SU_T_17

[r] Hello to all and all of me my name is [name]. My father is an Astigian born in Mongardino and my mother is an Ethiopian an Oromò. I was born in Kidame a small village on the border with Sudan. My name is [name] that I do not want to lose but on documents it only says [name] my father called me [name] because his mother was called [name] and the name [name] was given to me by my grandmother in Ethiopia, not if she gives the name to a newborn child or a newborn child and gives it to him after a while because if she wants to see who she is? and my grandmother came home after some time she didn’t see me and she said this little girl is Abibeche which means flowery because I was probably little and then I grew up I flourished and so being the smallest of the house they called me [name] which means bud I don’t want to lose this name also because it is a big one. the games with my land so after that we lived I say us because I have a sister we lived in Kidane for 4 / 5 years and then we went to study in Sudan because it was near Kartum and there we began to make schools in Arabic and English and then from Sudan we went to Eritrea because the best Italian school of the empire was in Asmara and my father at the age of 15 sent us to Asmara to study and in Asmara we were in this great school and every year we returned home naturally and fortunately and there we were in a girls’ school and there were girls from all over the world I said from Armenian to Greek Ethiopian American Erithrea to French English in short, it was a world that made me grow a lot because it was a continuous confrontation was a telling their own games when we were small and then I had learned a lot of games that came from other parts of the world and then when we got older we would exchange books, novels and love stories and many things

[i] So [name] in this school you were so many girls who came from all over the world you exchanged love stories books and everything and then afterwards?

[r] And then after that I have to make a premise we were of all nationalities but we who were daughters of an Italian man and an Ethiopian woman had no citizenship in the sense that we were daughters of our father and our mother we had these two cultures but his documents had to write who we were if we were Italian or we were Ethiopian then at 15 years old in Ethiopia there was the obligation to choose who citizenship to have and so my father has chosen for us the Italian citizenship and therefore I must say that in that period I did not give much weight to it I did not know citizenship or non-citizenship I lived my life as daughter of my father and my mother certainly not as daughter of a nation or another and when I arrived in Italy after 5 years when I finished studying when I arrived in Italy after a while ‘the remaining questions that were asked me “but you who you are from where you come from” many questions these were the most telling I was then myself to ask myself but I’m who I am and especially because my father was in Africa and in the family I’ve always heard stories of an uncle who had gone to Africa for which I have I started to wonder who I was and where it came from and the answers were given in part by my father that I interviewed a lot and I collected a lot through the interviews I made her write I asked him the questions and then I made him write and then through a book that he gave me this is a book written by an uncle of mine who collected all that was written about him the characteristic of this my uncle is that at 21 years old he left and went to America because he had gold fever went to Vancouver I had spit that there was gold and then he was there for 7 years he learned to work in mines he understood how to look for gold to test the grounds and then he read that the Egyptians gold took him from Ethiopia he packed up and to party but before leaving and arriving in Ethiopia went to South Africa was there 4 5 years and then went up and went to Ethiopia and this my uncle got to know Menelik to become friends with Menelik arranged each other and had the opportunity to have concessions for the search for gold and he had a very adventurous life in 1901 went to Ethiopia and when he put on his concession he called all the relatives he had in Italy and among these relatives there was my father who was his nephew and so here is my father in 1928 he was 15 years old and went to Ethiopia and Ethiopia he always lived there until his 60 years until he was deposed unfortunately Hailé Selassie and arrived in Derg and there were all these 30 years of war that have upset us all and so the reason why I was born there is this when the Italians with the white ships came to Italy he wanted to stay there because he felt part of that country he had spent beautiful years in this country and continued to live there he married my mother and we were born here is the reason why I was born there

[i] So your daddy, like your uncle, worked with gold or did other work before the war?

[r] my father worked but not in the mine he checked who worked in the mine did a lot of work for example my uncle sent him to some places think he was 16 years old at that time sent him to the caravans with a group of people said so now you have learned how to look for gold in the river in the Birbir in the Lighthouse if that’s what he does now I give you 15 men go there build a hut builds a hut for everyone else and stay there see if you find gold or platinum and so did my dad was a year in one of these places and then after he went back in behind he said doing see what he had found so my uncle said not there in that place you doletti was not worth so my dad stayed there in the concession and when he then grew up my father when he was 20 years old his oldest brother if he is put on his own to trade coffee things like that and my father did the same and then the Italians arrived in the war of the Italians in the mass sense of the war of 35 / 36 and my father was there saw the entrance of Badoglio in Adessa Ababa and so in short they were not happy because if they asked why we should fight this people who caught us allowed us to do everything we could do and then he from what tells me the war not done because then they called all the Italians who were already there residents were called to be the military and so in short

[i]Another question I’d like to ask you

[r] Wait until I finished you to answer after the war is over he started to be a coffee merchant that’s why he started to be a coffee merchant and not only a coffee merchant but he and his brother looked around what was needed and then nails all that was needed to build a house or a hut.

