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BY SANDRA MALATESTA
I owe a lot to Franca Barile, the teacher of many. She helped me be the primina. Yet I have clear memories of those days when I went there to Via Roma in the alley where the Lubrano family also live but I don’t know the name of that alley. I went there when I was five and even six when I was the youngest in my class in second grade and I was anxious. Franca bella with that black hair, the thread of lipstick, the gentle ways. She was the sister of Antonio and Michele and I don’t remember the name of another brother Barile: the first was a gym teacher, the second had the paint shop where Rispoli is now. We called our teacher this because so many children went to her home to do their homework in the afternoon. She had an amazing method. I learned to write with good handwriting because she made me erase so many times until I wrote properly. When in second I didn’t go there anymore because she, with so much honesty told me: “Sandra, you are good now you don’t have to be afraid of being smaller than your friends, don’t come anymore I feel guilty with your parents it’s as if you were stealing money instead of earning them, you are independent and good by now ”. I remember that I cried bitterly and she hugged me and told me that I could also go there every day to see her but she had to do her homework alone. And so I did.
I often went there until I grew up to spend a little time with her sister, the mother of Lina Maturi, who later became my literature colleague for years at the middle school in Ischia. Dear Lina I’m writing thinking about you too and you know how much I love you and I know how much you loved your auntie. Great teacher Franca Barile in all senses. She taught with passion and her pupils have a very good memory of her. A lifetime of teaching and also of political experiences. She especially loved the first classes because she then she said: “What they know they have learned from me”. I’m grateful Franca, you know I told you, I loved school also thanks to you. To the daughter to Lina and to her relatives all, my condolences and those of the group of San Pietro.
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