[RozzyLiu]

Letter to Pippa Bacca

Turkish Daily News
By KRISTEN STEVENS
Thursday, April 17, 2008

Your journey of peace relied on the kindness of strangers to travel through countries divided by internal conflict. It is an eloquent example for us all. Your message will live and breathe across an expanse that could sure use a dose of your faith in people. Your life was stolen in a way that casts a long shadow over millions of hearts. And I can't stop thinking of you.

We are around the same age. I have travelled along some of the path you took and some that you did not complete. Alone, I relied on the kindness of locals in the Balkans and throughout Turkey, Israel and Palestine.

Your native Italy was the first country outside the U.S. where I travelled alone. Following September 11, 2001, a guy in Milan invited me to spend Christmas with his family in Ancona, where the sun rises and sets over the Adriatic Sea. He had not seen his family since telling them he was gay. A career military man, his father and family warmly embraced him. And they made me part of their brood.

En route from the Transylvanian hills of Romania to Bucharest I befriended Nadia, a young Romanian woman leading a Peace Corps group, and Bogdan, a older guy who read palms and designed gardens gratis for people who needed them. From Bucharest, a 36-hour bus ride to Istanbul provided my first glimpse of Turkish culture: Everyone on that bus shared what they had … gossip, pastries, nuts, fruit juice. A woman who kept offering me her sweater didn't believe I wasn't pregnant. A young Turkish guy whose wallet was stolen in Hungary put one of the bus drivers in his place when he sidled up too close to me.

A week later, I found myself at a Galatasaray football match in Istanbul surrounded by 25,000 men. Suddenly I spotted the carpet dealer, Imdat, whom I'd chatted with that afternoon. He admitted to following me after hearing that I would go to the game alone. He wanted to make sure I would be safe, he said. He bought me tea after the match and we parted ways. I still visit with him from time to time.

Last winter, I travelled to Antep in southeastern Turkey alone where I stayed with the family of a kebab restaurant owner I met while living in Spain. They didn't have heat or a phone. Though she was unwell, his Kurdish mother told stories in rough Turkish, hosted a flow of neighbors and made a kilo of spicy cheese for my husband.

In the old Antakya bazaar, I spent an afternoon in the courtyard under the care of a grandmother, her daughter and granddaughter. In the poorest part of old Diyarbakir, I spent two days with the muhtar, the local administrative “chief”, while he settled disputes between spouses, neighbors and kids.

While working in Israel for The Associated Press, I relied on the good will of Palestinians in Jerusalem to gain access to people and places in the Old City. Each Thursday night I joined a small group of Israelis who knew the lay of the land on many sides of the conflict. One was an Israeli journalist who doubled as a Palestinian in Gaza in order to tell the real story to Israelis.

I imagine you met many good souls in your 33 years. Thank you for expressing your life and art through faith in us. Your path is peace incarnate.

* Excerpt of a letter sent to the family of Giuseppina Pasqualino who was raped and killed on March 31, 2008 while hitchhiking across Turkey. Pasqualino, known as Pippa Bacca, was traveling from the Balkans through Turkey toward Lebanon and Israel as part of an art project. Her peace activism through art focuses on the kindness of people amid national conflict.