Two nights ago, the residents of our flat plus a few friends were having dinner and a long talk when the doorbell rang. I went to open the door and surprise! Two policemen. One of the officers is holding an eviction order from the local goverment and the dire news that we should leave the building as it is in a risk of crumbling. It takes me one second to realize they are being serious. Some of the neighbors of the same building are outside, so I decide it's not a bad prank. They ask me if I'm the tenant of the apartment and how many people live with me. I answer "no" and "five" respectively, still unable to ask/answer for more. I give out my passport and sign the notice. I then ask the police if we should leave now or if we have time to pack. He replied, with the Italian face expression of "none of my business": from now on you decide under your own risk when you leave. I nod and go to the living room to drop the bomb for everybody.
I wish I had recorded every reaction. At first, people we skeptical. Maybe out of stress I was smiling like an idiot. "No, really guys. The police is at our door and it is the whole building. We have to move out tonight." We packed our stuff in the blink of an eye, revealing some of our darkest materialistic side, and moved to the other volunteers house with swiftness thanks to the organization’s help. The next course of action was the most natural: we went to a bar and got drunk to laugh over the matter.
It was pretty scary. I don’t usually give in to panic (except for that time a tornado blew up our roof) but I can’t help getting shaky. The police officers in our door speaking a foreign language, the whole commotion in the alleys, the risk of 6 stories falling on your head: I was nervous, and so were my flat mates. It was a fortune that some of our friends were there to help us pack, give some encouragement, and bring a lot of humor. There are now pictures with the eviction paper, everybody’s luggage in the alley, and one of me packing with a piece of Ice cream cake we just did not want to leave behind. We evacuated alright, and then the real reason for the eviction surfaced.
The building was not really crumbling. An inspection done last year commanded a repair in the two main columns, and the landlady implemented most of it, leaving some minor modifications incomplete but enough to get some of the neighbors complaining and the local government to issue the eviction for safety reason. The next day we were allowed to go in since the problem should have been solved by some paperwork being signed, but hello Italian bureaucracy: the papers did not
arrive. By the end of the day, we were again on the street with our luggage, the streets around the building closed, and every single person who could move on the road with a suitcase; the police officers at the entrance discussing how to move the two residents who are severely disabled elderly and whether the Chinese on the building understood what was going on or not.
Viale Trieste 56, the place I’ve called home all this time, has temporarily closed its doors to us. It’s good this situation is finding me with full support from our superiors, with empathetic friends, and with an incredible, almost unnatural, good mood. We’re sure I’m going to tell this story in the future like that one of “oh, once an idiot forgot a suitcase in a double decker in London and we were evacuated by the possibility of being targeted by terrorism” or “a tornado blew up half of the roof of our house once while I was showering” (still fucking scary). Tonight offers a new place to stay (couchsurfing in your own town, a friend called it,) but it’s all good. Just this week I had started a serious diet/exercise plan that got disrupted the minute this happened. I had work and writing goals that reached a momentum, and then crashed into the ground. I am trying to see the lesson in this and not to leave my “hyperproductive/time-managing addict” taking over. It’s hard to be mad or let this get too much into my brain when so many people are in this with you and so much more giving you a hand. I guess the lesson is that life is bigger than me, and that I can only hope to have things under control, but never be too sure of it. It’s ironic that my last blog entry was about having a home, and now I’m yet again deprived of a sense of one. However, things could always be worse (like a building falling on your head or having no place to go.) Sometimes, when the unexpected kick us out of our comfort zone, we have to learn to look on how to make the best moving forward. If I was not appreciating many things over here, this has shaken issues off. I’m ready to have a new provisional home wherever I go, holding more appreciation for what I like about my stay.
