FlashBack1 - Indonesian Women in Florence

Indonesian Women in Florence, a community.

One thing about living in Florence is that most people I knew and got connected with are mostly visitors. They are only in Florence for some certain period of times and for different purposes, some for study, for work, for certain events and mostly came as tourists.   

The same thing goes for members of Indonesian Women in Florence. Some Indonesian friends I met and were added into this group, are students who stayed in Florence for a short time.  Having seen this issue, my hope to be able to find more Indonesians in Florence was dimmed.

Less and Less Members, the Story.

There were only total eight members in the group and we were all women (that’s why the group was named Indonesian Women in Florence, IWiF in short). One of them I met just once on the old bridge (Ponte Vecchio). She was a student of cinematography school in Paris. She was in Florence to continue study the same thing. When I told her about the community, she sounded enthusiast so I added her into the group. However being in the group was one thing, being a part of group activity was something else. It required commitment, your willingness to spend sometimes, to make an effort to go to the meeting point and to be involved in the community activities. She was never even involved in the group chat and showed no interest to meet up. Perhaps she was just busy. A while later I saw on her Facebook, she has returned to Indonesia.  Currently, she is no longer part of IWiF. 

Only six Indonesian friends left in IWiF (seven included myself off course)and for three months after the meeting with Jeanny and Yawa, it seemed so hard to meet up again as everyone was very busy with different activities. Caramia and Dwitya were busy with exams at that time. Yawa was taking a photography course in Bologna and Erna was busy with her pastry, Italian and bouquet courses. Then, right after she finished her study in Florence, Caramia had to go back to Indonesia to spend holidays with her family before she finally returned to the US for work. We miss you, Caramia! And the number of IWiF members went down to six.