ROME – We all know the sensation you get when observing the earth from the porthole of an airplane. The expectation of arrival, the melancholy of departure. The reassuring series of rituals that precede take-off, the vigorous thrust of the engines, the stabilization at altitude and then those suspended hours, waiting to finally reach their goal.
For some people, however, travel doesn’t always mean a vacation. Paola Boncompagni knows something about her travels, her missions, so many, she has made a scrupulous air diary, writing about it every day, which has now become a book ‘The earth seen from here’ (UTET editions, Pages 234, euro 15.20 ).
‘Air diary’ because over the course of 20 years “I collected a series of notes on my business trips for Development Cooperation, during missions for United Nations agencies and for Italian Development Cooperation (today AICS) , in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central America and Southeast Asia “. In short, the look from above of those who travel the world working for peace. Each chapter a departure, often from Rome, from the Leonardo da Vinci airport, with preference for the seat next to the porthole, then the intermediate journeys, and the return.
Notes written in flight. It is no coincidence that the volume will be presented in Rome on 14 December by Luisa Morgantini, former president of the European Parliament and human rights activist, and by the actor and writer Giuseppe Cederna.
“I walked on lands where unspeakable violence has been inflicted, where people survive in complete decay.
I have witnessed the most shocking human misery. Things that, I often find myself thinking, everyone should see at least once in their life. “These are the thoughts of a co-worker ready to leave. Silent army, every year numerous peacemakers travel the globe along routes other than those of tourism in Italy. mass, reaching the poorest and most devastated places on the planet. For them, travel also means fear of landing in the midst of a war, nostalgia for their country, relief of leaving places of misery. It is all that fills their emotional baggage, that they have seen and it is now impossible to forget.
Paola Boncompagni is one of those international cooperators who in their life have chosen to travel all over the world to deal with development projects. Sitting in the plane next to a window, she knows that those colorful landscapes observed from above will reveal, at eye level, huge slums, areas devastated by famine or entire regions occupied by militias.
Places visited firsthand: from refugee camps in Chad and Kenya to the slums of Luanda. The land seen from here offers us a look at the cooperation programs and their implications seen from within, from the street children of Guatemala City, through the marginalization of young people in the Caribbean islands to the educational cinema projected by a traveling caravan in the remote rural areas of Ethiopia.
And again the safeguarding of the historical and artistic heritage used as a tool for cooperation in the occupied territories of the West Bank, in Cambodia and in the ancient cities of the Mauritanian desert. Each chapter is dedicated to a cooperative journey. Dozens of missions interspersed with long hours locked in the cabin of an airplane, which soon became the ideal place to collect impressions and thoughts that every take-off invariably carries with it. The result is the passionate and sincere story of those who have observed poverty and despair, of those who have decided to cross the planet by visiting places of pain, without ever losing hope.
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Source From: Ansa
I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years now and I have worked for some of the biggest news websites in the world. My focus has always been on entertainment news, but I also cover a range of other topics. I am currently an author at Global happenings and I love writing about all things pop-culture related.
