Capri

Those of you who have had the privilege of not living in Cali Colombia surely ignore that in Cali, the name Capri is more related to an upper-class neighborhood than to the Italian island. Although I never lived there, I have fond memories of Capri, the neighborhood. The thing I remember the most is that it comprises a number of apartment buildings, each named as an Italian city. The buildings surround some sort of square with trees, something that is not really a park. A short walk around the green square is enough to discover that Bologna, Firenze, Modena, and other Italian cities I cannot recall now are somehow represented in Cali. This is not strange in Colombia, as many things (buildings, avenues, parks, neighborhoods) have foreign cities or counties as names. I suppose that this could be considered as 'exotic' from the foreigner eye. My explanation is that in the local minds foreign names or words often convey sophistication and style; in the case of Capri the choice of names also corresponds to a severe lack of imagination of the neighborhood's planners.

Independent of the names, I always liked Capri. All of the buildings ---which I suspect were built in the late 70s or early 80s--- have a very appealing and simple architecture. They are all very similar, or at least the differences are very hard to find. Yet you can tell all of them were built in different periods. The two or three apartments I visited (one of them in Bolonia, if I am not mistaken) were huge (say, around 120m2) and very well distributed. The first time I visited Capri was in 1992, when trying to reach some field in which I practiced soccer. The field was actually kinda hidden, behind the neighborhood, so I had to cross Capri by foot to reach the field (which, by the way, no longer exists). At that time, I lived in a very different and distant neighborhood; I had to take a bus until reaching what you could call the "entrance" of Capri, and then walk all the way from there. I used to practice very early on Saturdays and Sundays, so every weekend I experienced something I always found very impactant: a silent Capri, with empty streets, in which the only sounds would come from my steps (or from the music of a dying party nearby).

In some way or another, and for a long period of my life, the streets and buildings of Capri represented to me some sort of "reachable wealthy". That is, if there were some sort of well-defined hierarchy of neighborhoods, then Capri represented the one that was right above my neighborhood. In the social scale, Capri was waiting for me, so as to speak. This of course has to do with the fact that my mandatory visits to Capri were part of my first steps alone in the city, so pretty much anything would have impressed me at that time. The remarkable thing is that, after so many years and experiences in life, I still regard Capri as a special place. Furthermore, and in the case destiny would put me in Cali again, Capri would be my first option to live in.

All these memories about Capri were triggered by the neighborhood I am living in right now, in Grenoble France. The buildings surrounding the green, pedestrian square Jean Moulin are very similar to each other. I could bet that the Jean Moulin neighborhood was also built during the late 70s or early 80s. There is a quiet atmosphere in the Jean Moulin neighborhood that transports me directly to 1992 in Capri; this is specially true in the mornings, when I leave for work. The difference is that such an atmosphere lasts the whole day, something particularly noticeable in these days with abundance of light.

As the Capri neighborhood, the Jean Moulin one is surrounded by ample parks. Unlike Capri, however, around Jean Moulin there are many other facilities, including bus and tram lines, many bicycle routes, a stadium, a river and two cemeteries. I enjoy going to one of the parks (which is actually a garden) to use the public WiFi, hearing the kids playing, and the delicate sound of their parents spanking them. Seeing so many kids is kinda weird coming from Bologna. The public WiFi restricts the use of fun stuff, such as the chat and facebook; if it wasn't like that I'd spend whole days in the garden.

The connection between the Capri and Jean Moulin neighborhoods was as unexpected as interesting. It is curious to see concrete evidence on how your past (inadvertently and not) affects your present.

On leaving Italy

The other day, as part of one of those insightful quizzes that only Facebook can offer to us, I publicly declared that Colombia and Italy are number one and two in my personal ranking of "best countries in the world". Some people could say that those choices are just another failed attempt of being funny through irony. No: I honestly think that the two only countries in which I have lived are among the best places in the world to live. 

To my surprise, two Italians reacted to the presence of Italy in my ranking. They wonder "why Italy?" This post is intended to answer that question. It also coincides with the fact that I am leaving Italy later this week, thus closing a very interesting period of my life. I am supposed to return for a few, busy weeks at the end of the year, so any concluding remarks about my life in Italy should be better stated now. 

Italy and Colombia share the fact that they are wonderful countries for everyone but their own citizens. I think it's human nature not to apprecciate what you have had for free for so long; to have a lot and still to complain about some missing part.  Consider the Italian case: the weather is excellent for the European context, people are suprisingly open and friendly, and the culture and food are outstanding. Italy has serious problems, of course, as every country in the world does.  Italy is well known for its corrupted public administration, infested of greedy, cynical politicians; a disease which has grown out of the indifference of ordinary citizens, who reject the situation but that unconciously promote it by doing nothing to change it. It is the Italian system which is wrong and needs urgent reforms, not the country at large, with all the good things it might have. 

There is then a subtle distinction between a country and the system that underlies it. It is common to confuse the two things and to misjudge the latter because of the shortcomings of the former. Such shortcomings seem as impossible to deal with, especially if you have never seen other systems, other visions of the world. Then you realize that a change is possible, that things can be done. By living in Italy I have been able to compare the only system I knew of with a different one. This was most useful to apprecciate the many good things in my own country, and to give its many shortcomings a right proportion. 

Everyone should have the experience of living abroad. (Notice that some vacation doesn't count as "living," in my opinion.) You become more tolerant, and learn to apprecciate new facets of life. I can tell that change in myself, as I can certainly perceive it in the Colombians living in other parts of Europe, as well as in my those Italian friends who have had the chance of living abroad. It's hard to explain, but they're different. For the Italians the effect of living abroad might be more significant: unlike other countries, in Italy you can live your whole life in the small town where you were born. The risk is that your perception of the world is very narrow; the feeling of being a foreigner can be unvaluable to open your perspectives. 

Now I am looking forward to experiencing the French society. I am in particular curious about how the fact of having lived in Italy might change my perception of it. And how my third-world mentality can accommodate to understand, assimilate, and apprecciate a new system. Stay tuned.