In the Land of Beauty - Teaser of new documentary by GalileoMobile

A few months after GalileoMobile expedition to Uganda we are on the way to release our second documentary!

During the two weeks spent around Kampala, Mbale and Jinja, two italian filmmakers, Domenico and Maria Serena, traveled along with GalileoMobile team members, Phil, Pati, Nuno and myself.

Many hours of footage were recorded and they had to work hard to select the best scenes to be mounted in the final product, with the goal of showing the activities we have carried out, as well as many other aspects of our first expedition to Africa.

"In the Land of Beauty" aims to deepen and share our vision of being "Under The Same Sky": we reckon it as another little tile to be added to the big multicultural mosaic that our initiative is.

We are fine-tuning the documentary in these days and it will be soon freely available online.

In the meanwhile you can enjoy a short preview!

Stay tuned!

Yet another turn #2

At home. My radio plays Sonata op. 109 by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Next to me, a book by Ernest Hemingway wants to be read before I fall asleep. Next to my bed, Paul Auster, George Orwell, Henri Miller, Douglas Hofstadter, William Butler Yeats, Cesare Pavese, Alejandro Jodorowski are yelling: you have started our books before and you left us half way or so: not funny, not smart.

Once more my empty backpack looks at me saying: man, I know, I will be the last one on the list. I am used to get packed not earlier than a few minutes before each departure, but you go nowhere without me.
It is like I love to pack things and emotions at the very last moment before any travel, to let them free before being packed. Or, more true and simple, to organize things on time is not my best skill, and I am someway at ease in being messy as much as I can.

My radio now plays the Moonlight sonata, op. 27 no. 2 and Ludwig Van someway knows my hands wish they could play it too. I know it too.

But it's about time to leave again, and leave my piano some kilometers away from me.
I will leave Paris on an afternoon of early January, take three flights, go to an island. Stretch myself to fit yet another turn into my memories.
Yet another turn on a mountain road, where one turn comes just after the other. Yet another turn on a skiing path and, yes, the skier, myself, still have to get used to crouch at every turn and then rush down the slope at ease, painting each turn as if it were the only he can draw and feeling how different it is from the ones his mind could only sketch out.


I write and it feels like being alive again. I would sit here all night long just writing what I have to write. But I realize it took me almost twenty minutes to write the last sentence.


On my radio, Maria João Pires is about to play the last notes of the third movement of the Moonlight sonata. 

Memories of Uganda

(dedicated to those special folks I traveled with)

Do you remember?

Do you remember when you landed in Uganda? what were you feeling at the beginning of those two weeks  in the Land of Beauty? What did you think of Kampala? For some of us this was the first time we traveled in a continent different from that in which we were born. For me it was the first time in Africa.

Do you remember the first meal together, how we were trying to plan everything and how everything tuned out to be always different from what planned?

Do you remember that huge amount of pasta cooked in a very small pot in the kitchen of Nuno's room?

Do you remember the mouse running in the room of king Gomesi the first? 

Which of the thousands smiles you have seen will you remember? Do you remember the one of the girl after seeing sunspots? or the laughing while translating from english to a local language? or the happiness of hugging each other after a day spent speaking about the sky?

Do you remember the serious conversations we had, when each of us was speaking her or his own language? The Babel-GalileoMobile Uganda edition in Portugues, Brazilian, French and Italian.  Il était muito legal, davvero.

Do you remember when Phil gave birth to the 

"Istrunomy Under The Same Sky" ?

Do you remember when we were sitting with one foot in the southern hemisphere, and the other in the northern?

Do you remember when we had to depart and that feeling " this is gonna happen again."? Nobody spoke it, but we all shared it.

Do you remember "When are you going back to the moon?" "How long does it take to go to Mars?" "Why is the sky blue?" "Why is the night dark?" "What does GalileoMobile mean?"

Do you remember the Matoke?

Do you remember the camaleont  walking on our hands and harms in the forest near Sipi Falls? He would have liked to be one of us, one of those guys who try to change color every day, one of those guys who try to adapt themselves to all the students, schools, people encountered day after day.

Do you remember Pati showing the "Pale Blue dot"? Nuno explaining how long bacteria can survive on the rocks on the Moon? Phil and Fabio playing flute and drums in the courtyard of Manafwa college? Maria Serena and Domenico giving filming lessons?

Do you remember how important was to be a team, to feel and rely on the support of all GalileoMobile?

