Dreams

I’ve never dreamed about Africa.

Of course when I read “Out of Africa” I really liked and envied the heroin of the book, who was living her life as she wanted besides social constraints, enjoying it totally and without regrets, feeling deep and unquestioning love.

Then I maybe forgot about this, and I followed other dreams, mainly one which was destroyed suddenly .. and at that time Africa came again, with a different story, a true one, of sorrow and love in the shade of Acacia trees. A letter sent to a p.o. box, a pineapple on the stamp of a letter received later, and a wish..I wish i could go there in the future.. A real place where I could possibly go, a sort of emergency exit in case of..

I started a new life, and once I was asked to paint a tree, to cover a ugly mouldy spot on the wall of the house I was living in. I did an acacia tree, suffering from drought. That was my feeling, and I started to drink the green of the beaches forests, and the white of the snow, and feed on the emotions provided by wildlife. I became as the animals I was looking for, a wild and proud wolf. And after many years living my own life as I liked, unconventionally, loving deeply and unquestioningly.. the dream ended. Looking for a new working life, another sign came. Africa was calling again. But, at that time I did not reply and finally I preferred other wishes.

Later on new signes arrived.. a documentary on my favourite comics writer living is childhood in “Abissinia”, the recall of a fantastic trip on the tracks of Ethipian wolves… and the ancient continent ended up to be the first on my wish list!! and like in a mosaic, Hugo Pratt and his exotic tales, the Ethipian wolf and the incredible nature of Rift valley, Lucy and the craddle of humanity, Mussolini and te italian colonialsm, Graziani and the people killed in retaliation, Geddafi, ethiopians immigrants coming to Italy from libian coasts after crossing (who knows how many times and at what price!!) the Sahara desert.. they all joined and found a place in a strange painting, and everything seemed finally logically connected…and that was how I got to go to Libia first and then Ethiopia.

The next step was unforeseen, althought I had thought about it many times. When I took the decision to leave for Tanzania, I realised that something was going to happen which was the obvious conclusion of all my dreams, thought and wanderings.