Mio cugino in Africa: storie di coraggio, cultura e cambiamento

In 1999 I took a trip to Ethiopia and Eritrea in search of news about a cousin of my father who was disinherited at the beginning of the century because he married a dancer (not from nightclubs but from the magazine which in any case at the time was a big scandal for his parents ) he, an ophthalmologist, left with his wife following the colonial army for the Horn of Africa and remained there.
Paolo never returned to Italy again until 1974 when he and Nella (this is his wife's name) had to escape due to the revolution, in a few hours they had to take what little they managed to collect and returned to the Tortona area, where alone (the parents were dead and being an only child he had no other relatives other than my family) lived until their death.
His figure was always mediated by my parents, I was 10 years old in 1974, on the one hand the stain of having been disinherited and on the other the fact of having been the Negus’, the President of Ethiopia, personal ophthalmologist and an established professional in that area.

After a few years they both died, I think also due to the disappointment of having been kicked out of Addis, so I was left with a vague memory of visits for Christmas greetings, a nativity scene made with Eritrean figurines, some of their sporadic visits to our house and a perceptible “African sickness” and nostalgia for those places and those people.

Having arrived in Addis Ababa I begin the search starting from the Italian Embassy (a disaster... a Roman official almost annoyed by my request dismisses me in a short time and in the following days I am unable to find any other news, the same thing will happen in Asmara...), I begin to travel around the north and south of Ethiopia looking for Italian circles, vague information, at the time the internet was not widespread and the government and embassy archives before 1974 had been completely destroyed.
I leave for Asmara (via Djibouti and Yemen due to the war that had just ended), same thing in Massawa, Italian circles and other contacts, usual disaster in the embassy... after about ten days I return to Addis.

Three days before my return flight, little or nothing... I go to dinner in a historic Italian restaurant in Addis (Castelli) and speaking to the waiter from whom I was asking for information, a customer listened and asked to sit at my table, obviously I accepted and he he told me that maybe he could help me, then imagine the happiness, but I stopped and said: let's meet tomorrow evening in front of your hotel and I will take you to someone.

The next evening I showed up impatient and curious, an almost special feeling, we arrived at a local restaurant, we sat at the table and halfway through dinner I called the owner and invited him to sit with us.
After the pleasantries, he introduced me as an Italian friend and asked if he remembered the doctor. Paolo Guerra, I saw this gentleman's eyes light up, he replied yes, the other pressed: what was Dr Guerra for you? and he replied: for me he was a God! he saved me when I was little, my parents were pearl divers and almost everyone became visually impaired at a young age and he had started this job at a very young age. Paolo took him as a sailor's assistant on the boat he had in Massawa and saved him, just as he treated dozens of pearl and non-pearl fishermen for free.

Well he said here in front of you you have a cousin of the doctor Guerra ... they were moments of deep and intense emotion, something that I will always carry within me.
for the remaining two days he took me around Addis telling me everything he knew, a clinic with various specialties opened by him and made available to the less well-off with free treatment and health services, often financed by him personally and the building where he had the studio, where Hailé Selassie visited, I was a guest of his family and today we are still in contact (I visited that area another 5 times)

I returned to Italy and first I went to the cemetery to look for their graves, I found them and in a whisper I told Paolo and Nella what I had found who were surely listening to me.
At home, I organized a lunch for the following Sunday with all the family and relatives who I knew knew about them (unfortunately my father was missing, who died in 1995), I showed the slides and told the story and carried out the complete rehabilitation of Paolo and Nella ! I owed it to him!