[i] Well, when did you arrive in Italy, where did you have your house in Turin?

[r] In Turin

[i] In Turin

[r] Because my father bought us a house he bought us a house at the foot of the hill and we began to live here in Italy and I must say that we knew Italy as I told you but on vacation we came on vacation and live there I did not want to stay I wanted to go to England or America because I found it very provincial Italy I found only one culture I was used to many cultures to deal with other cultures more cultures

[i] And in your opinion is there that was born your desire that you felt the need to participate in any case to be a protagonist and to give an opportunity to other people who come? or was it born from other experiences?

[r] It was born from the experiences I had in Africa because I had seen how Eritrean women because I lived a lot in Eritrea were supportive with the poorest were supportive but this was also in Ethiopia and when especially at my home, my mother outside her home from our home always left a table with a jug of water and a glass and I was little and I tell her Mom but who is this for? for the travelers she told me about those who passed by and every now and then you heard a voice that says thank you meant that someone had passed by and drank the water that needed so all these experiences all these relationships led me to understand that it is sterile to live thinking only of yourself is very sterile and then I began to take care of those who were less fortunate than me and I continued and continue to live in Italy anyway was not easy me i believe that what saved me was reading the writing and meeting the Buddhist meditation this helped me a lot strengthened me made me understand I was very rebellious I was very punished at school but I understood that rebellion for itself serves no purpose you have to have a purpose to rebellion to something and build because build to achieve a goal because the rebalance alone really destroys you itself and produces nothing

i] And seeing you especially discovering all that is the path that you did the experience that you did here in Italy in Turin and especially because all that you did most of the beneficiaries are women and there is something a moment of your path or a figure for you female who marked your path and still continues to push you towards that path when you talk about restitution of memory?

[r] Here in Italy?

[i] In general

[r] But in general yes women have been fundamental in my life I remember when I went to visit my aunts there were 10 children of one 10 of the other you can understand what happened in the evening when you chatted women were important women in the kitchen women in the acuteness of the family my father was always there but he was there working while we were there to build honestly chatting to talk and This has served me well and I must say that when I came to Italy I had some beautiful meetings some women Vanessa Mairis was particularly interesting because she was generous and as I said she gave to the university I remember that she was one of the little Baroness but I when I think one day my daughter asked me “Mom but why are you like this but why do you take care of these people continuously go up and down”? and I told him that I saw him doing the learning and I believe that a dose of love for others is essential you should not keep it all for love or for children or family you should give a dose of love to those who are together.

[i]And another personal thing about you that strikes me very much is your everyday life, now how do you live your days among the family in how many of you are in this family? And how do you spend your days as a grandmother?

[r] How much of a grandmother do I have to say that it’s a wonderful thing to be a grandmother now and then because you have a grandchild and you enjoy loving them, I always say to my grandchildren “let’s get rid of love” because it is the only thing about love kisses clearly I remember my grandmother my grandmother was a woman as I said resolute and I am very resolute with them because with her mother make her quite despair like all children and so I try to be very balanced when I can also sometimes I scold her but I would say almost never and my day begins by thanking life for the day that gives me and for the night that gave me and then I go on I do gymnastics because at a certain age if you don’t do gymnastics it breaks you so I take care of an hour or so of me and then I start to take care of others and that in this farmhouse there is so much to do now in summer there is the vegetable garden, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber salad and jams and then the days pass that you don’t have to… he notices it and then there is the telephone ringing because there is need on one side and there is on the other and then there are the women to whom I voluntarily make civic education that no longer exists but I teach them how to live here I do it in the Alma mater only that I am not capable, I am very empathetic and so these women enter me and then their needs try as much as possible to satisfy them so if a phone call comes from a mother who does not have a grandmother and who does not know where to take the child because he has to go to the hospital I’m there here is what it costs me, if we all did it once in Turin many years ago there was a place of the places that were called “Base Centers” were very important, in the centre base you took the child because you have to go to the doctor and you did not know who to give it to because from the south came women who did not have families and so we must return them another thing that is missing in Turin that they took away was identity and differences was a cultural event that concerned foreigners was really on that occasion all foreigners brought their crop in the square not only the “couscous”. to say by now if it always says if it makes the couscous no they wore their crop so it was beautiful I did not understand all of Italy envied it and the lack of funds this lack of funds took away the things that those who served identity and differences really spoke of identity and differences I am attached to identity I understand that everything is so impermalent even identity and therefore I am not attacked, and then what is identity? is something that changes every day every moment

[i] And then a group of women created Alma mater and the Alma Mater then developed after if today we know an Alma Mater who has already done his whole cycle and how come that need to create such a space was felt? and what has happened in these years?

