“THEImagine being in front of a rock wall: whatever its level of difficulty, you have to learn to “read” it to understand how and where to pass. The same happens in everyday life: to make a decision, you have to look ahead and choose what is the best path to follow for you.” Wafaa Amer is 29 years old. Since she approached climbing, she became a top-level climber and she is one of the women who have completed some of the most difficult climbs (Radical chic And Hyaenawhere the grades “8a” and “8b” indicate a route for super experts).
Wafaa Amer: «Climbing is part of my life»
His story, however, is not just about sport. It includes a childhood spent among the cotton fields in Egypt, the arrival in Italy without knowing the language, the escape from a complex family context, the desire for freedom (in Arabic, huriyahow she got a tattoo on her arm). He tells it in I am Wafaa (Solferino)written with Guendalina Sibona (with whom will be at Turin International Book Fair Sunday 17 May, at 11.45am in the Mountain Room). «Although I am aware that I can become more vulnerable, I wrote this book to say that you can experience many bad situations but you can also find the courage to overcome everything». Starting from a rock ridge.
Place your hands on the wall. Feel the rough surface. And then climb. Wafaa, what is rock to you?
I immediately knew it would make me feel good. As if it were something that was telling me: “You are strong, you can do it. You have potential, it’s not true that you’re nothing.” It was really powerful. At that time (Wafaa was 15 years old, ed) my parents didn’t encourage me in anything, not even to appreciate literature which, although I didn’t yet know Italian well, I liked very much. The rock brings me back into balance, tells me that I am perfect, that I’m fine the way I am. I could never leave climbing, it’s part of my life. It’s like therapy: it doesn’t replace psychological work, but teaches you to reflect on what you find in front of you.
The climber Wafaa Amer in Finale Ligure (Savona). (Photo Matteo Pavana)
Where does he climb?
Lately in the Lecco area, or in Val di Mello (Sondrio), because I prefer the rock to the equipped wall of the gym. When I do bouldering (up to a height of 5-6 meters, ed), I bring with me a pada large mattress to place on the ground. If instead I climb with the rope, I have a backpack with all the material. In the latter case you never go alone, but at least with another person with whom there must be trust and harmony. The climbing “partner” – which for me is always and only one – must know your pace, know when to give you rope even without looking. There are single pitches, where you climb and after having lowered yourself, those who were left on the ground take off; or the long routes, for which you even need a whole day: you start climbing, then the other climbs the wall and continues to the top.
She was born in 1996 in Aghour, north of Cairo. Her destiny seems sealed: to become a good daughter, then a good wife and mother.
I keep wondering what person I would have become if I had stayed in Egypt. Would I have gotten married without problems? Or would I have been rebellious? Certainly, as a child, I saw both realities: a neighbor forced to marry a man older than her, and my aunts – and my parents – who instead married for love.
The cover of «Io sono Wafaa», Solferino editions
The arrival in Italy, under the snow
Then at nine years old he arrived with the rest of his family in Piedmont, where his father and brother were already there. And she finds herself catapulted into a different reality.
My village and my grandfather’s cotton fields were my jungle. There I went around barefoot, I only wore shoes to go to school. And I saw everyone happy, perhaps because there it is customary to solve problems together. In Italy the cold and an unknown language awaited me.
In the book he tells of a father who raised his hands and a mother who did not rebel. Wasn’t her being a child recognized?
If it had been recognized, we would not have gone through what we went through. I don’t justify violence, but I believe that, regardless of where we are, it is a problem of those who are not educated on the responsibility of having a family and bringing children into the world. I don’t feel any kind of feeling for my father, neither hatred nor forgiveness.
She then took refuge in literature.
Some figures, told with emphasis by my teacher, made me dream: the sorceress Circe, Charon who ferries the souls of the deceased. Literature, like any art form, fascinates me.
Another of his passions is painting.
I still enjoy it as much as climbing. I alternate them. At times I paint more and climb less.
Wafaa Amer in Zillertal (photo Claudia Ziegler)
“Free of any label, free”
Then, during her adolescence, the school gave her the opportunity to learn to climb in the gym. She goes there, secretly from her family.
I immediately understood that in front of the wall I would be like everyone else, without any labels, free. I was also amazed by the help I received – there were those who provided me with shoes, others with other materials – without me asking for it. At that moment I began to get to know an Italy that wasn’t just racism and mean schoolmates who made fun of me, but was community and also true passion for a sport.
Recently, with the mountaineer Tamara Lunger he created a climbing wall for Muslim boys and girls in a village in Pakistan. What did Lunger convey to you?
We immediately got on well with Tamara: we both don’t like labels. When she proposed the project and a trek in Pakistan to me, I explained to her that I didn’t want to slow down the group due to my meniscus problems. She told me: “Sometimes it’s all in our head. It’s true, you have pain, but the more you focus on that, the more you suffer and the more you limit yourself.” This approach to life gave me power. Then, a local woman also did a great job, who went from family to family to prepare them for that news. I hope I have left a vision: when you see something extremely different from what you have always been used to, and I am proof of this, you inevitably ask yourself questions.
For example?
I was taught that in here (and draw a circle on a sheet, ed) it was all there: “Learn to sew, to tidy up the house, to cook bread artfully, to wash clothes. And don’t leave this circle because there is the unknown outside.” Climbing allowed me to ask myself: “But if I looked beyond this fence, what would happen?”. As a female, and with prohibitions to respect, I was afraid to do anything. Yet, one small achievement after another has made me the person I am. I have always tried to ask myself the right questions to make the right choices.
The climber Wafaa Amer, 29 years old (Photo by Matteo Pavana)
What was the last right choice you made?
Writing this book (which was presented at the last edition of the Trento Film Fest, ed). I hope it can give a modicum of courage to anyone who finds themselves having to face a problem or a limit, whatever their culture or religion (Wafaa likes to define herself as “daughter of two cultures”, ed). Another right choice, although not recent, was made during the lockdown (Wafaa had run away from home after graduating high school so as not to have to return to Egypt, and had gone to Liguria, but in 2020, at the age of 23, she had gone to visit her family in Piedmont and was stuck there, ed). After yet another violent behavior from my father I called the police. Now I am very close to the rest of the family.
“My body, my home”
Her body allows her to climb. But not only that. What is it for you?
My body is my home. It helps my head work too. Some people experience it as if it were detached from the mind, but instead it is a powerful means of getting out of negative moments. I’ll give you an example: you feel bad psychologically, but you understand that you can get out of bed, fold your clothes, move around and say to yourself “I’m going to eat today”. When you put your feet on the ground and get active, the body starts to do what the mind is not capable of doing at that moment. It becomes a “bridge” to your soul. Awareness is also important. We tend to hide the truth from ourselves because sometimes it hurts a lot. Then it is good to ask yourself, out loud: “What is my real problem? Why am I sad?”. You will be able to find a solution to these questions in your own time.
