Two years ago, Nives Meroi and Manuela met. One is famous for climbing the world's eight-thousand-meter peaks. The other is not famous, but she climbs mountains of diapers and baby food, consumed steadily by the children of the Tau community in Arcene, where she lives.
"What can I do for you?" Nives asked. Manuela didn't hesitate: "Take us to the summit of a mountain." And so the Tau flag traveled in Nives's pocket to the peak of Dhaulaghiri in 2005. A beautiful idea—to reach a mountain even for those who will never climb one themselves. To arrive as high as possible, in the name of those forced to sit in a wheelchair, dependent on a breathing machine.
Then Matteo Piantoni came along. He knew the Tau children well from their summer holidays at Castione della Presolana. He embraced the idea and wanted his own flag. He carried it up Broad Peak in 2005, and then with his fiancée Rosanna to the summit of Maztaghata in China in the summer of 2006.
Not that the Tau children care about peaks, records, or conquest.
But connection—union, being held in someone's thoughts—that matters. What matters is the generosity of the gesture, the symbolic weight, the gift of a postcard or an email that says: "We've reached this height for you, with you in our hearts."
Matteo and Rosanna, departing for China in the middle of August, had a mission: to travel far (to China itself!) to carry the Tau colors to the other side of the world. A beautiful photograph shows Chinese children, with almond eyes and golden skin, smiling as they wave the four colors of the children from Arcene.
Matteo and Rosanna, dreaming of reaching the summit on skis, encourage the dreams of the children and those who care for them: to dare to dream of snow, sky, infinity, of life beyond the daily struggle.
Matteo and Rosanna, saying over the phone, "We've made it to the top, it was hard"—they teach that struggle, when shared, when it serves others too, means something deeper. It becomes truly human.
Is the flag a sponsorship? Not in any financial sense. But it is a true sponsorship of the importance of human bonds—if a small colored scrap on a mountaintop carries this message: "Beyond your difference, your handicap, your limits, you matter to me."
Manuela Bartesaghi, 2007
Documentation
The pedagogical service in Trento publishes each year the invaluable "Italian Bibliography on Hearing, Vision, and Language Disorders" by S. Lagati. The 2007 volume, beyond its extensive documentation of the most important journals and organizations specializing in various disabilities, contains 714 entries for books, periodicals, and articles on other types of disability, educational issues, various forms of therapy, school and social integration, family life, religious education, conferences, and more.
