almost to the day, 5000 Palestinians were massacred by Phalangists with Israeli support. And for the first year of my College days, I shared a room with Chaim. He and I never became friends, our personalities just didn’t match. But, we learned to live together. I learned a lot about Jews and Israel, and what they think of Palestinians. Most of it was very hard for me to hear, but it was very educational; and helped me win many political arguments later on. And, it made me rethink my own beliefs about Jews and Israelis.
Fast-forward 2 years, and my best friend at the College, Tyler, a Jew from Canada, introduced me to an American girl in her first year at the College. Susan came from a small conservative town in the US, where her exposure to the world was very limited, and the news she heard was all pro-Israeli. She thought Palestinians were some mysterious group that, inexplicably, only wanted to kill Jews. So, the first thing she asked me was: What is a Palestinian? I knew by then how to explain my people and our history. And I must have explained it really well, because 3 years later, we got married right here in Trieste. When we moved to the US, we had another wedding with her family in a small Catholic Church in southern Texas. The priest was incredulous: a Muslim groom, a Catholic bride, and Tyler, my Jewish best man?! We just shook our heads and said: that’s UWC!
Yes, that IS UWC! The learning that the College gave us was crucial to overcoming the mountain of difficulties we faced in the last 33 years of marriage. We fought through poverty, racism, religious and cultural differences, suspicion by both Arabs and Westerners, even my father’s stubborn opposition to our marriage. We always found a way to come out on top with the help of the lessons learned here at the College.
The words “international understanding”, may now seem empty to some of you, too idealistic, too vague, too compromising. But beyond the actual words, the College gives you something no other experience in the world will, no other boarding school, no other international school. UWC took a small-town American girl with few prospects and a Palestinian refugee with even fewer prospects and allowed them to make the whole world their own. To adapt, to discover, to enjoy living in 7 countries on 4 continents. To build successful international careers, to meet our potentials. As I look at my fellow UWC students over these 40 years, I am at awe at their accomplishments, small and big; at the contributions they have made to their communities. That’s how we change the world for the better. And that’s what I wish for each one you. You are the lucky ones that have made it here, the ones that have been given this privileged opportunity. So, please enjoy it, and don’t waste an ounce of the learning these 2 years will give you. You will only be the better for it, and with you, the world around you.
