Janina Speaks Out

This is Janina V., an architect from Bratislava, as I met her at the archaeological site of Palmyra,  in Syria, about nine years ago. Janina was super-excited - this was the high-point of her Middle-East trip. There is a reason she did not want to show her face ... read on and all will be revealed. In the morning she took a quick breakfast early, packed lunch and plenty of water, grabbed her notebook and camera and made for the main entrance. Janina's plan was to see everything, take lots of pictures and chat with people to exchange impressions, ideas and compare knowledge. She was climbing a small hill with interesting looking columns when she saw a large black car stopping and three local people climbing out: the one in the middle seemed important. When he approached, they started talking while the other two burly and serious looking men stood respectfully back. His name was Sheikh Rashid al Hussaini, he spoke good but heavily accented English, a businessman from Damascus, who stopped to see what the big deal was with these ruins (he had no idea of history). When he heard that she's from Bratislava, he told her that he'd been in her town, one of his companies imports furniture made there. He said: "Nice city, lots of pretty women." Janina, proud of her hometown, protested saying that there is much more to the city than "women" to which the Shiekh dismissively replied: "Not for me, and women are women, right?" Janina became upset and said that women deserved respect, after all, "You were born from a woman". The Sheikh, looking angry, raised his voice and said: "You are not to mention my mother!" The two bodyguards moved in closer and before Janina could continue, I grabbed her hand saying that we must catch our bus and pulled her down the hill and into my van. We drove downtown, Janina seething and red in the face shouting "male chauvinism" and "sexism" and I saying "different culture" and "take it easy" none of which seemed to have an effect on her. We found an Internet Caffee where we had sweet mint tea and Janina sent her mom a very long email.       

Nicoleta Nicolotti

This is Nicoleta Nicolotti (23) as I met her at the ancient church of San Trovaso in Dorsoduro, Venice sitting in front of the West facade. San Trovaso is strange (even by Venetian standards) having two almost identical facades to accommodate equal access to the church by the famously violent factions of the Nicoletti and the Castellani (feud documented all the way back to the first Dodge Ziani's time, in the twelfth century). Each of the groups was ready and willing to start a fight with at any, even so slight excuse, but there would be no fighting in the church, so two separate entrances were built. Nicoleta told me that there is really no saint called San Trovaso, Venetians made it up by squishing two or three saint's names (like they did with Zanipolo), but this is where she was baptised, had her first communion and this is where she planned to marry Ciccio Grassetti and, in time, have their kids baptised too. Nicoleta told me that Ciccio's family was from Cannaregio, parish of Madonna dell'Orto, and thus, theoretically, a Castellano, and she had not yet brought up the subject of which church they'll have the ceremony at, was actually afraid to do so. "What if he doesn't want San Trovaso?" she asked me. I said: "C'mon girl, this is 2016, are you kidding me? You love each other and will find a way".  She sighed a desperate, deep heartbreaking sigh and said: "How little you know of Venice". I took her for coffee and a pastry at Tonolo's, by San Pantalon.

Angela und Helmuth

These are Angela (48) and Helmuth Kleingräber (52) from Groß-Bremerhaven sharing an apparently quiet and dreamy moment at the Starbucks in the departure lounge at Heathrow. They flew in from Kuala-Lumpur and are waiting for their flight to Bremen. I said quiet and dreamy moment, but that's not so: they just dead tired and that is why they stopped fighting ... read on to see what this is all about. Helmuth is a teacher and volunteer to teach teachers to teach, he travels on his off-time for "Teachers Across Borders" since way back in 2000 when it was launched. As very publicly the awards and citations grew and his fame increased, so also surged hushed rumours and whispers of young women and girls who dealt with teacher-H. Management considered suspending him risking to send the rumour mill into overdrive and more questions to be asked. Eventually, after many a quiet word with embarrassed "victims", it was decided to keep teacher-H, but keep him on a short leash called Angela who was to accompany teacher-H on all his future assignments. A slap on the wrist, you think ... true, but the slap was on uncontrollably wandering, fidgeting, touchy hands! A whitewash, you believe ... true, but a scandal would have damaged the reputation of this venerable NGO cutting or limiting its funding and stopping it from doing so much good ... A true, oh so Catholic, compromise. Ask yourself: what would you have done? And don't say "castrate the bastard", share your opinion in the comment section if you wish ...

