Marginal Centers - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 211

sions, meetings, rallies, appointments with city officials and politicians, idrosca-
lo residents have seen it all. people within the community they have trusted have
betrayed them. one infamous story concerns a long-time resident, signor Giulio,
who, according to many, organized a fake robbery to keep the money collected by
the residents to have their neighborhood's streets graded and tarred. signor ar-
mando remembers when signor franco kept for himself the money collected for
the festa of the patron saint (santa maria assunta, 15 august). The opposite exists
as well: signora Domenica who helped Chiara while her husband was in jail or
enza who cooks for two elderly widows, Vittoria and teresa. stories such as these
abound even if the selective memory of the informant and the place or moment
in which it is recounted mean that there are always multiple and contrasting ver-
sions of each one. in other words, the ways in which idroscalo residents relate
with each other is neither “typical” nor “exceptional,” rather it is “normal” if
normal means frequenting or avoiding people based on one's personal experi-
ences. Nevertheless, the community would certainly benefit from stronger ties
but, as Cipriani et al. (1988) have pointed out in their sociological analysis of Valle
aurelia near the Vatican (bulldozed in the late 1970s), slum people “discover”
their common identity only when their community is about to die, when external
factors threaten to destroy their settlement. indeed, on the morning in which
riot police entered idroscalo to facilitate the removal of the residents, everybody
came out, women and children in front, shouting and yelling their rage against
city government with one voice. and again they won, at least until next time.
why i stay here
it is not difficult to imagine why the idroscalo peninsula must have appeared
a sort of exotic paradise to its first residents. The light, the wind, the colors of
the sky, the crashing of the waters, the sound of the sea waves, and the breath-
ing river flowing nearby, the sight of birds and flying fish, wild flowers, and fine
grained sandy beaches remind one that Rome is also “nature.” all the residents
agree on one point at least; that they live in a beautiful place. indeed, when they
describe it, they unconsciously change their postures, gestures, and voices. bro-
ken by years of living precariously amid violence, abuses, and injustices, almost
by magic, their skeptical and cynical expressions soften and their language turns
poetic when they talk about the nature around them. from them, one learns that
the river “breaths” and that one can “feel” it passing by their homes, that south-
westerly winds “burn” your plants but bring in the smell of the sea. old and
young know about seagulls and cormorants that dive to catch fish; of sea bass
and dolphins that at times pass by; of white herons, howls, swallows; of a mother
swan that crosses the street with her chicks to her nest in the lagoon; and of stray
dogs and cats. above all, sunrises and sunsets capture their imagination: (fabio)
“have you ever seen such beauty in Rome?” (Domenica) “i could never live in a