Written 9 January 2007
The school started up again this week. Our temporary homelessness meant that I had to take a bus to get to work. Not knowing how long it would take to tackle the traffic and the freeway I crawled out of bed at 7am. The other impacting issue was that as guests in the apartment (and considering that our hostess herself is still overseas) we are trying to be as invisible as possible, which means not interrupting the regular routine of the household. This is particularly important in the mornings when people are preparing to go to work and using the one and only bathroom. After sneaking in for a quick shower, I scurried back to the bedroom along the cold tiled floor to find Gigi still in bed, snuggled up under the duvet, pretending that the alarm hadn’t gone off.
I caught the C30 bus at 8:10am from just nearby the apartment block and it did a twenty minute loop of the surrounding suburb picking up other commuters before easing through the traffic to hit the ring road that floats above the city on concrete pillars. Whenever we drive on the freeway or ring road I try not to think about the fact that we are way up above the mess of residences, businesses and schools. I have on a couple of occasions vocalised my surprise that we don’t hear more reports about cars and motorbikes driving straight off these sky high freeways into the buildings and houses below considering the risks some of the local drivers take. Of course Gigi, with his Neapolitan superstition, told me I had now jinxed them all. He calls me a blackbird, as it’s my habit to ask ‘Why doesn’t this happen more?’ or ‘Wouldn’t you think that such and such would happen?’
Naturally if you wait long enough disaster will strike. Earlier this week my husband proclaimed that it was my fault that a truck had driven off the freeway. The truck crashed through the concrete barricades into an apartment block below. Three different newspapers reported that the truck fell, one paper claiming10 metres, one 20 metres and one 30 metres.
I told him it was bound to happen, the way everyone drives in this city.
Anyway, as the bus drove over the city towards the central business district I tried to ignore the fact that the orange capsule of death I was in could just as easily slip off the ribbon of grey and end up in someone’s kitchen, interrupting their morning coffee making ritual.
I arrived at school just before 9am, with time to print out some lesson materials and prepare myself for my first class at 9:15am. It felt strange to be teaching again after a two week break. Similarly, I started my big class at 2:15pm with some trepidation, only to find that most of the students arrived some forty minutes late.
Forty minutes late? Yes, it seems extraordinary but of course, this is Naples and there is always a good reason. The building where the school operates is part of the Centro Direzionale zone built during the later part of the 1980’s. The school occupies most of the 13th floor. There are four elevators. Two of the elevators have been out of service since late November. Quite regularly we have large groups of students all starting at the same time. Imagine fifty people waiting in the foyer for the lifts to the 13th floor? Now, imagine the fact that the two lifts out of four that are operating only take two people at a time. Add to the fact that there are numerous other businesses in this building, who also rely on the lift to get a coffee, or have coffee delivered from the bar (not to mention the internationally recognised uses of a lift like getting to and from work, getting lunch, running errands, attending meetings etc).
Just think about a skyscraper in the central business district in a city of more than one million people, where two out of four lifts are left out of service, in disrepair and unlikely-to-be-otherwise-in-the-near-future for two months. Just think about it.
Don’t even ask the ‘why is it so?’ question. That’s easy…this is Naples.
The school started up again this week. Our temporary homelessness meant that I had to take a bus to get to work. Not knowing how long it would take to tackle the traffic and the freeway I crawled out of bed at 7am. The other impacting issue was that as guests in the apartment (and considering that our hostess herself is still overseas) we are trying to be as invisible as possible, which means not interrupting the regular routine of the household. This is particularly important in the mornings when people are preparing to go to work and using the one and only bathroom. After sneaking in for a quick shower, I scurried back to the bedroom along the cold tiled floor to find Gigi still in bed, snuggled up under the duvet, pretending that the alarm hadn’t gone off.
I caught the C30 bus at 8:10am from just nearby the apartment block and it did a twenty minute loop of the surrounding suburb picking up other commuters before easing through the traffic to hit the ring road that floats above the city on concrete pillars. Whenever we drive on the freeway or ring road I try not to think about the fact that we are way up above the mess of residences, businesses and schools. I have on a couple of occasions vocalised my surprise that we don’t hear more reports about cars and motorbikes driving straight off these sky high freeways into the buildings and houses below considering the risks some of the local drivers take. Of course Gigi, with his Neapolitan superstition, told me I had now jinxed them all. He calls me a blackbird, as it’s my habit to ask ‘Why doesn’t this happen more?’ or ‘Wouldn’t you think that such and such would happen?’
Naturally if you wait long enough disaster will strike. Earlier this week my husband proclaimed that it was my fault that a truck had driven off the freeway. The truck crashed through the concrete barricades into an apartment block below. Three different newspapers reported that the truck fell, one paper claiming10 metres, one 20 metres and one 30 metres.
I told him it was bound to happen, the way everyone drives in this city.
Anyway, as the bus drove over the city towards the central business district I tried to ignore the fact that the orange capsule of death I was in could just as easily slip off the ribbon of grey and end up in someone’s kitchen, interrupting their morning coffee making ritual.
I arrived at school just before 9am, with time to print out some lesson materials and prepare myself for my first class at 9:15am. It felt strange to be teaching again after a two week break. Similarly, I started my big class at 2:15pm with some trepidation, only to find that most of the students arrived some forty minutes late.
Forty minutes late? Yes, it seems extraordinary but of course, this is Naples and there is always a good reason. The building where the school operates is part of the Centro Direzionale zone built during the later part of the 1980’s. The school occupies most of the 13th floor. There are four elevators. Two of the elevators have been out of service since late November. Quite regularly we have large groups of students all starting at the same time. Imagine fifty people waiting in the foyer for the lifts to the 13th floor? Now, imagine the fact that the two lifts out of four that are operating only take two people at a time. Add to the fact that there are numerous other businesses in this building, who also rely on the lift to get a coffee, or have coffee delivered from the bar (not to mention the internationally recognised uses of a lift like getting to and from work, getting lunch, running errands, attending meetings etc).
Just think about a skyscraper in the central business district in a city of more than one million people, where two out of four lifts are left out of service, in disrepair and unlikely-to-be-otherwise-in-the-near-future for two months. Just think about it.
Don’t even ask the ‘why is it so?’ question. That’s easy…this is Naples.
Then think about a truck smashing through the concrete barrier on the freeway that sweeps beside your apartment on the 15th floor, falling ten metres at an angle before crudely lodging itself and its load precariously in your kitchen as you stand at the stove in your dressing gown preparing coffee.
Then think about which scenario you’d prefer.
Then think about which scenario you’d prefer.
No comments:
Post a Comment