Twenty years after the killing of Annalena Tonelli, many of her activities continue to bear fruit in the place where her African mission began: in Wajir, in the Kenyan desert, where many remember her and her extraordinary commitment. Her figure will also be at the center of an evening on October 9th at 9pm, at the PIME in Milan, with Annalena Benini, journalist and director of the Turin Book Fair, author of “Annalena” (Einaudi)
«I set out determined to shout the Gospel with my life in the wake of Charles de Foucauld, who had inflamed my existence». Annalena Tonelli left for the Kenyan desert: she chose Wajir, a very poor and abandoned place in the east of the country, inhabited by Somali Muslim shepherds. «I believed I couldn’t give myself completely by remaining in my country. The boundaries of my action seemed so narrow, asphyxiated to me… I soon understood that one can serve and love anywhere, but by then I was in Africa and I felt that it was God who had brought me there and I remained there in joy and gratitude”, she would say for a long time later, in a rare public testimony, shortly before being killed on 5 October 2003 in Borama, Somaliland, where she had spent the last period of her life.
Twenty years after that terrible murder, Annalena’s testimony, her love for the least fortunate, her dedication to the sick and disabled, her passion for wounded humanity and for discriminated women continue to bear fruit precisely where everything it had begun: in this corner of Kenya which is still very poor, which is afflicted by a terrible drought that has lasted for several years, and wounded by instability and insecurity caused by Al Shabaab terrorists who infiltrate from neighboring Somalia.
Yet right here, in this remote corner of Africa, many realities and many people continue to talk about Annalena, not as something that belongs to the past, but as a living memory, a testimony of closeness to the least that is renewed through the people who ‘they have known and benefited from his help, and through those who are carrying out his works.
It is first and foremost the Kenyan Camillian nuns who make this memory alive and relevant. They live in the house that Annalena had built and continue her work in the rehabilitation center and in the dispensary. Across the road is the TB Manyatta, the anti-tuberculosis center for which Annalena had spent a lot, going so far as to develop a protocol recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) specifically shortened to meet the needs of nomadic shepherds . And then there is the school for the deaf and dumb, directed by one of his “daughters”, Qali Mohamed, who today, despite many difficulties, tenaciously carries forward a reality that allows more than 200 disabled boys and girls to study… There are all these signs concrete in Wajir, which continue to tell of a very fruitful presence, of a monumental work carried out by Annalena with her companions until 1985 when she was expelled for having denounced the massacre of the populations of Wagalla.
But there is a place that more than others tells not only of her extraordinary ability to “do”, but of her deepest way of being: the hermitage that Annalena had built on the vast land that was given to her by the local authorities. A place of solitude, silence and prayer, where we can find «balance, quiet, foresight, wisdom, hope, strength to fight the battle of every day first of all with what keeps us enslaved inside, what keeps us in the dark», writes Annalena, who, from a very young age, is well aware that the first and main struggle is against one’s own miseries and the first and main strength to face it is the spiritual one. And precisely in this place, on what she herself defines as “the sand of the most beloved desert in the world“, her ashes were scattered. There is a small plaque on a wall with a phrase from Isaiah: “The desert will rejoice and flourish.” While in the center of the courtyard there is a well. «He is the only one who hasn’t dried up – Sister Rosemary points out – perhaps because Annalena is here». Sister Rosemary is the superior of the community of Camillian religious who live in Annalena’s house. «When they asked us to come to Wajir we chose, according to our charisma, to deal above all with initiatives in the health field. It is an honor and a responsibility for us to do so in Annalena’s footsteps.”
The Rehabilitation Centre, in particular, is still today a unique and precious service for polio patients and the physically and mentally disabled in Wajir and the surrounding areas. Every morning, the nuns’ car picks them up in the huts where they live on the outskirts of the city or in the villages scattered across the desert. It was Annalena’s great battle, throughout her life, to give care and dignity to people who were often abandoned because they were affected by stigma and shame as well as by illness.
«In the end, I am truly only capable of washing the feet in every sense of the derelicts, of those who no one loves, of those who mysteriously have nothing attractive in any sense in anyone’s eyes – said Annalena -. And if before it was a more human desire, then God entered in a very strong way into my life plan. Otherwise there would not have been the strength to overcome so many trials.”
One of these concerned the battle – which lasted his entire life and which began in Wajir – against tuberculosis, a disease that greatly affects the Somali people, and which requires very long treatment times. Originally the TB Manyatta, as Annalena had built it, resembled in every way the small villages in which extended families lived, with individual huts built with branches and straw. Today the huts have been replaced by brick houses and management has passed to the government, but the principle of care remains the same.
Just as the attention for the deaf and dumb remains the same. In recent years in Borama you had built a school that was the best in all of Somalia and where two teachers who you had trained in Wajir taught. One of them returned here and now teaches in the school directed by Qali, one of Annalena’s beloved “daughters”, who had taken with her boys and girls from very difficult situations and had given them the opportunity to study. «My mother had died and my father was very old. We had nothing at home. Annalena gave me a future. It was a shock to me when she was expelled. But we have always remained close to her and I went to visit her when she was in Somalia”, says Qali today, who in addition to school she also has to take care of the student residence. «The situation is very difficult because the government has not given money for seven months and we have no food for the students. Families are too poor to pay and many are also forced to share a bed.”
Noor, on the other hand, Annalena can’t remember it. He was born shortly after she died. But she owes her her life. Her mother, in fact, was a “daughter” of Annalena. After many of her miscarriages, she had asked him to join her in Borama so he could follow her during her pregnancy. She was one of the first witnesses to her murder. But his story, like Annalena’s, are not stories of death. Annalena lives in everyone who met her. And even in those who met her only after she was killed. Like Noor, whose name – not surprisingly – means “light”.
The memory at PIME and Forlì
On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the killing of Annalena Tonelli, the PIME Center in Milan organize an evening with Anna Pozzijournalist for Mondo e Missione, Sauro Bandidirector of the missionary office of Forlì which continues to support the activities started by Annalena Tonelli and an intervention of Annalena Benini, journalist and director of the Turin Book Fair, who recently published the book “Annalena” (Einaudi). Appointment on October 9th at 9pm.
Even his hometown, Forlì, has various initiatives planned. In particular, one was organised vigil presided over by the cardinal Matteo Zuppi, which will be held on October 5th, at 8.45pm in the cathedral while on Friday the 6th a show is scheduled at the Graffiedi theater at 8.30pm. Furthermore, a conference is scheduled for November 11th with testimonies from people who knew her. More details and other initiatives on: annalenatonelli.it