Postal service?

Let me tell you a little story. It's about this photo. This is a photo of one of our friendly neighbours. He often sleeps in this spot.

Where is he exactly? Well, this is the side door to the post office in the piazza (square / park) in front of our place. The post office in Piazza Cavour is painted this lovely deep red colour, and it is a stand alone building smack in the middle of the piazza. The piazza is more like a park, with trees and grass and concrete paths, which is quite unusual for Naples. There is also a children's play area (no grass there for some reason, just cement, swings and climging equipment). It's a popular spot, a small corner of green amongst the city traffic, with benches and two metro station entrances.

The post office is closed. It's been closed ever since we arrived, which I always wondered about. The post office looks like it's been abandoned, literally abandoned. Like the post office staff have walked out during a bombing raid or something. It's a mess inside, papers scattered everywhere and I suspect there is mail and packages still inside that will never be delivered. I recently discovered why it's closed. This post office, and it's happy, smiling, glad-to-be-serving-the-public staff (sarcasm) staff were robbed three times. After the third robbery they closed up shop. Just shut it down and walked away.

The local community has organised a protest for it to be reopened but to no avail.

Gi explained to me last night that this post office is officially not on anyone's turf, which is why it was the target of three robberies. Other neighbouring post offices are effectively under the 'jurisdiction' of a local 'family' which means that they are protected to a certain degree. The Piazza Cavour Post Office stands alone though, it's kind of in a no man's land. Isolated, independent and vulnerable...the three things this city loves to eat up.