Departure

Diary of Agnese – 1

The first great thing is this: it has been a while without leaving, but now I can. I am leaving for Syria.
And I can do it because my passport, unlike others, opens the doors to over 180 countries.
It is a privilege of few, and certainly not of the Syrians.
I realize from this, too: “leaving” is something special.
I understand it from the people who write to me, asking me to bring small possessions, things that could not be sent on their own.
Some Syrian women who got here with the Humanitarian Corridors leave in my care small gifts for holidays and birthdays, for the nieces they never met, or documents for a reunion that have not been delivered for months and get lost god knows where.
Then they leave in my care their wishes.

Bring me something from Damascus, a small terracotta pot, a keychain.
A piece of dirt from a land that does not exist anymore and is fading away even in the memories.
So today I’m here.
With a bag that is half mine...maybe even less.
The rest is instruments to sew torn relations back together.
Gino Strada said, “Human Rights must be the rights of all humans, all of them, otherwise you call them privileges.”
Today I feel this privilege even more, because in a moment, actually in an hour, it slips from my hands.
They stop me at check-in for a matter of visas.
Waiting for an ok from Damascus that will not come, and at the end they hand me back the passport saying, “Ma’am it’s over, we close”.
My heart is in my throat.
My gaze drifts to my luggage full of things, not mine, to deliver.
I think about the volunteer that just texted me, saying that she couldn’t wait to hug me
(and get a moka and parmesan).
Suddenly I understand M., who hasn’t talked to anyone ever since they denied him the visa to enter Italy and visit his family.
It’s not that I only understand it now, I understood it before as well, but I feel it, under
the disappointment, the anger, the dejection.
All in a few minutes while I stand, stuck in front of the airline helpdesk, searching for a
“pacific” solution with the unfortunate hostess.
Because these flight routes aren’t communicating vessels.
I go. I come back.
But the people I go visit cannot come here.

And those who came with the Humanitarian Corridors cannot go back. People are separated by walls of bureaucracy and law.
I too am ramming against a bureaucratic block.
Then suddenly, with a bit of patience, a bit of non-violent communication, and maybe a push from above, at the end I make it.
I have the boarding pass, I can go.
I am drenched, in fear and joy, of fright and excitement, so much so that I manage to go to the wrong gate, and I find myself standing in front of the writing “Marrakech”..., I get to mine as the last passenger.
The hostess laughs...”Ma'am, you can breathe again now, you know” After all, today I leave.
What an honour.
What a responsibility.