One homeless announcing disasters - 16 april 2009

FRANCAVILLA - We are all part of a "design". The earthquake survivors, telling their stories perhaps meeting along the Corso in Pescara, are wondering about this, more and more times during the day. Me and Raffaella, we often think: "The previous Sunday we were in Osimo: Camilla and Grandma Fausta would have not made it alone ... And the following Sunday, in the now collapsed hotel, we should have hosted our friends from Lanciano ... It had to be that way ... And those "angels" dressed as firefighters that entered the gutted house who among the so many photos took just that one? A mystery... "

In the late morning I park the car near the Municipality of Pescara after some smaller business (take to the Caritas of Francavilla the half-new clothes that were given us, unfortunately not our sizes; recover from Vodafone the phone number of Raffaella's mobile, buried under the rubble, start looking for a gym where Camilla can return to play volleyball, her passion, etc..). I meet Patrizia, the displaced Aquilana whom I met, by chance, along the promenade of Francavilla (well, she was not an angel after all ...). We take a coffee (I pay, of course) and we talk a little on what to do making a "technical" analysis (she is an architect) on the basis of photos and reports in the newspapers left on the tables of the Caffetteria del Corso.

Once outside, while we are at the beginning of the Risorgimento bridge, I have a kind of vision: I see from far away coming towards us the strange homeless whom I saw walking between Via San Bernardino and Via Veneto in L'Aquila during my visit to the historical center last Thursday together with the TV crews of "Matrix" and RaiUno. I thought he was a vision: this tall, strong man, with a long beard and long rasta hair, wearing a brown shirt and a pair of Turkish trousers and carrying a cloth bag, barefoot, walking slowly but surely among the rubble. A scene midway between the movies "Forrest Gump" and "Platoon." "And who is this?" some photographers asked while taking frenzy shots.

This guy - I say to Patrizia - I met him in L'Aquila among the rubble. "Sure? I do not believe you" she says. I stop him while he is taking bites from an apple. Hello! We met in L'Aquila, don't you remember? "Hello to you - he says in a very good Italian." Where do I come from? It does not matter. I am a citizen of the world, a world I would like with neither borders or nations. A world that we have eaten up, and therefore the earth is protesting. A disaster is coming, worse than that of your city." Worse than Apocalypse? I don't believe it!
"The tsunami made hundreds of thousands of victims: you were lucky." "What's your name? Are you Spanish? German?" Patrizia asks. "No, I am from Prague. My name is Laida." He was not an angel ...