AIRE MOVEMENT -   MAIRE

WHO WE ARE?  

Here is a post by Pasquale Cataldi:
 

"We wanted to make dreams come true, big and small, which seemed impossible in Italy.

Our generation left by plane and with solid and colorful suitcases but not for this with less pain.
We have learned to extricate ourselves from a foreign bureaucracy, to read maps that are foreign to us, to live in small and poorly built houses, with people we had never seen.
We went to work at dawn in the dark and in the dark we returned. Light, if there was one, was a weekend luxury. We have learned to make ourselves understood in a language that is not ours, to count money in different units.

We have left the Lira and we do not yet know the Euro coins.
We got used to exotic flavors, to eat sushi, to have lunch with sandwiches in the office. We call espresso coffee and drink it stretched American style . 
We met the Consulate and registered with AIRE , making endless queues for the passport.
We have stopped voting and following Italian politics. Berlusconi, Bossi, Prodi and D'Alema passed us, without really understanding what they wanted and why they were fighting. We stopped watching Rai and Canale 5 but we never fail to follow the Sanremo festival.
We lived by looking for cheap flights on the internet, booking tickets months in advance. We met hundreds of people who arrived and many who left, like carriage companions on a long train journey.
We have non-Italian friends but we are always and only with Italians. We helped each other and even though we laughed at each other, we were each family who was not close.
We returned to Italy 2 or 3 times a year and each time we felt more different, saying more and more often sorry and please. 
We missed the sun and the food, the parents and the friends and we remained tied to our childhood memories, as if suspended in time. 
We still have our friends from school and at each return we eat the things we ate before leaving.
We discovered that friendship is sharing and we found new true friends who shared the joys, the nonsense, the embarrassments, the conquests and the defeats but above all the melancholy and the nostalgia.
We broke up with Italian girlfriends and discovered easy sex. We have learned that we are the most loved and the best lovers in the world but we have always criticized Italian men and women. We have forgotten the distinction between North and South and have known Italian without geographies.
We got married in Italy but our children were born abroad, often to non-Italian mothers. We have raised children without grandparents or uncles, who speak to us in a language that is not ours but who feel Italian and cheer for the national team. We have tried to understand a school that is alien to us, which we have paid more every year than our entire university. And we still had to help our children with their homework after 8 hours of school.
We always plan the definitive return to Italy but every year we postpone it for some reason . 
We never wanted to take another passport because it seemed like a betrayal but in the end almost almost ....
We look at Italy and we find it hard to see the bad things they tell us about but they are the same that made us leave in our early twenties and that we have known before the others.
We have learned a lot and given a lot .
We represented Italy in the world and won the respect of all our colleagues, despite the mafia, despite the scandals, despite our politics.
Now maybe we are ready. Now maybe we can help improve Italy.
If only they wanted us, if only they had room for us, if only they made us put our hands on the things they took possession of in our absence. Unfortunately, however, Italians before us had understood that "nemo propheta in patria est". And tens of thousands of prophets continue to postpone a return that seems increasingly difficult.

Pasquale Cataldi " 

from Facebook