Do you remember those little models of the Solar System we placed in Uganda? Look, if the Solar System were so small, and if it were really be placed in Uganda, the closest star to the Sun, Proxima Centaury, would be sitting somewhere on the coastline of Brazil, or in Kathmandu. Do you think we can believe in the possibility that some human will cross half Africa and an Ocean, one day in the future? 

Do you remember how extraordinary was the time we spent in Uganda?

Will you remember to keep sharing your life with the most exceptional among the people you have met under our unique sky? 

Yet another turn

I left Paris in the late afternoon just before the autumn equinox. A night flight over Europe, the Mediterranean and northern Africa brought me to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From there, after a coffee at the airport, another flight to Entebbe, Uganda. Only a one hour taxi journey away from meeting my friends Phil, Nuno, Pati, Domenico and María Serena and then starting the adventure again.

I received my visa, a stamp on that little notebook called passport, which allowed me to set my feet on the Ugandan territory. I put on my cap and sunglasses and, one minute after, my backpack and I were outside the airport, freely strolling in a land I had never touched before.

How will this experience work out? Will I be good enough to contribute in a meaningful way to GalileoMobile’s activities? To play my role in this journey? Will our travel make sense for the people we are going to meet and work with?

That stamp on the passport, that one day in future will hopefully be the memory of a great on-the-road experience, in that very moment became the motivation to adapt my slow-thinker attitude to a fast-moving world, to the enthusiasm of children and teenagers with whom I am going to share that wonderful experience that astronomy is.

As I approach the exit of the airport, the Ugandan air disguises itself amidst memories of the first GalileoMobile expedition and images from the Kaghol Rath expedition to India in 2012, and it mixes with my expectations, doubts and desires.

No matter whether or not I am good enough for what has yet to come: it will anyway do.

A dream unthreatened by the morning light #2

Here it goes the second post of this series that might, in principle, expand to infinity.

My car parked in a little village sitting on the slopes on Mt Etna.
I was having my cappuccino+cornetto in the bar of this little village, surrounded by old people speaking about the news in one of the local newspapers, the next football game of serie A and many more incomprehensible things.

Everything was running smoothly and a peaceful day of ski-touring was ahead.

This was the image, or, rather, the feeling, I had in mind as soon as I woke up this morning.
All the other dreams that came during the night were erased by this piece of reality that suddenly woke up, that used to live under the sunlight and, thus, cannot fear the morning light.

A dream unthreatened by the morning light

When I was about to fall asleep, yesterday night, an unexpected image came to my mind, so unexpected that I opened again my eyes.
It was a place I knew, but I could not remember which place was that.
It took a second to realise that it was a place I had seen while sleeping, in a dream, who knows how long ago, who knows where I was sleeping.
The place was a typical swedish landscape, a green wild coastline facing a bunch of island, that I must have dreamt when living on the islands. It gave me the feeling that I was there because I had to cross the sea to reach an island. That island must have been Storholmen. But who knows, I didn't see Storholmen in that image.

So, for an istant I had in my eyes this image, of an intricated wood with a narrow path on its border with the sea. And then I lost it, as soon as my eyes were open again. And, then, found it again, as soon as I decided to close my eyes without mentally seek it.
I remember that I had dreamt, at the end of 2010, about some buildings rised on the frozen surface of the sea (and this is also in the last post of 2010 of this blog), and I have maybe seen this place during that dream.
Did I?

Matter of fact, this precise place is somewhere stored inside of me. I cannot draw or paint it, so I will be the only person to have seen it.

Dreams disappear as soon as one wakes up, or leave a wake of scent that won't disappear maybe for a whole day.
Some other dreams, instead, well, we will never know about them, already disentangled far before we wake up.
Some others are the dreams unthreatened by the morning light: they will always be there.

New blades on ice

As the time in Stockholm gets shorter and shorter, the list of "things I should have done in Sweden but I haven't (yet)" becomes longer and longer.

But at least is easier and easier to realise how many days I will still spend here, and so I can start getting rid of items in the list, one by one, without letting them to disguise in some remote corner of a foggy future.

So far I have been skiing, walking, sledding, but never dared to skate, on the frozen surface of lakes and sea.
Today finally came the moment for that, on a lake surface that was quite watery, but with good ice conditions under this thin liquid layer.
Scared, clumsy, slow, relaxed, calm, fast, happy. And then simply wondering why I haven't started doing this four years ago, when I arrived in Stockholm.

