Outside the Walls

We left Rome last week to go to our house in the countryside. It was possible to do so under the conditions imposed by the Italian government since it is our domicile in Italy. When moving, we now need to carry a self-certificate to justify the reason for our move. It is allowed under four instances: work, health reason, shopping for basic goods and return to a place of residence or domicile. Even to go to the corner shop, we need to carry it with us, just like a laisser-passer in times of war.

Our house is in the middle of the fields. We have no water supply from the mains and no wi-fi, but we are connected to the electricity grid, which we did at our own expense. By coming here I left behind one set of problems -the strict confinement into a small urban space-, for another: the lack of infrastructure and to some extent the isolation. We are about five kilometres from the nearest village where there is a medium-size supermarket, a couple of butchers and bakeries, a fishmonger, and a deli for passing visitors in summer. The village is relatively small and its inhabitants, mainly farmers, are scattered around in a 20 km radius. Our nearest neighbours who own a livestock farm with mainly sheep, are at least 500 metres away, beyond a hill. We can’t visit them anymore because of the quarantine. I nevertheless offered to do some shopping for them if needed. They are over the age of 70, it is safer for them not to go into the village and be exposed to other people. They can’t even be visited by their own daughters who live in nearby towns. We now have to learn to live in total isolation from each other and use online devices to connect. I have a feeling that this crisis may have more repercussion on our lives than we are able to visualize just yet.

Here I have to make sure I can break from our isolation if necessary. Every morning, I start my car to make sure the battery is not flat. It is rather old and gets depleted easily when not running. Without a car, I couldn’t even buy food and that wouldn’t be fun (with two hungry boys at home). For now, I have enough of a stock of rice, canned fish, pulses, pasta and ready made sauces to last for a while. On the same note, the supermarket in town remains well supplied. However, mentally I have switched to an emergency mindset and I am constantly planning ahead for what may go wrong. That’s what a major crisis does to us: we recentre on what is essential and the rest can wait. For me here, it is food and water. Water in particular is a major concern since I am not connected to a water supply network and have to rely on rain water as well as deliveries from a water supply company for clean water. We have two water tanks of a 10,000 litre capacity each: one to collect rain water and one to supply the house with clean water. From time to time, in case of shortage, we transfer water from the rain cistern to the house tank, however, it is not advisable to do so because we do not yet have a water filtering system, and rain water bring sediment deposits into the pipes. For now, I have a full tank of rain water (it is March, it is still raining regularly) and an almost empty tank of clean water. I called yesterday for a delivery and they accepted to put me on an emergency list since I am on my own with two children and we cannot be confined here without water. They should deliver tomorrow. Until then, I will not be serene enough to start enjoying being here in spite of all. The wi-fi on the other hand, was the easiest problem to solve. I ran out to buy a mobile wi-fi device and SIM card just before the total lockdown (in a fortunate bout of inspiration, I was lucky to do it the morning before the lockdown announcement).