At the beginning of November, after two years of waiting, I was finally able to return to Europe.
Having only a week at my disposal and not being able to visit all the communities
that I have been following for my research since 2018,
I chose to return to Assisi where the migrant reception was immediately numerous (25 only in the first year).
These receptions were strongly desired by Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino,
who following the footsteps of St. Francis, made the Diocese completely available,
so much so that he hosted several refugee families directly at his home, in the curia.
A mix of families and individuals of different ethnic groups,
who arrived from 2018 onwards with different Humanitarian Corridors.
Many of the first beneficiaries accepted are still there.
Three girls and a family, however, have left.
Returning to Assisi has become familiar to me.
Rossana, director of Caritas and Eliana, an operator, were waiting for me at the Peace and Good house
of the diocese in Santa Maria degli Angeli where some families and girls still live.
As usual, coffee and cake were waiting for me.
And it was I who was received, as it already happened in 2019,
before the pandemic forced me to follow my research and subsequent monitoring from the United States.
Even then, I remember how they had carefully prepared a spread for the inevitable ritual of traditional coffee..
first the grinding, then the slow roasting, and finally the cooking on the stove,
brought directly from Ethiopia in the suitcase, as an indelible memory of the past life .
I couldn't help but smile, when Nebiat served me coffee,
I said to her: "By now you've become Italian too!"
It was February 2018 when I met Nebiat for the first time in the Hitsats refugee camp.
She was our guide, telling me how she had tried several times to leave for Europe,
but her attempts were unfortunately unsuccessful, leaving behind only traumas and unspeakable suffering.
Now the Hitsats camp no longer exists, it is thought to have been destroyed last year during the Tigray War.
In June 2018, thanks to the Italian Caritas, Nebiat finally arrived in Assisi.
And after three years, I am here with her again.
She has learned Italian, and for several months has been working in the diocesan cooperative as a cleaner.
She is the only one of the four girls who arrived in Assisi on the same flight to remain.
One is now in Rome, the other in Milan, one is thought to be in Bologna.
Nebiat is not yet fully financially independent, but she is planning to move into an apartment on her own shortly.
The idea certainly makes her tremble, but she understands that it is a necessary step
and she knows she is not alone.
Rossana and her team will be with her.
