“I came to Italy for a non-choice, which then inevitably became a choice. And I would do it again!”
Elsabiet was born and raised in Asmara, Eritrea, and of her first weeks in Italy she cannot forget the constant rain, the darkness and the Linate airport where, due to the lack of a stamp in her passport, her legal entry into Italy was questioned. On her side, however, she had what she still considers a privilege, but which has been her best friend wherever she needed it and her greatest weapon of defence: the knowledge of the Italian language. Until 17 years ago, when she was still living in Eritrea, “the link with the Italian colonial past was still alive and strong” and this was mainly due to the presence of the Italian school that she attended from kindergarten to high school.
“My first language has always been Italian. As a second language we studied Tigrinya, but it was our mother tongue, we only did it few hours a week”.
Like her, around 2000 students each year obtained an Italian diploma officially recognised by the MIUR in Rome and Italian teachers and their families worked and lived in the country. Five years ago, the Eritrean government decided to make a clean break with the past decreeing its closure and, most of the Italian people left the country. In Eritrea, from the age of 16 onwards, military service is compulsory and for Elsabiet it was an impactful experience anticipated by a great psychological pressure, but not a negative one. The worst aspect was that it was done in the desert where there were “45° at noon, in the shade of a tree that did not exist” and that it was aimed at pushing you to the limit of your strength.
“Our training was psychological, but above all physical, of the kind that after an hour of running you could no longer walk. We had to be ready to defend our homeland and strong enough for every eventuality”.
In addition, poor nutrition, little sleep and the constant need to be on her toes made her strong and shaped her into the person she is today, also in terms of precision of thought and discipline. Moreover, her Eritrean military service did not have a fixed end, but because of an acute form of conjunctivitis, she was discharged. And that too, was a privilege to her. Suddenly she had two options in front of her: to work in her parents’ hardware store or to go abroad to study. She went from never having thought of leaving Eritrea to making a passport and leaving.
“Everything happened by chance in a short time. In two weeks I found myself from Africa to Europe, in Italy! It was more a choice of my parents than mine and today, I thank them a lot”.
Elsabiet has been living in Italy since 2008 and today she could be an Italian citizen if she had been properly notified of her residency and if, years ago, she had not been removed from the registry office without her knowledge. Additionally, going to the police headquarters every year to renew her documents and witnessing the disrespectful treatment of people waiting, was one of the worst experiences she has had since arriving in Italy. But her temperament has always driven her to speak up for those who could not express themselves, regardless of the consequences. For all these reasons, receiving her unlimited residence permit in 2020 – just two days before the lockdown – was a personal achievement and one of the happiest moments of her life in Italy.
In her family, the bond with Italy has always been present. Her father travelled there often for work purposes and through the TV “that we had at home – like all African people”, they watched the RAI channel abroad. She had a theoretical idea of what Italy was like and how to live there, but once here it was not easy to settle in, make friends and get to know Milan, where she initially moved to pursue her studies in engineering, before opting for Turin. Here, at the Politecnico University, she earned a specific scholarship for students from countries with colonial ties to Italy but during her first year, she realised that it was not the right path to her. She tried architecture, took the entry exam and to her surprise, passed it – though she lost the scholarship. A bold choice that proved to be the right one. The environment of architecture was stimulating and exciting and for her, studying felt like nurturing a passion for getting to know the city. When she was looking for a house, she started to collect a large number of photos and videos of buildings and neighbourhoods that are totally different today and often went to the library to discover the reasons for the inconsistencies between neighbouring buildings. Over the years, she unwittingly documented the urban and architectural changes she was witnessing. By 2020, she had come to possess an impressive photographic archive and with the outbreak of the pandemic, she said to herself: “why not share all this material to Instagram?”’. And so, she began documenting the city’s architecture on social media.
Today Elsabiet is a digital creator, an influencer who enjoys sharing the story of Turin through what she has called gingilli, walks through the city in which she shares her observations on the architecture she sees, and the intrufolatò, moments in which she decides to venture inside the buildings’ doors and visit the hallways, terraces and take the lifts. Today she holds a tour guide licence and over the years new professional opportunities have come her way in the fields of architectural communication and social media. What she loves the most about Turin is that it is the Italian city with the most Liberty architecture, which she describes as sensual due to its lack of edges. A characteristic that lacks in Asmara, a small city characterised by futurist and rationalist architecture typical of the fascist period and made up of corners, monuments built to celebrate those atrocities, large pavements, a centre, cafes – often still called dairies – and a cinema. Eritrea, as a former Italian colony, “has so many cities that were created, built and thought as the Italian ones”.
What she really misses about Eritrea is the way of conceiving time, living it without chasing it, eating all together, from the same plate with hands, and being able to reach distant places on foot. She would like to organise dissemination events centred around the ritual of the Eritrean coffee where, while discussing, one witnesses the roasting and grinding of the beans and then the different rounds of coffee made through an earthenware moka pot. Of Italy, on the other hand, she would like to bring to Eritrea the possibility of being able to openly talk about one’s difficulties together with the awareness that asking for help is not wrong. Something that does not happen in Eritrea because of both a cultural trait and a matter of character of the people, who always aim to not worry the others. Elsabiet hopes for her people to be psychologically well and for women to have other opportunities in life beyond their roles as wives and mothers.
Today, Elsabiet considers herself “one of the most integrated people you could ever meet and a bit Torinese”. Here she has had to adapt to the need to categorise people according to their nationality or their gender identity and often wonders if, in her job, people would still open their doors to her if she did not speak the language, if she was of another nationality or if she wore the hijab. But in life, as in her work, she never gives up telling her point of view – including her cultural perspective – as she is convinced that true wealth lies in sharing, listening and understanding what is different from oneself.