The journey of Baboucar by Giovanni Dozzini

Baboucar led the line

“Baboucar led the line” is the mantra that is repeated at the beginning of each chapter of this work. Four friends who, along a path that has become a small odyssey, separate and meet again and again. Far from the idealism and mysticism of classic American road movies, here the trip has an easy destination to reach and a humble objective: to get to the beach and enjoy the sea and a quiet day on the sand.

What for almost any European would be an ordinary excursion, a mere summer procedure, becomes something more complicated for four Africans who hope to obtain asylum in Italy. This is where Giovanni Dozzini turns his gaze to the forgotten, all those people who leave their families behind, who leave their lives behind, to find a quieter one on the other side of the ocean. And it is a necessary look.

Baboucar, Ousman, Yaya and Robert head by train to a small beach in Falconara Marittima, a few hours from Perugia. They just long for normality. Away from the search for the extraordinary, they want to enjoy simple things and behave accordingly.

Young and impetuous, they seek comfort and company in the arms of a woman, they do not stop thinking about the person they are in love with, they write to each other on WhatsApp – always as connected as everyone else -, they dance at a village festival that they It seems foreign and close at the same time. They head to a bar to drink a beer and watch the Euro Cup final. They live or try to live. They try to distance their thoughts from what they lost, from what they had to give up, what they left behind. And yet, the new life, the place that welcomes them and its inhabitants, are not always kind.

Everyday objects and actions are sometimes obstacles for them. Without money everything is more complicated. With permanent visas still up in the air, they have to take more care of their movements. Being foreigners—and Africans—they must try not to attract attention, to try to be, if not invisible, as discreet as possible.

Thus, the encounters in this small and beautiful work happen without major twists, in conversations that include disagreements and slight rapprochements. And all of this is crossed by the weight that looks acquire: complicit or distrustful, friendly or hostile, of all kinds.

Dozzini builds a story about friendship, the desire to belong, the search for dignity, fury and nostalgia. And also about the distrust that he governs in both directions, sometimes for different reasons and other times sharing the same root.

An immigration story that does not focus on grudges, that does not use tricks or appeal to sentimentality, that is built from the simplicity with which the days pass and with which each person tries to find their place in the world. A beautiful ode to everything we share and to those emotions that make us more human.