Heading Home - 2012

Towards the city where a snowfall is magic
from the city where a snowfall is impossible

The city with the frozen sea
The city with the never-frozen sea
The city with the frozen lives

It's time to travel again, from the island that feels like home, to my home, that indeed feels like an island. I've came across many new routes and, what really matters, new states of mind. Better to write it loudly, so that I will remember that it's still possible to experience completely unexpected situations. Always. And always beyond my imagination.
This year has been that of a deep excitation on the slopes of the Volcano, on the fragile surface of my deepest feelings, on frozen ideas of warm worlds, the year of the longest travels on the shortest distances, of the high pace of my heart beating while sliding down and down and up and down and up and up and up, of the deformation of time, when the same moments were running fast and standing still and I felt stretched and lifeless and homeless and meaningless, but never useless.

Now that my speed is again high enough, here would come the time for a break, here will come the time for a new journey, starting on the route heading Home.

No more unknown places for this year, now I'm just heading Home.

Journeys

The journeys I can't wait for

The journeys I don't want to take

The journeys I couldn't sleep the night before

The one-day journeys that turn into one-life ones

The journeys planned into details and those planned to discover details

The journeys to freedom leading to solitude, the journeys to myself and I forgot to bring myself along

The journeys spent missing my friends

The journeys I need to take my fears along with me

The journeys looking out of the window

The journeys with my parents, that I had no idea neither of where we were going nor of the reason of my happiness

The journeys to learn how to travel

The journeys spent making love

The journeys back home, the journeys to unknown lands

The journeys no more than one step away from home


The journeys of my imagination


The journeys everybody want to come along, and nobody will

The journeys all I need is in my backpack

The journey of discovering another person

The journeys that I have dreamt and those I've lived

The journeys I will, one day, and those I will, tomorrow

The forgotten journeys, buried in the cemetery of the useless ones

The journey of writing about my journeys

About running in the woods

Because it has started again.
Nothing else but allowing my warm body to go across the cold air surrounded by the multicolor soil and ceiling of the autumnal scandinavian woods.
Again that need of running fast is back.


Sometimes I need to wear a cap to not get cold, almost never I need gloves, because my hands are always warm. Out-of-focus all of that is not moving a step after the other, I breath fast and run through the white smoke coming out of my mouth.


On all the leaves forming an unique carpet, waiting for the white magic powder to fall, it is every time new the movement of going ahead as fast as I can.

Kind of Blue

As I wail, cry and scream, lost and disoriented and hurt, but awake, nothing happens.
So what?
Nowhere to aim, so no movement towards no direction, because why bother.
As I swirl and walk up and down the stairs, I might end in a unmistakable-smell-dark-room, in which an unconfusable music is played.
As I change mode and pace, a certain Kind of blue might be produced, sound and feeling. My kind of blue is dark blue, blathering while I'm lost in a far somewhere, thinking "Good banter Miles".
It's full of colors and empty of light,
it's those athwart lines crossing the red stream in which I plunge my nights,
it's the hand caressing and tossing and turning me around and around and pitching me so far away from myself that I suddenly show up in the most unknown of my rusty nostalgies,
it is my proclivity for muddiness and my helter-skelter faith to turn it into a lawn, drinking the witches brew that I smell in the air after the sunsets.
Nowhere to aim, so one direction at my own pace.
Because why not?

Snowflakes falling into place

Snö , this year too

It's time to have the first snowfall of this winter.
Right now, while I'm writing.
Sitting at my desk, writing, enlightened by a candle at my left.
I have just produced a whole page of handwriting. Something magic, considering that I write almost only on the keyboard of a computer.
I complete the page, look at my right and discover thousands of white flakes running like crazy for crashing against the soil of Stockholm.
"Wow! finally! It's magic, beautiful! Finally" I exclaim while opening the window.
Always look forward for the next snowfall,
Always be ready to let its magic to fullfill my eyes,
Always remember the previous one,
Never try, nor hope, to not let it melt away.

Caught in a frame ( I wish it was)

Half drunk, after a night in which I have almost no clue on what I have been doing, I sit in the tunnelbana.
Hopefully heading home, who knows.
It's crowded, even if it's night. Weekend, isn't it?
Strangely caught in the main stream and obscured by the alchool sitting in my veins, I have a sit and fall asleep. Although I think I'm pretty awake.
But no, I think "it's three stops till mine" when it's actually no more than one left.
And still I'm having a nap.
I wake up and see an image.
Still the same station. Still one left to get off the train. Still I am convinced I have a three-stops journey ahead.
A girl and a guy kissing, one of the door of the train being the picture frame.
Behind them, tons of unaware people walking towards their destinations, and the name of the train station shining. The complicate light system of the station is resulting in a simply perfect combination of rays, in which the two lovers are shining and the rest appears for what it is, that is meaningless. He's leaning towards her minute body, in a move resembling a moment of the jump of a delphin going out of the sea-water, the exact moment in which it's leaning out forward another delphin to let their faces to brush one against the other, caught in a frame.
I wake up believing I'm in a Cartier-Bresson photograph. Still, I'm in Stockholm in the middle of a friday night, and the train is waiting a never-ending moment, time-lapse.
Shit, rush opening your backpack, open it and grab the camera as fast as you can.
Done it, turn it on.
One moment to do all of that, one moment is gone.
The door closes. My "click" is barely enough to catch a noisy image of a door hiding a kiss. Fuck.

