My favourite sentences of 2010

1) When are you coming back, akkà?

My beautiful Indian children kept asking it when I was in Bijapur and now they're asking it over the phone; akkà means "elder sister"

2) When I was 5 years old I learnt to read: it was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me in my life.

Mario Vargas Llosa heard in a radio programme

3) Roberto Saviano is a patrimony of mankind.

Roberto Benigni in a TV programme called Vieni via con me (Come away with me)

Happy New Year!

The best pupils ever! Bijapur, May 2010

Happiness only real when shared

I left for India for many reasons, and Chris McCandless' voice inside of me through the beautiful book by Jon Krakauer and the beautiful movie by Sean Penn was certainly one of them.

I didn't look for a spiritual experience, but in the end I think it's impossible to go to such places without being touched deep inside. The innermost you is necessarily left bare and shaken. Emotions rock you as much as they wish and this is even clearer to me since I'm back in Italy.

It's hard only to look at the pictures I took there now. But I promised I would share my experience with everyone I could reach, so here you'll see my 12 most significant photos. As you'll notice, they're all of people. The children I loved and who loved me, the slum women, their stares... I hope you'll feel the mark they've left on me.

Pupils of the Child Labourers School (CLS), Bijapur, January 2010

Children at a recital, Bijapur, Xmas 2009

Bataroni women, a Hindu group originally coming from Rajasthan, during their weekly meeting with the social workers, Bijapur, September 2010

Children partying for the Goddess Renuka, Bijapur, June 2010

Women washing vessels and clothes at a well in Mundgod, August 2010

Senior citizens meeting at the slum office, Bijapur, August 2010

A nun of the Tibetan colony in Mundgod, August 2010

CLS children, Bijapur, Xmas 2009