Chad – N’Djamena, Sarh, Balimba 7–29 August 2025 Stones and sand. That is what I have felt for a long time, during the last years of separation and devastating distance from my daughters. “There is a deep spring within me,” writes Etty Hillesum, a young victim of the Holocaust. ‘And in that source there is God. Often it is covered with stones and sand: then God is buried. Then we must dig Him up again’. So I set off, hoping to excavate the profound source that lies deep within me. A kind guard with a face marked by scars (only later will I understand that they are due to tribal customs still in use) introduces us to the immigration procedures at N’Djamena airport. Every appearance, every face tells us that we are in another world, a land of Muslims and desert.

I felt uncomfortable and afraid. Would I be able to let myself be transformed by a world such as this? Or would I long to return to my country? It was as if the desert outside corresponded to an inner desert within me… Would I end up feeling even more different, even more distant, more indifferent? The arrival of the children was a song of rejoicing. They all dressed in red, their school uniforms, and warmly welcomed these strangers who had come to spend time with them. There were very young children and teenagers, and it was an emotional moment. With great respect, they shook our hands and bowed their heads. During mass, a small child left alone at the moment of communion approaches me, surprised and calm, leans against my legs as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I caress his back to comfort him and he stays there, silent. It was my first real contact with these children. I did not think it would be so easy and swift. I felt that I was here for a reason, as if through that child I had approached all of them without fear. I wanted them to recognise me as a natural presence, to become part of their environment, to get to know me. I felt that this would happen.

In short, Simonetta and I found ourselves caught up in the activities of the summer camp. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll find things to do,’ Lorenza had told us before we left, when we asked for details about our tasks. And indeed, things came up without filters or time to think. Fifty-four children of all ages to be handled from morning to evening, with only our own strength, our own materials, and our own ideas. Every schedule, timetable, and organisational plan jumped out of our hands, and we consciously decided to do what we could. Simonetta devoted herself to the little ones, who competed to be in her arms, and I took care of the adults.

We pull out sheets of paper, pencils, markers, varnish, everything we brought from home, and the children work eagerly and enthusiastically, drawing. The small room in the garden where we are is chaotic with requests, laughter, calls and comings and goings, but we realise that we are already working, we are already with them. With some of them wandering around, I decide to read a special little book, the Small Yellow Book, an interactive text in which children have to rub the yellow dot to turn the page and discover how it has changed. They go crazy and burst into cries of amusement and amazement with every page. Wonderful is a little girl with big, intelligent eyes who looks at me with joy and gratitude; I guess she has decided that she likes me. She embraces me and when I close the book, she gives me a thumbs up, saying, “OK, that was really beautiful!” and then gives me an energetic high five. I am delighted. I believe that many children have a writer or artist within them, and I have the bold hope that perhaps a book or a drawing could awaken something in them, sparking new aspirations, new thoughts and new curiosities. This after all is what education is for, to allow the spirit to expand, to grow and find its own particular form. I feel proud of their laughter, proud that they are fighting over the book.

Anna Di Brina