-"Too late" a man says, sitting in front of me, so far sleeping.
"Too late" he says, drunk sleepy man aware of my toughts.

-"Too slow" I reply, " I was wasting my time sleeping".

-"Wanna go back to the previous station?" he asks.

-"A moment is a moment", I state, while burying again my camera in my backpack.

My stop arrives then soon.
I get off, staggering to my place, my bed, my dreams, my next morning to be mumbled after a muddy night.

Heading Home

To the city where a snowfall is magic
from the city where a snowfall is landscape

The city with the frozen sea
The city with the frozen lives

It's time to travel again, this time not from the island to the city and then to the island again, but on the route leading Home. I've passed through many new things and, what really matters, through new states of mind. Better to write it loudly, so that I will remember that it's still possible to experience completely unexpected situations. Always. And always beyond my imagination.
This year has been that of a deep excitation on the surface of a frozen sea and the intense relax of swimming in the late night sun, the year of the longest travels on the shortest distances, of the low pace on the long flat distances, of the high pace of my heart beating while sliding down a mountain. The year of all these empty things filled with people I have lived them with.
Now that my speed is high enough, here comes the time of a break.

No more writing for this year, now I'm just heading Home.

Sol

So, after the morning snow here is the afternoon sun.
More shining than usual, because of the thin snow layer still veiling the soil, creating a mixing of green, red, yellow and white in about every lawn of the city. Let's simply enjoy these last days of sunshine, no need of too many words.

Snö

Here comes the first snow of the season in Stockholm.
How many times will I see this show during the next winter?
Which kind of snow am I going to walk on? and to ski on?
And how many snowfalls will I walk through?
Will I remember the last snowfall as well?
Let's now celebrate with a coffee this white dust that will become powder one day. I'm looking forward for it.
For all the rest, I have my winter jacket here with me and I am ready.

Vasaparken

After a weekend of rain, Monday and Tuesday have been cold but sunny days. Nevertheless, no time to go to play football in Vasaparken.
Ten minutes walking from Kammakargatan, Vasaparken is a cozy place to spend a sunny afternoon, playing guitar on the grass or having a barbecue, but mostly playing football. There are two fields of synthetic grass on which you can play day and night time thanks to an almost stadium-like illumination system. For free, of course. Then, you can easily imagine, here I have rediscovered the pleasure to play football in a completely spontaneous way, what I usually define as playing football in the street.
People from almost every part of the world come to play here in Vasaparken. Very technical players from Colombia and Brazil, aggressive ones from Ecuador and then people from England, Holland, Jamaica, Senegal, Morocco, Japan. No other italian than me and some of my guest in the summertime, like Antonio and Matteo.

********** ********* ******** ******** ********** *********

This was the beginning of a post, exactly one year ago. In the end it didn't go further the stage of a draft but it was still kept in the online archive of the blog. It's now a long time since I don't go playing in the same place, having spent my time strolling in other parts of Stockholm. This morning I was biking next to Vasaparken again, the fields were empty, but still green. When the winter arrives they will of course change their color into an icy white and the football players will be substituted by ice hokey ones.

Leaves fall

Here in Stockholm this morning it was so windy to make falling lots of almost brown leaves. In the corner of my eyes it appeared to be like snow: it is my projection to winter. In the meanwhile I'm here on the mainland, coming from a big island and waiting to be back on a small one.

No american movies

There are some hours missing in my days, and among these, the hours I should spend writing.

Yesterday at last I spent a night in my new place. I had a beer while taking a sauna, then I went nightswimming in the Baltic and I played music until late. Complete relax.

Nevertheless this morning, just before waking up, I was dreaming of myself visiting some remote place in the eastern Asia, likely in China. I was together with nice local people when everybody was kidnapped by someone sent by the government. I woke up while I was fighting against one or two guys. Of course they were rather well trained in martial arts. Of course I was winning.

I guarantee it's been a long time since I watched an american movie.