#4: Bureaucracy and the Power of Children
Salve!
Yesterday was the much-anticipated actual day of Ferragosto, the public holiday that stops the nation - for a month.
Unfortunately I spent the day absolutely floored by a brutal raffreddore. Which is of course the much more fun Italian word for the common cold. Luckily it was short, as well as sharp, and I am feeling much better already. Just 24 hours of total lethargy. It certainly felt like the worst virus I'd had in quite a while, but maybe I'm just soaking up the cultural tendency towards the dramatic and actually it wasn't any worse than anything I had previously in Melbourne...? I think David's patience and understanding was severely tested by my complaining!
The week just gone has been a fun one though! We've joined the local pool (about a 15min leisurely ride away) and have spent a couple of lovely afternoons there. It is like a beach club in that you reserve an umbrella and sun loungers and there is a small canteen serving food, drinks and coffee on site. Raffy and Leo wear their typical Australian swimming get-up which includes a hat and a long sleeve rash vest.
I have to admit that I didn't appreciate how out of place this was until I overheard a conversation between Raffy and two girls that she was throwing a ball in the kids' pool with. One asked, in Italian, why she was fully dressed and then reached out and touched the material of her sleeve. This then prompted a burst of excited conversation with the other (obviously at this point I couldn't understand any of it) which I assume conveyed that the outfit was, in fact, made of bathing material. Raffy just responded "they're my long-sleeved bathers!" and that was that. She didn't seem at all bothered!
We've also had another shockingly smooth and successful interaction with Italian bureaucracy. Honestly I am waiting for this dream run to come to a screeching end! Everyone in Italy is assigned a 'fiscal code' (Codice Fiscale) at birth. As a foreigner living in the country, they are essential to have. You cannot sign a contract for ANYTHING without it, or access healthcare or anything.
Luckily I had already organised mine and David's when we were still in Melbourne, but I didn't realise that the kids would need theirs too. Getting one in Italy requires that you make an appointment at the Agenzia Entrate, which you then have to attend in person with your ID documents. You cannot have anyone represent you, and the officers only speak Italian.
In any case, I somehow made the first available appointment last Friday at 8:30am. All four of us rode to the office on the outskirts of town and lined up to wait for them to open. A scrum immediately formed as soon as the door was opened as everyone tried to get in first, but luckily the extremely officious woman at the door basically stood in the way and physically prevented anyone from entering unless they had an appointment, which luckily we were the only ones!
Once we were through I heard very loud shouting matches commence as all the hopefuls without a booking were told to go away. Amusingly enough, by the time we left, most had managed to talk their way inside. Another lesson that persistence pays in Italy!
We arrived at the desk, and the woman processing the applications commenced delivering rapid fire instructions. My mind went blank. I just handed over all our passports and kept saying 'mi dispiace, il mio italiano non e buono' and 'ho bisogno del codice fiscale per i miei figli'. Eventually she laid eyes on the 'figli' in question and all was forgiven. She gave Raffy scrap paper and a pen and kept cooing over Leo. We managed to complete the forms and walked out the door about 15min later with the precious codice fiscale documents in hand. A triumph!
Our apartment feels very much like home now. We're finally in our groove with the recycling (there are 5 different bins and the locals here are VERY passionate about everything being sorted correctly) which sounds like a small thing but is a big change. I much prefer it to the fake recycling we do at home, where deep down we all know almost all of it ends up in landfill anyway.
We also have a classic old Italian neighbour (the balcony of his apartment is opposite our kitchen windows, across the other side of our garden) who seems to spend his entire day in his jocks. He likes to listen to opera in the mornings while he sits outside in the sun, smoking and drinking coffee. It's almost too stereotypical to be real.
I hope the sun is shining and you're keeping well!
Lots of love as always,
Kate
