Shoveling memories hurts. Even when they’re not your own. Even when you know you’re helping those who lived through and preserved those memories.
I lent a hand in Spazzate-Sassatelli, a hamlet divided among three provinces, where the Sillaro stream showed no mercy, striking twice within two weeks on May 2023.
Almost eight hours of shoveling sludge and sweeping water, moving objects covered in foul-smelling mud, all under the wide-open eyes of the homeowners.
A blinding light, the almost dry mud has turned into a white layer that covers and petrifies everything.
Homes violated by the sludge, which only the water from the hydro jet can make decent again. Even though it will never be the same.
The marks on the walls can be erased, but not those left in the memories of these people. They wandered through the courtyard, aimlessly, they wandered through their homes, saying: “We’re just waiting for the bobcats to shovel away the mud,” “I’ve always kept everything because you never know when you might need it.” And the debris outside the houses, but some didn’t want to call them debris, instead, they were “Things to keep.” And you find yourself moving chunks of mud here and there with “things” inside, accommodating those who had hosted “those things” in their homes, in their gardens, just a few weeks before.
I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t take portraits except of those I saw less lost. Like the gas station attendant who joked that Jovanotti wrote “L’ombelico del mondo” after passing by. Or like the volunteers who served us lunch.
And the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes. The noise of the compressor, the scraping of shovels on the floor, the laughter with the other volunteers, and the joy in finding a sign of life, a mole cricket, in the midst of all that mud.
And then you return to your bus, change clothes, and hope that it doesn’t rain in the coming days. Otherwise, we’ll have to start all over again.
