Pack Pouches It's Ok.

August 20, Longview.

It 's been a week of departure. A week and seems to have been a month, maybe a year. The emotions of seven days ago will probably not happen again, indeed certainly will not be repeated. No, those are things you try once in a lifetime, the second could be fatal. But then when they pass away seem a century. It seems a century has passed since I said goodbye to friends in Rome, seems to have been a century since mom and dad were in Italy. Not that there are more, but now (mom and dad) are also here, in Longview, and the thing I find quite bizarre. In fact, in a week can change more things than one might think: country, family, friends, acquaintances, habits, and here I stop just because I can think of the hundreds possible. In a week you may feel distant from everyone and everything he had and not miss them, because you know that if you need them there always will be. Ah, then one week (or even a day) you can go to Shreveport, Louisiana. Shreveport, Louisiana, and above all, deserve a separate chapter. Interstate 20, which ends in Texas from South Carolina, half of America's way short. Just the stretch from Dallas, TX went to Shreveport, LA to understand a thing. 2 ½ hours of nothing until you get to the border with Louisiana. Here, from there to another world. The landscape (stereotyped as you want) is to pre-Hurricane Katrina images (those are special case). Old houses, not to mention old and decadent, miles and miles of nothing. A nothing that has nothing to do with anything in Texas. In Texas there is the well-being and it shows. Crossing the border, and the desolation is also good and it shows. From what little I've seen in Louisiana, or you're rich or you're poor, without too many half-measures (with the exceptions). In Shreveport, there are 3 casinos. A play come from all over America, but the natives who go to the casino are few, but very few. Still, we in Africa do not die of hunger, but not all of America is a dream, I am sure that some would rather go somewhere else.

But I stay here, because Texas is beautiful and I love all the people you meet on the street are (super) accommodating. And as those who know me well know by now the decision I took, no going back, and this week it seems also to have made a good decision. We hope for the best.

Jacopo.