In order to foster international friendship and understanding, especially among children, we are always ready to hook up with groups or associations, and, in that sense, the most recent ICBIE partnership seems to be a particularly good fit. The Anguillara Basketball Association, located in the beautiful Italian town north of Rome on Lake Bracciano, trains eighty kids between the ages five and fifteen, and they compete in three different leagues. Directed by a former star of Italian women’s basketball, Maria Carmela Verardi, the Anguillara teams are famous for their community involvement, as well as their impressive records on the courts. Maria Carmela’s husband, Oscar Reale, is the association’s President; because he also works with me in the music department at the American Overseas School of Rome, he has followed the ICBIE story from the very beginning, and has been the principal catalyst for this new partnership.
Yesterday morning at 11 o’clock, I gave an ICBIE presentation in Anguillara’s Angela Zucconi Library (shown in the photo on the right) to a crowd of about forty people, including coaches, kids, their parents, city officials, and even the Commander of the Museum of Military Aeronautics at Vigna del Valle, Col. Gianni Amadio. The reception could not have been more cordial, and after the twenty minute long presentation, a lively question and answer session followed. We discussed ways in which the two communities can get acquainted, and the general enthusiasm will certainly get the ball rolling quickly. I also had a long conversation with Col. Amadio about Ribeira and its famous Hydroport, where Italo Balbo landed in 1930: another odd coincidence that binds us. Once again, it was wonderful to see how the ICBIE project brings people together.
Roy Zimmerman