Selda, Yana, Saya and Lava

I met these four lovely ladies on the 19th of October 2009 at the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, in Syria. They are, from left to right, Selda - soft and quiet, Yana, her daughter - happy and chatty, Saya, older sister to Selda and aunt to Yana - distant and dignified, and Lava, younger sister to Selda and equally aunt to Yana - friendly but sad. We had a great time although my very poor Arabic wasn't much better than Yana's rudimentary English and the conversation consisted mostly of pointing to things, rolling our eyes, smiling a lot and nodding enthusiastically. The most frequently used word was "Canada", we said it 18 times followed by "Jameel" (Arabic for beautiful) which was said twelve times linked to Damascus, Syria and the Mosque itself. Today, nine years later to the day, I wonder desolately what became of my lovely, soft, quiet, happy, chatty, distant, dignified and friendly but sad Syrian friends ... Sadly, we know what happened to Syria, Damascus and the Mosque, it is all over the news, as Dylan would say it is "Only a Pawn in their Game".

Daniela Mortoni

This is Daniela Mortoni (32) from Padova, as I met her on the marble steps of Santa Maria della Salute. We walked a minute to the Dogana da Mar at the tip of Dorsoduro, her favourite thinking spot, and sat looking out onto the Bacino. Daniela told me her story. She is five eleven (1,80 m) and weighs 120 pounds (54 kg) of which she proudly says zero grams fat. She works out six times a week: three days Yoga and three days Judo. The reason she only agreed to the picture you see here for her blog entry will become clear if you read on. Daniela graduated from the University of Bologna and did quite well a few years as a consultant until about four month ago when she applied for a job at RetSoca, a local Internet Start-up specializing in retail support and famous for being profitable from day one. Her interview with Paolo Taglianini, founder and CEO, went so well that he offered on the spot a generous package with signing bonus, car allowance and profit sharing. He said "Welcome to be part of a very select and unique group: people who do exactly as I want." She started the next day as Chief Statistical Analyst and proved of great value to the company. The evening before we met, Daniela was working late on a report for "Esselunga SpA", one of their major clients, when Paolo walked into her office with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and two glasses in his hands and a grin on his face "Congratulations for concluding your probation, let's drink to that". After a few sips, Paolo got up from his chair and walked around Daniela's desk coming up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. He bent down and whispered in her ear "Remember the very select and unique group of people and what they do?" while sliding his hand down her blouse. Daniela froze for half a sec but then instinct and muscle memory took over: she threw up both her arms hands griping Paolo's back of the neck, lowered her right shoulder and pulled forward while pushing herself up: a perfect Morote Seoinage from sitting. Paolo crashed on her desk in front of her destroying the company's laptop and two perfectly chilled glasses of wine. Daniela walked to the door past the miserable bastard lying there whizzing blood on his breath and made two calls from the receptionist's phone: 113 for the police and 118 for an ambulance. She spent the night being interrogated by a bullying and very aggressive detective who, at dawn, told to go home but advised her that she will be charged with aggravated assault and cautioned not to leave the city. Daniela walked directly to the railway station and took the first train to Venice to go and sit on the Dogana da Mar steps looking out onto the Bacino. I took her hand and told her that everything will be alright.

Gisella Czitrom

This is Gsella (Gizi) Czitrom (23) from Sieghartskirchen, Austria, a village about 35 km West of Vienna as I met her on the Nr. 2 tram, getting off at Weihburggasse. We went for coffee at the Leibsteinsky on Schubertring and she told me her story (both shocking and stupefying as it was). Her grandfather, Karl Linzer, was found on the church steps by the cleaning lady who came to unlock on January 28th 1961, just before six AM. He was naked, severely hypothermic with no knowledge of who he was and how he got there.  Dr Kerbl examined him, he was perfectly healthy, no signs of external trauma but under total amnesia. All attempts to joggle his memory failed. Father Czonka decided to call the stranger Karl (St. Karl was on January 28th in the Catholic calendar) last-name Linzer (the address of the church is Linzerstrasse 2). Karl was fluent in German, Catalan, Celtic, Bulgarian and Italian, he was a hard worker with talents to fix anything mechanical, would never eat meat and had a beautiful tenor voice. After  Karl lived about six months in the church basement, he started dating Margit Czitrom, the young woman who found him, a refugee from Hungary's 1956 anti-communist revolt. They got married later the same year and took the family name of Czitrom living in the little cottage belonging to the church for a while until they obtained a small house with a garden from the community. That is where their son Alexander was born, he was to become Gizi's father. A couple of months before I met Gizi, in the morning of January 28th, Karl went to sit on the church steps where he was found all those years back; it was a yearly exercise originally recommended by Dr Kerbl, long since retired. Suddenly, his face lost all expression, his eyes glazed over and he said "rózsabimbó". He never uttered another word since that time; he just sits, he just stares, he just eats, he just sleeps.