"Fratelli d'Italia"

It is quite known that Italians express their typical, though nowadays more and more latent, Mediterranean sense of mutual solidarity and support when, being abroad, they find themselves facing similar experiences or difficulties, too far away from home and…mothers!

The first time I observed such phenomenon was during my golden Erasmus year in Granada. Though our charming and funny manners usually make socialisation quite easy with Spaniards, we often ended up among ourselves having late night spaghettis and drinking red wine, missing our friends and our beloved football league. Later I found out that the same ritual ceremonies happen when we meet in weird and remote places, working for NGOs or stuff like that. Maybe the one who had just returned from holidays in homeland would bring a pot of pesto (parsley sauce for pasta, typically from Genoa) or the latest album of some famous singer. Of course, together with this romantic gathering of some home-sick fellows, you can also observe the most superficial or ridiculous version of this socio-cultural event: a good example would be those tourists who meet in the Rambles in Barcelona and decide to merge their groups and go partying for the simple (or simplistic?) reason of being all…Italians! Let me assure you that in such trivial occasions our above-mentioned charming and funny manners turn, to the eyes of the locals, into a disturbing circus of a bunch of pathetic and arrogant people. And you can be just as sure that usually, as soon as we go back to our neighbourhoods and provinces, we shall be again these selfish, miserable and snobbish small bourgeois, who couldn't care less about the “wonderful people” they met abroad or the difficulties of her/his lifetime neighbour, unless they would get succulent and morbid stories to report to their bar mates later in the evening.

But what I would like to highlight here is the genuine instincts and physiological need to join among cultural peers who work abroad and in not always friendly environment. We choose a cosy place and have pleasant, relaxing and comfortable time. I don’t know if other “national cultures” behave like this in similar situations, but let me tell you that the regenerative properties of this behavioural pattern are amazing. I must admit that the benefits I had from the last time I met other Italians living in Yemen were astonishingly beneficial for my mental health.

I had to go on a five-day mission to Sana’a, from which I just returned. In spite of having to take again a series of flights, and sometimes in very unfriendly hours, I must say that it made a lot of good to me. I stayed in the same hotel in which I slept when I first arrived from Barcelona, so you will certainly remember that I mentioned the Italian TV by satellite. But now you must take into account that it’s been a month I didn’t have a hot shower or real meals, like the one they serve on the beautiful terrace (remember the picture I had posted?)

But this was not all. The manager of the hotel is a very kind Italian lady from Vicenza (North-East, close to Venice) and this time we had dinner together a couple of times and learn a little bit more about ourselves. Also, I had the pleasure to meet again a very kind and easygoing gentleman from Salerno (South, few kilometres away from Naples), who works in the Italian embassy. The lady, the gentleman and I spent few hours chatting in the hotel lounge the night I had to travel back to Socotra. As they are both Italians and living in Sana’a, they knew each other quite well and looked like they were good friends. Generally, an Italian would certainly agree that the North-East and Southern culture are very different, still not so different as to avoid making jokes about it and laugh loud! As usual, I could not clearly position myself in all this because, though Italian, I have no well-defined roots in the cultural panorama of my country.

I felt amazingly good to spend a couple of hours with these two charming people. Even if it was very late and we were all quite tired, we were using slang expressions and body language you can fully understand only if you are Italian. We were commenting on the news we get from Italian media, on the on-going political and social debates (in Italy they can go on for years without any visible results…), and it was absolutely unnecessary to agree on our point of views. I think we were all feeling fine and having a great time. The gentleman, coming from a region of philosophers, poets, dramatists and sailors, has such a strong accent that the conversation automatically becomes even more entertaining; the lady, as soon as she got aware that I was “celebrating” my first month of full abstention from alcohol consumption, rushed to get a bottle of Averna (Sicilian liqueur) and pour some joy in my sad and empty glass. Yeah… It felt real good!

There was a phase of the chat in which my already physiological home-sickness showed up again, like in Matiaf. It was when they started organising for Christmas and deciding who would bring what to the traditional dinner. I am sure that if they knew I could have come to Sana’a and celebrate Christmas with them and their friends they would have invited me to join in, but they were perfectly aware that I could not have travelled: I am expecting a very welcomed visitor here, so anyway I would not have been all alone celebrating Christmas and New Years’ Eve in Socotra. When I find myself in Europe in this time of the year, I hate having to participate in the consumer orgy that comes in the package of these traditional celebrations, but I think I shall be missing them this time. Of course, humans are never satisfied and hardly coherent with themselves…, but is it also that, in addition to my being home-sick, I am turning more indulgent towards my own cultural traditions after they have annoyed me for so many years? Am I missing my glass of Grappa with the ones I would like to be with? Or am I just feeling like this fish who is tired to have swam off its bowl for too long?

Who knows…Anyway, I shall always feel grateful to these people, who have given me a short time of authentic Mediterranean well-being. They have warmed me up with their friendship, their humour, their liqueur and…their so dramatically being Italian! I wish they would honour their promise to show up in Socotra when the rain season is over, that is around half of January. I hope we will have red wine and laughter in a small hideaway, but also some sweet collective blues between desperate Italians away from home!