From Rome to Africa in a diesel Land Rover, second or third or maybe fourth-hand, with a Dire Straits audiocassette blasting at full volume, carrying three empty beehives and two bicycles. Why two bicycles if he was alone? At the Algerian border, the meticulous and slow guards were asking themselves the same question. They could not imagine that these were his small capital, to be used for bartering.

It was not a dignified fate for the bicycles, and perhaps it's not even a dignified stratagem now to write about a book capable of enchanting. It's titled "Of Bees, of School and Other Stories", and among these stories there are also the two bicycles to be traded, written by Angelo Camerini, 144 pages published by Fox & Sparrows at 16 euros. Stories of real life, of lived experience, and life stories – I agree with the author – are so genuine, so surprising, especially when they are poor, that they are worth more than those romanticized, imagined, or fantasized.

Camerini is Abruzzese by birth, Roman by adoption, a '68 generation product, an elementary school teacher exported (to Egypt, and in another book, "Teacher in Egypt", Edizioni Etabeta, he recounts those teaching years), a beekeeper by passion and study, inspiration and vocation, transmission and even transgression, especially when he tried to teach children - through queens and workers, village hives and mobile frames, frames and smoking, swarming and honey extraction - perhaps the meaning of life, but in a manner not very compliant with the protocols of educational authorities and not very suitable for the flexibility of school principals.

"I can only tell what happened to me", Camerini begins. And what happened to him was not everything, but a bit of everything. Starting with travels in Africa, hindered by small corruptions, small intrigues, small revenges, but all with great consequences, like having to turn the car around and go back home, but also rich in enormous satisfactions, like surviving the dusty desert, the starry sky, sipping money and saving food, enjoying casual encounters, unexpected hospitality, sudden alliances.

Camerini tells himself by uncovering, undressing himself, not a matter of modesty, indeed, of lack of modesty, but a need for sincerity, a desire for truth. And he does so with lightness even when revealing family tragedies, admitting romantic failures, confiding economic hardships, recounting suffered injustices, nothing transcendental, our life is not made of transcendental events, but rather of infinite small things, in his case unpublished articles, articles published but unsigned, articles published but never paid, articles published yet skillfully hidden under insignificant, misleading, or improper titles.

When handling bees, Camerini insists on not using helmets, gloves, or suits. Unlike wasps, bees – if approached correctly: slowly, very slowly, better retreating than advancing – do not attack and do not sting. Those rare times when a bee stung a student guilty of a quick or fearful movement, Camerini was saved by the parents: serves him right, he deserved it, he'll remember it, next time he'll be more careful. And ultimately, at the bottom of that hive that are our cities, at the bottom of that African adventure (or misadventure) that are our existences, at the bottom of that frame that are our schools or jobs or communities, Camerini moves like this: with lightness, with honesty, with curiosity, unarmed indeed peaceful, aware, and with the gift of irony, often self-irony. He knows how to make fun of himself.

Anyway, at the end of an exaggerated, excessive inspection, looking and re-looking at the vehicle registration, passport, and those inexplicably two bicycles, finally paying the visa, at least that time Camerini was allowed to pass. "Reluctantly, they gestured for me to go, 'Yalla Yalla', something like 'get going' and, relieved, I set off again among signs increasingly in Arabic and less in Latin alphabet".

And the two bicycles? Sold. To get by.