Aquila

 - Updated -

28/07/2010

Dear Friends, 

I received this message from friends of mine in Reggio Emilia.  I have translated it line for line below for the benefit of English speakers. 

It is in regard to the tragic situation the region of Aquila, Italy, is in today, after the earthquake of June 2009. (See previous article, here):

Yesterday, I got this phone call from a clerk of a debt-collector agency, on behalf of Sky.   

She said that I was in default with my payment since September 2009. 

She asked me why? 

I told her that since 4th April last year, I left my house and never went back. 

Because of the earthquake. 

The Sky decoder lay there smashed under the weight of the fallen partition wall.  

She falls silent. 

Thus she apologizes and says that she will report what I told her to the authorities.  

After that, she asked me very helpfully, if now after over a year everything is alright? 

She says how she loves my city, for she had the good luck of visiting it a couple of years ago. 

She was enthralled.  She recalls in particular the paved steps, descending from the Duomo towards the basilica of Collemaggio. 

I feel a knot in my throat. 

I tell her that I used to live right there. 

She falls silent again.  Then she asks me to tell her what my city is today. 

And I oblige.  

I tell her of the militarized inner-city. 

I tell her that I am not allowed to go to my home, as I wish. I tell her that thieves however go there unhindered. 

I tell her about the buildings left there to die.  I tell her about the lack of money for reconstruction. 

Nor there is any money to help us to survive.  

I tell her that, from 1st July, we will be paying taxes & dues again, even though we are not working. 

I tell her that we will be paying i.c.i. [?] and the loans on destroyed houses.  [...] 

Even for the people who have got nothing.  In July, an earthquake victim, with a salary of Є2000, this before taxes, will end up with only Є734 in his/her pocket.  

Not only we will be paying taxes again, but we are required to pay the unpaid back-taxes since 6^th April. 

Furthermore, the state [government] is not helping the homeless, financially, who are autonomous, 27 thousand of them, not even the little monthly allowance of 200 euro, which would allow them to pay their rent. 

The costs of the rents are tripled - without any control. 

In a small town of 500 souls, I pay as much as Bertolaso used to pay for an apartment in Via Giulia in Rome. 

I heard her sigh heavily. 

I talk to her about the new suburbs built at the cost of luxurious residences.  

I tell her about the life of people that live there.  Like beehives with no soul. 

There is not even a newsagent there, or a bar. 

I tell her about the elderly people who have been uprooted from their land. 

Kilometres and kilometres far away. 

I tell her about the academics who left for good.  About the plummeting of high schools enrollments.  I tell her about a city that is dying. 

She answered me in a shaking voice. 

 “It is not possible that we don’t know anything about all this.  You cannot remain so.” 

 “Call the television journalists.  You have to tell them. Call the press.  They must write about it.”  

They won’t write; you pass it around.

Translated from the Italian, 28/07/2010.