4:37 in the morning: I’m not nervous at all!
5:42 in the morning: had a shower, backpack ready. The alarm clock is, ironically, set for 8 am.

Today is the first day of the tour…the tour, this strange single word, understood the whole world over, is about to become reality. In a few hours, in the village of Mute, the Il Teatro Fa Bene theatre company will make its debut, performing “Confusion in Fatima’s house”, written by Jacopo Fo and Mario Pirovano, and acted in Swahili by a group of Mozambican actors, selected and trained to make the rural village populations more aware of maternal-infant health through comedy.

In a few hours all these words will become reality, I can’t believe it, we’ll be going on stage!

I’ve spent the last three months preparing everything, I’ve got hundreds of rolls of adhesive tape, spanners, pliers, the scenery, the health sheets for after the performance, yes, it’s all ready, but the actors? Will the actors be ready?

10.30 the pick-up loads, the material’s here, the actors too, props present, also speakers. Oliviero’s here! The video troupe is here!

Let’s go.

The ladder, I’ve forgotten the ladder!!!

5.30 pm, just a little after sunset.

It was…it was WOW! What I mean is, we put on the performance! The actors acted, the audience laughed, I changed the scenery, they didn’t throw vegetables, actually the audience arrived as soon as we arrived with the cars, and left when we left. They remained seated, watching us mount the scenery, fit everything, act, dismantle and leave.

It was WOW! Yes, I’m extra excited, extremely happy. There were some mistakes, tomorrow we’ll sort them out, but the audience laughed, they were laughing!!! There were roughly 500 people, lots of children, lots of women: the type of audience we were aiming for!

And when the false doctor Mussa, Adelino Cuba, entered, there were gales of laughter, and from that point the performance took off, it couldn’t have gone any better!

It was wonderful…Who knows why I’m so tired now?!?