«Here I am in Quito, then the Amazon»- Corriere.it

Alessandro Di Battista has left.

goes in Amazonia.

No mean jokes, stay calm, get over it: he’s always on vacation anyway.

First posts on Instagram to make us burst with envy: «Hi everyone. How are you?». And how are we, Dibba: we’re on the nail. We. And you?

“Now I’m at Quito, the second highest capital city in the world. In the next few days I will descend one of the tributaries of the Amazon River and, then, the “great river” to the Atlantic Ocean».

Sweatshirt, backpack, explorer beardalready tanned, soon with the ordinance bandana: more than usual pleasant look that carry with them a bit everyone they come from Northern Romebut they condemned to Fregene, bruschetta with telline from Mastino and Rolex Submariner, not like him.

«I will travel from the Andes to the Ocean, passing through Ecuador, Peru, a very small part of Colombia and Brazil. 5,000 kilometers by boat are waiting for me».

He promises one of his documentaries. The masterpiece is that she still manages to get them paid. TvLoft puts the money. Sky fell for it only once: angry viewers, the account of Sky Atlantic forced to remove the tweet announcing the broadcast of the program, Aldo Grasso called it “the ugliest of the year”.

It was the fall of 2019. Dibba left with his wife Sahra Lahouasnia (31 years old at the time, one of the most patient women on the planet) and her son Andrea, just a puppy. From California they came down to the Guatemalapassing through Chiapas, Mexico, the «Zapatista caracol of Oventic». Buses, hitchhiking, mule-drawn carts, makeshift beds. He, Dibba, very much in the part of the revolutionary: one afternoon he connects on Facebook from «an unspecified place» in South America (he put it exactly like this: like Subcomandante Marcos, but without the balaclava). Then he asks for hospitality in a village. But some Italian researchers working there – it was the season of the yellow-green government – warned the companeros: “Look, the guy committed to being a Third Worldist is, in reality, the leader of a party that in Italy goes hand in hand with the right”. He starts circulating a hashtag: «DiBattistaFueraYa». They chase it with pitchforks. He save the familybut – stubborn – continues to send some correspondence to Done.

Rereading them now: pure talent, depth of analysis: «New injustices come to light every day, but hope never dies”; “There is hellish traffic on the road”; «The women cook tortillas, while the men squeeze the oranges and serve you a simple juice or one reinforced with a raw quail egg».

A myth. The paperactually defines him as a “5-star mythomaniac”. The New York Times puts it in the list of Ballist politicians. In fact, as a deputy: he promised the Apulians to close the Tap in two weeks, he suggested dealing diplomatically with those of ISIS, announced that in Greece dozens of citizens exasperated by the economic crisis were injecting themselves with the AIDS virus, convinced Luigi Di Maio to go to France to embrace the yellow vests (if you ask Giggino, now that he is the EU representative for the Persian Gulf, he replies: «I don’t remember. Battista who?»).

Dibba knows. As soon as she can, on TV, foam poison against the former partner and then repack the bagfaithful to his personal motto, the cult phrase of the book Head up (Rizzoli): «It is life that ennobles man, not work».

Although, once his parliamentary experience was over, he also tried to find a job: first, in his father Vittorio’s small company – «I’d rather be called comrade Vittorio» – specializing in ceramic sanitary ware for the bathroom: however the accounts were in solid red; then he attempted an experience from carpenter, «fascinating job, but, objectively, tiring»; finally, in the summer of two years ago, I pinch it with the photographer Claudio Guaitoli a Ortona, on the private beach of the Katia hotel: umbrellas lined up by nine and a kind of chiringuito with him dressed as a barman who — while rejecting Mario Draghi’s hypothesis at Palazzo Chigi, «Dio ce ne scampi» — explains the secrets of his Negroni («1 /3 of gin, 1/3 of red vermouth, 1/3 of Campari, plus a splash of a little thing that only I know”) and announces the release of his latest report on Iran: “Persian Paths”.

Because Dibba travels. It doesn’t resist. The lure of the working holiday excites him. He has also been to Russia. During the war. A journey of 13,000 kilometers by train. Dibba’s eyes see the lies we tell ourselves around here. Russia has not invaded Ukraine. And Putin is not a dangerous criminal. Above all, he discovers that “Moscow has no shortage of french fries”, and thus explains to us that the sanctions imposed on the regime are, in fact, useless.

Nothing else to add.

Except that his latest posts on Instagram already have rapturous comments. The confirmation of a loyal audience. Who, in a year’s time, at the next European Championships, would vote for him en masse (Rocco Casalino e Dibba, together, in Brussels: can you think about it?).

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