While the team is made up of five women, their work is supported by guest speakers at every meeting, reflecting the diversity of people coming to and leaving this island.

The storytellers are mainly former migrants turned longtime residents of Catania, although asylum-seekers who landed during the refugee crisis also participate and who occasionally share their stories to practice their Italian. The aim is to show the two faces of migration, both in times of crisis and as a natural, human phenomenon common throughout centuries.

“Integration comes through simple gestures, such as sitting next to each other while sharing food and good conversations over a hot cup,” Emanuela Pistone, founder of the initiative and of the community center Isola Quassud, said. “Italy needs more opportunities to re-discover the pleasure of listening to other voices and get familiar with the new flavors enriching our table.”

Emanuela Pistone, right, introduces Maryam Khoshluie during Persia Time. Renée Purpura

The project began in 2010 when, after two decades in Rome, Pistone returned to Sicily to volunteer at migrant help centers. Moved by the personal stories she would hear about and witness every day, she realized the need for an outlet featuring migrants telling their own narratives. “I thought it was necessary to give them back an essential right: letting them explain themselves.”

One generation removed, still connected

While the older women cook, Teferi, who’s 26, entertains the guests with anecdotes from her ancestral homeland. “Until the 1970s, the majority of Eritrean women were housewives and chatting over coffee was a daily opportunity to bond,” she said.

“As you call it here in Sicily, it’s our cuttigghio time,” using the word in Sicilian dialect for “gossiping.” She then pours coffee out three times, explaining that the last one is a symbol of blessing.

The community welcomes about two dozen participants at a time to keep an intimate, homey atmosphere and ensure the active involvement of all guests. The venue changes often — many locals offer their spaces in rotation — and includes theaters, restaurants, libraries and even a bike repair shop.

While participants drink and eat, the women usually share conversations, tales, myths and legends, as well as music, poems and dances. They revive the lost Sicilian tradition of oral storytelling, also practiced in many of the migrants’ countries of origin, which include Morocco, Senegal, Afghanistan and India.

Teferi loves to share a first-person essay she wrote in the wake of the 2013 Lampedusa shipwreck, when over 300 Eritreans were killed at sea. “I was born in Catania, but raised as an Eritrean through language, food and culture,” she said. “I grew up listening to my mom’s stories about our land of the Red Sea and fight for freedom, but I was too young to fully grasp their meaning.”

The daughter of refugee parents who escaped the conflict with Ethiopia in the 1980s, she feels the drama of the many fellow Eritreans who today face a different journey from the one her parents did. Holding dual nationality, she feels equally Italian and Eritrean and is convinced every migrant can pick their own identity, rather than be defined by others.

"I studied politics because I hope to serve my two homelands, one day," she said. This month, the Italian parliament will discuss a bill that, if approved, will allow those who were born to immigrants and attending schools in Italy, like Teferi, the right to citizenship without having to wait until they turn 18.

Seeking sanctuary in a changing Italy

The circle’s meet-ups often revolve around a theme — a specific country, a traditional celebration or an ingredient. A few months ago, Maryam Khoshluie led the Iranian Tea Time during Yalda night, the Persian solstice festivity. An asylum-seeker from Tehran, she moved in 2009 to Catania, where her husband’s family had settled when searching for political stability after the 1979 revolution.

“In Iran, after a meal, we usually offer guests sweet refreshments and entertain them with conversations,” Khoshluie said. “When we arrived in our new neighborhood, we opened the doors of our home to encourage Sicilians to get to know us, offering food and drinks from our tradition.”