Albanian integrated into Italian society

TIRANA, Sep 22 – Albanian have gradually started to get integrated into the life of their resident countries, mainly Greece and Italy, where their greatest numbers are.
No one resembles them any more with the crowds of people crossing the snowy mountains on foot or the Adriatic Sea with crowded and packed boats the grabbed at the ports.
It seems that Albanians are now mentioned for what they have achieved in their new life in their ‘new’ country.
Astrit Cela is one of them, mentioned from the Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana last month.
Cela was among thousands of Albanians packing Panamese ship at Durres beach. His son Edoardo is eager to know more of his father’s previous life and efforts. Now Cela works with a consortium of U.S. Markets in Milan and is also cultural mediator with PIME (Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions).
The Durres harbor in 1991 was packed with an entire fleeing population, workers, professionals, intellectuals, and even criminals. The lights of the port of Brindisi sounded like New York.
Maria Victoria, his wife, takes his hand. The 1989 has changed the world. But a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall some regimes of Eastern Europe were trying to resist. In Albania we could not freely express our opinions, continues Astrit. It was forbidden to listen to foreign music, the shops were empty and only every 10 days we were supplied with meat, coffee, and often there was no milk.
Meanwhile, the stories of Jim Belushi, the national hero Skanderbeg’s grandson, managed to reach the United States and Italy, on the waves of Voice of America, an American radio station, speaking of prosperity and freedom for all. For the first time I heard about Mother Teresa, remembers Astrit. She was an Albanian like me, so frail, and she was working tirelessly to give dignity to the poor.
So at 27 years old in March 7, 1991 Astrit Cela flies from Tirana, from his job as teacher of French and Albanian literature. It was not easy to leave his mother and six brothers, without notice, without a greeting. But it was the only way to do that, otherwise the police would have stopped. Under the pretext of taking a French test I left the class and together with Silvan and Roland, two friends from the university days, I reached Durres, where during the night the ship would leave for Brindisi.
Sure, there has not been included much from his students to understand that teacher Cela, who had so often read to them poems by Ismail Kadare, the academician of France who is of their origin, and fled in exile, who invited them to have the courage and believe in the possibility of being free.
Following secretly the RAI he learnt a bit of Italian and the love for this country continues. Knowledge of Italian was a great advantage after landing in Brindisi, emphasizes Astrit. Although Italy was the closest, if you had asked us at that time where we would want to go to, many of us would have said the United States, Germany or France, where there were more job opportunities.
On the Panamese ship there were 10,000 peopled. And in the port of Brindisi there were many more waiting for the control of documents or trying to avoid it. There should be a stricter policy with those who commit offenses because they ruin the good name of Italy and of the Albanian people, which continues. But it is also necessary to evaluate who deserve it, help them find a decent job and reunite with their loved ones.
A Milanese family, sensitive to the inconvenience of the exiles, offers to Caritas Brindisi its willingness to host them. The Italian hospitality was extraordinary, Astrit says. After various expectations and an unnecessary trip to Rome, together with his comrades they were knocking at the door of Giacomo Previdi in Abbiategrasso. In a month they made us feel at home and helped us find a job. Not speaking the language still well Astrit started to work at a factory in the area. During the spare time, he studied to improve his Italian.
What matters is who you are and not where you come from, he emphasizes. And speaking the language of the country where you live is the best way to make yourself known.
Meanwhile, his two companions also managed to find a professional job and were evaluated. Roland, a graduate of civil engineering, finds a job as a geometer first and then converted his degree, and then began to practice his profession. Silvan, a former teacher of English in Albania, nowadays is a cultural mediator. A few years after his arrival, Astrit got known in Milan with Maria Vittoria Brambilla. I was worried that her family would be reluctant of me because I was Albanian, he says. But there was no such a prejudgment and I was immediately greeted warmly. Meanwhile I learnt how to appreciate their kindness, culture and commitment to the PIME to promote good relations between Albania and my country (Italy).
I love Italy says. I’m not here for the passport, but by my choice. Maria Vittoria and Astrit got married in 1995 and two years after Edoardo was born. Italians have given so much to me. Now it’s my turn to be committed to improve Italy and also make known my land, that of culture, values and civil generosity. While talking he looks at Edoardo, with black and intense eyes like his and a smile like his mother. It is important to make an effort to know us, for our children, to help meet the healthy side from Albania and Italy.
Astrit embraces his wife and son. A more colorful country, but more united and also Italian in the heart: this is my dream.