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Cultural Migration in Autobiography Grundtvig Partnerships 2009-2011

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

e-mail: kszia@komesnet.com.pl http://cma.internetdsl.pl

65

The Colours of my life Amissăo Lima

Black

How many stories can be written about the different colours oh human skin? So many! I just want to tell you one today, a very funny and nice story to listen to, above all because the main characters are children!. What an innocent age! Human beings are sincere, almost transparent at that age!

It was 1987, anyway, and I had been invited to dinner by some relatives of the family I was staying with in Gravina di Puglia, southern Italy. I was there for my first solo exhibition, well I’m a painter actually…Two wonderful twins, aged 3, welcomed me together with their parents. I shook hands with them all, the two kids as well, of course. Well, they started watching their own hands, then exchanging strange glances but no words at all. They showed me to the dining-room and dinner was about to start. So it was time to wash hands and the twins asked me to go with them to the bathroom. Same strange glances, no words, again. I took the soap, opened the tap and started washing my hands. They intently followed my movements, then pensively shook their heads. I was curious now and asked for explanations,

“Before washing them your hands were black and they still are! They are black!” So young, so innocent! I had to tell them the reason for my strange black hands and that’s what I did…but this is another story! .Amissăo Lima was born in Calequisse, Guinea Bissau, in 1958. He lives in Faenza, is married and has got three sons.