[r] Alma Mater is a beautiful project was a beautiful project and we met immigrant women active on March 8 in the palazzo lasca for a conference and we understood the Italian women wanted to meet some foreign women who had projects and foreign women had found interesting these Italian women and so together we thought of a project then there were Giovanna Zardini Starlin Soad Ben khadim unfortunately both Starlin and Soad Ben khadim died and were two cultured women who lived in this country and have brought a lot and then opened this centre with a lot of hard work and Italian women were really smart because they hypothesized their homes and so they were really brave and smart because they believed in the project and then when the project started they also believed in the administration and then we worked we built a lot I cannot tell you all because I would spend the afternoon telling you what we did at the Alma Mater but many women who left the Alma Mater have found work because our idea was with women and not for women and then try to understand what were the projects because Alma Mater? because women didn’t have a place to meet where they could design where they could express their dreams and many of them became reality.

[i] So it is true that the path was long because in time what struck me a lot in this path and saw how we met we met through the theatre.

[r] Yes.

[i]So you use art and theatre to accompany and give people space to express themselves, how was this project born? And in time I told myself that there were also children born in that path of yours?

[r] So Alma theatre was born inside Alma Mater because inside Alma Mater there were two feminist women Rosanna Rabizzano and Gabriella Bordini who both made theatre one was a dancer and had worked as a dancer and the other is classic she instead worked at the theatre of seventh so they said let’s make a theatre project so they did say who wants to participate we arrived there in 18 all with backgrounds several young people we were because I was the most mature in the sense that this had happened 25 years ago is now almost 26 years and so we asked ourselves we did many theatre workshops with them but we did not know what to bring on stage so I remember saying but I wrote a piece called “Ribe” was the story of an Eritrean woman who came to Italy with the Italian family who came from Eritrea and has always lived here and she talks about the war, at a certain point says “my name is Ribe I have learned to know the names of all those people living in this house that are 5 and they have not learned mine and call me Anna” and then we worked hard on the fact that Italians struggled in quotes to learn the names of foreigners so abbreviate Aldo Gino Anna this show we liked so much that we continued to work in the theatre and we have done to many years the pedagogical theatre in the sense that we wanted to tell people explain to where we came from what we did who we were in short people were amazed to see all these women on stage able to speak Italian able to express themselves able to do things because as we all say in Italy you think that we begin to live when we are here and that our culture begins here but it is not so all of us have behind us a lived very rich and so we wanted to say and we said we did a lot of shows and we are in between aged and we have finally this year made a show called “the young Italy” with which we managed to involve many young people and through the theatre as I told you, you can with a show to involve 200 / 300 people at the Adua we involved 800 and then if you bring around this show in involves more than 200 / 300 with a show I must say that it is very tiring because we are all women and as women we have who has children when we first did the shows I counted in 10 years or 12 were born 18 children so the hours of women are a bit ‘not very easy because you have to be at home in a certain time you have to look after the family we have many tasks but we have always done we have always tried to… we have women who worked with the bump during the shows or when they did not know where to put the children who were born we took them on stage and so it was an experience that has linked us a lot we are all still very tied now we are still tied with these young people they are very tied together and we also

[i] And I’d like to talk about the bond you have with Ethiopia for a moment now because you have made a triangle down before arriving here from Ethiopia to Sudan, from Sudan to Eritrea, from Eritrea to Ethiopia and from Ethiopia to Italy and today what bond do you feel you still have with those places? and when you want to remember, at home what do you have of music or put yourself in the kitchen cooking a dish?

[r] Of course I as I always say the root you can’t lose it you can’t get rid of it I don’t want to get rid of it you can’t always let your root run inside me at home I always listen to a lot of Ethiopian music and if you look at the paintings I have at home they are Ethiopian iconographies and then I still have family in Ethiopia so we feel like we’re in Ethiopia and then the my bond is very strong with them and food is one of the most immediate things in which even my daughters have learned to appreciate and therefore food is one of those things that keep me very attached to my land I’m never without Berberè without Scirò without Engera ever and when I miss I know where to stock up my friends we have a….. what is the name of those things on whatssap?

[i] A group

[r] A group, and so we feel we chase each other we know the grandchildren who were born the fathers who are dead and the mothers where I am I have linked to them

i] Last question the reference to your path how do you feel in the degree of satisfaction? If you think you can improve even more, what would you improve?

[r] I would improve your studies you would continue to study you would actually continue to rewrite me at university you would study and travel because traveling opens your mind and this is what I would like to make you continue to study and travel but you can never stop traveling and studying especially because the book is there the travel you have to leave and then continue to be with people and have the strength to continue helping those in need

[i]Thank you.