A student of mine ended up in prison for drugs. A large quantity was found hidden under his bed, in the bedroom of a small apartment he shared with other mates. He defended himself by saying that one of them had hidden it there, and that he knew nothing about it, but he was not believed and the sentence was triggered.
In prison he resumed his studies, and one day he applied to the department secretariat to take the exam of Characters of Buildings. Our director asked for the availability of three teachers, even of related matters, and strangely that was not easy. However, the commission was formed, and so one day, after some bureaucratic procedures had been completed, we were able to enter the prison of Sollicciano.
There we met the boy’s father, a man wrapped in a grey overcoat, elderly not so much for his age as for his pain. He had been a school teacher in his hometown in Calabria, and now consumed his time and resources to follow the events of his son and help him on the road to recovery.
We exchanged a few words, and then walked into the room where a bench with some chairs had been set up. The boy presented himself polite and composed, and passed the exam well; if I remember correctly, all three of us commissioners were a little wide in the grade.
For the student, this was the beginning of a hoped-for path to recovery. But above all it was for his father: the gratitude that this man showed me, even after some time, for some signs of encouragement and for having spent some words of confidence and hope, was as great as the heart of many people in the south.