Just today it’s been three months since I left my hometown, my deeply beloved and deeply hated Macastre. I’m still processing the shock of arriving in Narva, alone, with a heap of suitcases that weighed more than my soul and a kind of sorrow that slowly faded the closer I got to the city. I remember that bus ride between Tallinn and Narva like something out of a fairy tale: a tiny road in the middle of an endless meadow. I still can’t get used to the fact that in Estonia there are no roads like the A3 or the AP7, those concrete monsters with a thousand lanes. Life in Estonia is simpler, everything is smaller, as if you had turned a whole region into a country.
A little over ninety days here have been enough for me to grow familiar with all the faces of Narva. Little by little I’m getting to know the children’s stories, people’s gossip, the secrets of different places. And all of this thanks to my job. I’m truly grateful to work at my youth centre. Those 25 minutes on the bus to Narva-Jõesuu are great for listening to music and having deep conversations with my inner monologue. With the kids we play board games, they tell me about their lives, we play billiards, we cook, we draw — in short, it’s a nice life.
In my heart Narva is Narva-York, because as my Russian teacher says, “Narva is an international city,” and I believe it, 100%. The truth is, this city is changing me. Well, it’s slowly changing all of us. I cut my hair and grew a beard; now it’s hard for me to say a whole sentence in Spanish without mixing in Russian or English words, and I’ve got used to the snow (though never to the very few hours of daylight).
think I arrived with very scattered expectations, with a sort of ghosts that followed me from Spain and that little by little are now dissolving. I think we all came here with terrible fear, perhaps for being so close to Russia and so far from home; but honestly, I feel that I’ve found a mini family in Narva — people I can trust.
Sometimes, when I feel like the world is swallowing me up and my thoughts weigh more than my body, I go to the sea and stare at it, as if searching for answers, for advice. The sea is a universal mother. When I feel dimmed, there is always some boy or girl who comes to the Narva-Jõesuu Youth Centre and greets me with a hug, or looks for me so we can go to the music room to play the guitar. It fills me with pride to see them switch on the amplifiers and feel like Jimi Hendrix, shredding the strings with their little hands.
Anyway, I won’t ramble on any longer: I’m happy, I’m where I want to be.