I bought a one-way ticket to Italy to live with nuns for 2 weeks. Here’s what I learned.
In May 2017, I paused my business, took a one-way flight to Rome, and hopped on a train to one of Italy’s least visited regions. For two weeks, I lived and worked in a monastery with Benedictine nuns. This is what I learned.
1. You can get used to (almost) anything.
The sisters had invited me—a complete stranger—to their monastery, graciously offering a private room and three meals a day for free if I would help out around the guesthouse a maximum of five hours a day, five days a week. For that reason, I’m embarrassed to admit this: I was disappointed when I got there.
Nothing was what I’d expected, not even the volunteer work I was assigned to do. I had requested to work in the garden; I was placed in the kitchen.
Plus, the bedrooms were small, drafty, with paper-thin walls (I could hear my neighbor hocking loogies into the sink next door). The bathrooms were not private; I had to share with three other volunteers (the humanity!). That night, I tossed and turned on a twin-sized bed with a mattress so thin it bruised my sides. I wondered if it would be rude to leave early.
But as disappointed as I was upon my arrival, I got over it quickly and loved being there…
