Gina Fanamedeo

This is Geena Fanamedeo of Florence, Benton County, Iowa. She studies Flute and Composition at the local conservatory. She was born and lived, until about nine years ago, in Kaesong, North Korea under the name Doy-Pham Kim. Her best friend and classmate, Than Euh-Kyung, lived next door and the fathers of the two girls, both widowed, were also best friends spending most of their free time smoking and talking in quiet voices in the back of the garden. On that fateful night of November 10th, 2009, at about three AM, her father woke her up and told her to dress, he did not switch on the light. A light backpack was ready for her with a change of clothes and a small wooden box that her father said to be opened only "when needed, you'll know when!". Outside, in the bitter cold, stood Euh-Kyung with her father and they started walking quickly and quietly towards the woods and the near border. Suddenly there was shouting, shooting, and blinding floodlights. Kim felt her hand yanked, running as fast as she could, falling, getting up and running again. Suddenly it was dark and quiet again until she heard voices, a mix of Korean and (what she thought was) English: somebody pulled them into a warm hut. Her friend's father still clutched her hand, tears in his eyes, kept repeating: "My daughter, my daughter". They made it to the U.S. as father and daughter and given new names. Her final exam piece, a concerto for flute, harp and chamber orchestra is called "The Border" and is dedicated to "Father and Euh-Kyung". Geena never opened the little wooden box.

Lidia Bellotini

This is Lidia Bellotini (née Piacentini), she is on her annual visit from Poggibonsi to pray to San'Agata di Caesarea in the church on via San Gallo. The prayer-subject for the last nine years is well-known: it is the anniversary of the disappearance of her husband Gian-Basilio on July 12th 2009. What is not known is that Lidia prays for her soul and continuing protection and Lidia's role in the mysterious vanishing of said husband: she stabbed him in the throat and buried his body in the garden that night when he came home drunk again and hit her again and said he cheated on her again. She told people he went out that night and never came home again. Everybody felt sorry for her, being abandoned, but many thought she is better off without that no-good drunk. Lidia prayed daily at St. Lucchese for the "safe return" of her husband (she felt that lying in her prayer to God is less sin than taking a life and He knows and He guided her to do it anyway). Later she learned that San'Agata is the patron saint of secret killers, that is when the yearly trips began. Lidia lives alone with her old dog Variany (only witness to the "bloody deed" who didn't like Sgr. Bellotini either because he kicked him and who wouldn't say anything to anybody anyway). 

Ilaria

This is ⭐Ilaria⭐(you notice, there is no last name because she is a star). A while ago painters (mostly Italian) had nick-names: Michelangelo Merisi was called Caravaggio, Pietro Vannucci was called Perugino, etc. Later, football players (mostly Brazilian) had nick-names Edson do Nascimento was called Pelé, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite was called Kaká, etc. But now the "baristas" who make our daily coffee are the stars and we, while in Florence, by the river, at the Verazzano, had many a "caffè"  made by Ilaria ... and they were all exceptional!  She is as a delightful girl as you'll ever meet ... rarely fits a name a personality as hers does. Ilaria dreams to, one day, go see the Verazzano Bridge (N.Y., N.Y.) and open a school, teach kids how to brew a real cup of coffee. Once in New York, she will NOT change her name to Hillary (Ilaria in Inglese)

Gitta Gillan

This is Dr. Gitta Gillan from Guildford, Surrey, she teaches the Science of Colours and Hues at the University of Surrey (formerly the "Battersea Polytechnic Institute"). I met Gitta on a bench, in Piazza Santa Croce, one Sunday afternoon when " ... the sun pours down like honey on our Lady of the Harbour ... "  she was frantically looking for something. Extremely bright and one of the foremost experts in her field (briefly an assistant to Dr. Khandekar, at Harvard) Gitta is well-advanced in her current project to prove that canaries (Serinus Canaria) when fed a mixture of enough seeds of Passiflora Edulis, beer, and eggshells, will eventually turn mauve! Once her work is published, the colour-world will be turned upside-down. Her biggest problem in life is that she constantly loses stuff (her phone four times last year, wallet, keys, you name it Gitta forgot where she put it). The one thing she clearly remembers losing was her virginity (at fourteen, in the back of her father's vintage 1966 Studebaker).

Paul Chelon

This is Paul X. Chelon from Funchal, Madeira of Portugal as I met him at the Loggia dei Lanzi, the other day. Paul is the sweetest, nicest guy you ever want to meet: clever and witty. He runs a very successful orthotics business (the only one on the island) and is related to the late Herberto Hélder (his mother was Herberto's first cousin) ... so of course, we talked about modern poetry and such. The conversation was extremely pleasant but I couldn't help noticing a tension of some kind and Paul frequently shifting his weight from one side to the other. Turns out he suffers from hemorrhoids and, that day, went through a particularly bad flare-up. When I mentioned the large number of Pharmacies in Florence, he smiled weakly and said that he travels with is own  (mostly useless) collection of potions, unguents, and tinctures. I wished him good luck and went down towards the river.

Vera Wang

This is Vera Kimwang-Olaussen from Balestand, Sognefjorden in Norway who teaches Geography, Geology, and Geometry at the "Sygna Vgs" high school where everybody adores her. She is totally fluent in Norwegian, it is the heavy Korean/Portuguese accent is what makes her adorable. All was cool along the fjords, she told me when I met her at the church of Santa Croce in Florence, until that fateful evening of August 2oth four years ago when Vera, while jogging, happened upon four hugely muscular and very drunk boys from Oslo harassing a girl from her school. She told them to stop and go away ... you can imagine what effect that had! What followed is, to this day, spoken off only in whispers and called "Den Tingen": in less than two minutes all four boys lay wriggling and howling on the ground with an aggregate of nine bone fractures, three complex sprains, and two severe concussions: unbeknownst to all, Vera was a Hapkido master who lived and trained with Kim-Yun Sik, in Brasil (they had to call in supplies from the neighboring hospital in Fresvik for the treatment). The "Vera Adoration Factor" in Balestrand went through the roof, she got three marriage proposals and everybody wanted Korean Martial Arts on the high school curriculum. Vera is still single and lives with her two cats (Kim and Chi) in a small cottage on the Sognefjord.

Fiela Lomba-Linhares do Fosco

This is Fiela (Fielita) Lomba-Linhares do Fosco from Coroado, Manaus, Brazil. She lives on R. Treze de Maio, just a two-minute walk to her church. I met her in Fiesole on the way to the enchanted fourteenth century "Convento di San Francesco" where Fielita wanted to see a sculpture made by Margot Einstein (Albert Einstein's daughter).  It broke my heart to tell her (she would have cursed me if her Seventh Day Adventist fate wouldn't forbid cursing) that Margot was an adopted daughter. Wait, it gets worse: (I just cannot keep my stupid mouth shut) told her that Albert married Elsa (Margot's mother) who was his first cousin (their mothers were sisters) on top of which Albert's and Elsa's fathers were first cousins themselves, a genealogical nightmare for second marriage each. It was an icy cold "Obrigada" I got on that very hot day as Fielita marched down the hill mumbling to herself.