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I never choose them, they are the ones who choose me and I realize it because going back puts me in a good mood: in those places my thoughts find rest, order and lightness. These are the places of my heart that make me feel in my place, in the right place.
Some of them smell like home, out of habit. It is Mahatsemboka, the diner where every morning, before going to the villages, we stop with the nutritional agents to eat a Gasy Mold (typical small treat) and where we return, after long walks and many meetings, to have lunch. In this little place, at the center of Ampefy, they always welcome us with smiles, friends and kindness. Mahatsemboka In Malagasy it means' sweat 'because this little Hotels, with pots always on and steaming, is a really hot place.
Sitting at the table, I see many people alternating next to me, and I like to fantasize about their lives: from the elderly, intent on drinking their warm milk, to children, with their colorful uniforms and their eyes that are still too tired. From Mahatsemboka I savored for the first time the real taste of a traditional Malagasy table, I learned to sift rice to remove the pebbles, to live the time helping to make small nems and to season them with hot potatoes, parsley and simplicity. This place of the heart has been the portrait of home from day one, since I curiously set foot for the first time on the wobbly and creaking boards of this wooden shack built on the side of the road. And again, as I get lost listening to this language so different from mine, I watch some cockerels chase each other through the cracks under my feet. Mahatsemboka It is my place in my heart because, on busy days, even the small pebbles that get stuck in my teeth while eating rice become precious: a smile shared with the people who are with me and a laugh, which is a universal language.
Other places bring me back to beautiful moments, which are linked to emotions that I haven't always been able to give a name to. It is the window that allows me to observe what happens in the operating room during the surgeries. There I see my dreams, the discovery of that 'clinical' part that I was looking for so much and did not yet know. And I see so many hands clasped to mine: big hands of people who have accompanied me, delicately, to discover new things and emotions; small hands of newborn children or of hope to be reborn again.
It is the small place near the river where we discovered homemade yogurt and the thrill of sharing it after a day of work. Or the bar of Alén, which with its typical music reminds me of so many beautiful moments, so many happy aperitifs, transports me to the rhythm of rapid heartbeats.
They are the sunsets, which I still watch with tears in my eyes reflected on the great lake of Itasy, and the morning breeze of dawn, perhaps seen from a small glimpse between the water and the mountains.
Rosita, Arianna, Davide and Aurora have also become a place of the heart: safe places in which to find myself, learn to listen to me, hug me, or simply live in silence. They, who are my companions on this beautiful journey, know how to enrich my eyes every day with new details, with things that I cannot see alone.
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And then the little terrace on the river.
That place that, with a touch of selfishness, I keep as my place.
It is the place where my heart feels in time; where there always seems to be a slight breeze, even on the hottest and hottest days.
In that place I never feel alone, pampered by the joyful cries of the many children who play with the river water. It's a place where I return after a nice day and I feel my heart alive, almost in my throat from how excited I have been. It's a place where I return after a bad day and I still feel my heart alive but this time down, in the pit of my stomach.
It is in this place that I learned that the weight of one's heart can be left in the hands of those who know how to look at it and those who know how to take care of it, hands that know how to put the pieces back together or listen to the beauty of a rapid beat, of a living heart.
