Raining Umbrellas

It's a slightly less grey, slightly less wet day today. It has been raining/drizzling steadily for the past week and everything is now positively soaked; the rivers are full, so full that the adventurous take their kayaks out into the mountains and try their luck on streams that would normally be more rock than water. The countryside only seems more beautiful, more intensely green, more plentiful in this weather.

The city, of course, is another story. To begin with, this situation generally puts the already struggling public transport system under serious strain. Due to the lack of space, Genoa is one of the cities with the highest number of motorcycles (or two-wheeled vehicles, anyway) per inhabitant - I'm not saying that because I looked it up somewhere, I'm merely stating a fact that you will very soon find out for yourself if you come here. This usually means that as soon as it begins to rain, many people leave their motorbike at home and jump on the nearest bus/train. This would not be so bad, except for the fact that many others leave their motorbike at home and decide to take the car. This means an almost instant traffic jam along the entire length of the city.

It also means that many people get to work an hour or more later than usual. I have never been able to understand why anybody would want to contribute to and get stuck in what is  bound to be a traffic jam.

Within the centre of the city I have to admit that things are not as bad as people make them out to be. The new metropolitana, or its latest extended version, makes moving along that specific line much easier. If you happen to live just outside the city, on the other hand, things can be a bit more complicated, and the further out you go, the more frustrating the public transport system becomes.

On days like this, you will notice a rather strange phenomenon: as it starts to rain, you turn around and suddenly there will be someone on just about every corner with an armful of umbrellas to sell. In spite of the repetitive nature of the "no, thank you" ritual, it can be quite convenient, especially when you are one of those people who never watch the weather and almost never leave home with an umbrella.

This is a rather tricky subject, as it would technically be illegal not only for you to buy these umbrellas and for them to be sold to you, but even for the salesperson in question to be there in the first place. Italy has a flourishing community of illegal immigrants, each one out there everyday trying to sell whatever they can to earn a few euros and at least manage to eat something before sending the bulk of that money back to their families.

The real dilemma, however, is whether to actually by from them or not. Their merchandise (umbrellas when its raining, sunglasses and swimming trunks on the beach in summer, and then bracelets, books, clothes, bags, etc.) comes from people who make good money out of the sale of large quantities, while the individuals actually doing the work are lucky to make fifty cents to one euro per umbrella, for example. In order to make a decent daily income, therefore, would require the sale of something like fifty umbrellas, which is highly unlikely when competition is so intense.

Then there is the matter of going legal. You need documents to find a job and you need a job to get your documents. Luckily, the occasional loophole is found, which means that, occasionally, somebody manages to hold on to a minimum wage job, survive, send home some cash and maybe, after the first year, finally go home and visit their families. Realistically speaking, for many this process takes no less than five or six years, if you're lucky.

Consider this: you leave home with nothing. You leave your wife and children to live with your parents while you're gone (this is a typical solution), and then you face the unknown, thinking this will give you and your family a better future. You then have to cross the desert, cross borders, and then manage to survive crossing the Mediterranean sea on an overcrowded sardine can (a cruise which will cost you your life savings), avoid getting shot at or sunk, make it to the shore, and then survive five or six years without getting into any serious trouble.

Then, when you finally manage to go back home (on holiday), your whole family has aged in your absence. Kids who were newborns or even still in the womb when you left are now much bigger, and although they are your own they look at you as if you were a stranger...

Many Europeans had to go through similar experiences when moving to the new world up until about sixty years ago. A very large percentage of the population of this region left during that time and never returned. The city and the surrounding areas benefited from all this in the form of money their relatives received here "at home". Entire neighbourhoods were built up out of nothing thanks to that money.

Nowadays, that is a distant memory for some, while others try their best to "integrate" their new neighbours and understand more of their culture and way of life.

There is an ongoing debate as to whether or not the Muslim communities should be allowed to build a mosque in the city, and where. Every time a decision is made, the inhabitants of the chosen neighbourhood cause havoc until they are assured that this will not happen. In the meantime, the Muslim communities in question have set up several locations they refer to as "prayer halls": old shops, for  example, that had to be sold during this never-ending financial crisis, opened up and filled with rugs. It is not uncommon to be walking along and to catch a glimpse - at knee height, for example, in those shops and store rooms that were just below street level - of row upon row of men bowed down in prayer.

The odd thing in all this is that, historically, the city of Genoa was known for being very open-minded and tolerant towards foreign cultures on all sides of the Mediterranean and, a few centuries ago, the city is reported to have had at least two mosques...