I was born an accidental traveler…
When I was born, in 1970, my family was living in
Congo (ex Zaire) following my father’s governmental assignment. This is how my journey, both literal and metaphorical, started.
The first language I ever spoke was Swahili, learnt from my Congolese nanny. Although Italian and French came right after thanks to my family and surrounding environment.
In 1975, due to the political turmoil which was going to ravage my birthplace, we relocated to
Italy where I attended the elementary school. But the wandering years were indeed not over. In 1981, again following my father’s job assignments, we moved to
Libya where I had the chance of studying Arabic and started improving my English, although attending an Italian school where I completed the primary schools (scuola media).
In 1984 we came back to Italy where I could attend the Liceo Classico (Italian secondary school in classical studies) completing the biennium (Ginnasio) before moving again... to the
Canary Islands (Spain), where I proficiently learnt Spanish and completed my classical studies obtaining a “
bachillerato humanistico”, the Spanish high school diploma. I also completed the C.O.U. year thus gaining access to the higher level of education (university).
Having spent, at that moment, most of my life abroad, I decided not to go back to Italy to continue my education, but to cross the ocean all by myself and hit the big city:
New York (USA).
So this is how I ended up obtaining a Bachelor of Arts (1992) and a Master of Science (1995) degrees , before feeling homesick and deciding to move back to Italy.
For a while I thought then.. but apparently, my wandering years are over. For now, at least!
Literal and metaphorical; physical and spiritual...
My life has been, as I said, a journey, literally speaking. But along with the physical moving from country to country and from language to language, came also a metaphorical and spiritual “moving” among different cultures, habits, and meanings.
The exposition to all this has made me the unconventional person I am: at home anywhere, at ease with anyone, belonging to no particular place or “absolute”. A relativist, since I have met and understood subtle differences and shadings, along with strikingly opposing views. And I learnt from those differences, large or small, more than I would if never confronted with a dissenting point of view.
And to me, that is the sense of life: walking your own journey and learning the most out of it.
Becoming a translator
Having spent most of my life in an international environment, I have produced a good number of translations (both technical/scientific and literary/journalistic) throughout the years (mostly from Italian to English, and vice-versa; but also from Spanish and French to Italian). Therefore I recently decided to also start a freelance activity in order to capitalize my long-time experience as an “unofficial” translator. Since it is a part-time activity, I can privilege quality rather than quantity thus accepting only orders that I can produce with the maximum level of attention and perfectly on time.
Buen Camino, wherever it leads you...
Yara Maria
