She has a wonderful family and we always have a good time when we visit.
On this occasion we met Sister Anna. She is the nun sitting next to Giulia and actually is her sister.
The day we met her she had just returned from more than 20 years in Libya. She is a nurse and was working in a Christian hospital near Benghazi. She showed us her mementos - expended bullet cartridges and projectiles from the AK47s fired outside her hospital every day. The order which ran the hospital finally decided to evacuate when a large bomb exploded nearby. This all happened only a few weeks ago - long after Libya had been "liberated" from Ghadafi.
Sister Anna had no good word for Ghadafi but for all his faults he did keep the fundamentalists under control. Inmates of a local prison were released as part of the "liberation", almost all of whom were fundamentalist fighters who now control the streets and are about as committed to democracy as Ghadafi was.
It's always much easier to destroy a nation than it is to build one and getting rid of a tyrannical regime is no guarantee that what comes next will be any better.
The Libyan army gave Sister Anna and the others from the hospital an armed escort and safe passage to an airport and to safety in Italy.
