Apartment inspections, Baobab

Wednesday we did our round of four apartment inspections, two in Ladispoli and two in Roma 1. Dee lost track of time in the morning, so we left a few minutes late, and then the elevator was being repaired --as I had feared, it was not completed the day before. So I walked down six floors to ask the workman if he could please let my crippled wife ride the elevator for a minute. He finished gluing on a piece in a couple of minutes, and she came down. We ended up departing half an hour later than planned, but traffic was good so we made up about ten minutes en route. The drive to Ladispoli is basically one hour. Dee called ahead to let them know, and it all worked out ok. 

We made all of the inspections pretty quick, since we and they know the drill fairly well. When we got to the Sorelle apartment in Ladispoli, we found that Sorella Wood from Roma 1 was there on exchange. They said they needed to leave soon for the train, and it turns out that they were going to Roma 1 to exchange back, so we offered them a ride, which saved them a bunch of time. We went to the Anziani's apartment and then came back to pick them up when we were done and headed back into town. The Sorelle were amazed at how quickly we arrived at Roma 1: about half an hour in the car versus 90 minutes on trains and subway. I did a lot of walking, even a steep hill. It's so nice to be moving again. But I'm out of shape and fell asleep in my chair at the Institute afterward.

There was nothing really major we found to worry about in the apartments, though there are always a few items to report on. By keeping things brief, we actually made up all the time we had lost and more, getting to the Institute by 1:30pm. By then we were hot and tired, but happy to have that assignment taken care of. The downside of the morning was that I had to go around the block in Ladispoli a couple of times to find a parking spot, after dropping off Dee in front of the Sorella apartment. I finally parked but couldn't see a place to pay for parking, but not to worry -- since we have a hybrid, it should be free, just like in Rome, right? Nope. I got a parking ticket. The rules are different in Ladispoli, which is in the province of Rome but not the city of Rome. So it is a 30€ lesson in looking harder for a parking meter.

Dee and I each worked some on our lessons for this weekend (my three, plus she is doing Primary and Relief Society). With the addition of my Naples class on Saturday, we have a lot less free time, but we are enjoying everything. Dee is supposed to rest her foot and keep it elevated, so she found a nice way to do that in the library while working on her lesson:

She is walking so well these days, using at most one crutch. She actually moves pretty fast, probably faster than before her injury (I always knew she was lagging on purpose! 😏)

David & Josh Perego came by for a while, since Josh was substituting for his mom teaching piano at the refugee Friendship Center; she has Girls' Camp this week. It was fun to visit with David, who is really into tech.

In the evening we had our monthly visit to the Baobab refugee camp. Nobody showed up to cook pasta to bring until pretty late, so Dee started water boiling and got out some of our stash of pasta from the cabinet. I'm glad we bought a third big pot recently. Fortunately then Alessio and Sheyla showed up, followed a bit later by Maria Jose. The former two whipped up some very nice sauce surprisingly quickly, and we had over 3 kg (6+ pounds) of pasta ready to go by 7pm. Vania showed up just as we were ready to leave, and Junior met us over there. We drove the pasta over in our car, while the others took the subway. Alessio really does not like having his photo taken, so you will note he usually manages to hide his face when the camera comes out. He is the pizza chef and is very skilled in the kitchen. He cut up tomatoes in an interesting (and dangerous-looking) way, and he also stuck his finger quickly into the pots of boiling water to make sure it was salty enough!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were at Baobab by 7:40pm, which is good because dinner usually starts at 8pm. I walked in, with my crutch. It was about a block or two in each direction. However, they told us it would be half an hour later this time; not sure why, as the website still says 8pm. Anyway, our kids got involved in helping cut up a bunch of veggies for the salad. I visited with a couple of the refugees. One of them seemed a bit aggressive and hard to understand. He is from Afghanistan, and kept telling us that he was doing all this work cleaning up around the camp, but nobody would give him any respect ("rispetto"). Dee finally figured out that he wanted somebody to pay him for what he did, and he even asked her for money, which she wisely and gently turned down. 

The kids all helped serve the food, which went fairly fast. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the serving, a fight almost broke out between two of the refugees, both from Africa. They went at it a few times, but fortunately were dragged apart by others before anything started. We have no idea what the issue was, but it was scary. There were about fifty guys involved at one point, and it was aggressive and physical. Even the (mostly female) Italian directors of the camp seemed a bit shook , but it was good to see other refugees taking control. We left about 9pm, and it was good to get out of there. I think we'll go back next month, but if that happens again we will perhaps have to re-think, as we can't be putting our kids into any dangerous situations. With hundreds of men there, in a difficult situation, it is perhaps inevitable that some problems would erupt, but violence will not help their cause. It is very sad to see how they live, and it always makes us grateful for our blessings. This poor situation is better than what they came from, which makes me even more grateful.

Maria Jose, Dee, Vania, Sheyla

After leaving Baobab, we went a bit out of our way to pick up Riccardo's new desktop computer. I had given him an old 128GB SSD to use as boot drive to speed things up a lot, but he had a friend who kept offering to come by and install it for him. Finally he realized that the friend wasn't going to come through, so I offered again to install it for him. We had a hard time finding his place and connecting, but finally he arrived at our car, winded from having run awhile to find us. He went upstairs and brought the desktop tower down to us.  So we got home later than usual, but it is nice to be able to help somebody. 

There was so much stuff in the car that we called the Sorelle (now just two of them) and had them help carry stuff up. The city is doing some tree work on one of our streets that cuts out a few dozen parking spots, so I assumed I was going to have to hike (in the light rain). As always, they were wonderful to come down and help carry stuff, but then I found a great parallel parking spot just around the corner, so I actually could have done it on my own. The Sorelle told me that my toilet fix in their apartment had improved the situation, but it still didn't flush well sometimes, so I guess I will have to go back and try to clear things out more.

It was a long day, leaving home just after 9am and arriving home 13 hours later. Thursday is another early day, but we think that next week will be lighter for us.

Late at night, we got a phone call from Sister Balzotti about the Ladispoli Sorelle. We had just seen them that afternoon, but after we left, their toilet started to overflow and they couldn't find the shutoff. They were bailing it out continually for hours. We didn't know where the shutoff was, either. The Balzottis were going to have to drive out there (an hour) unless someone could figure it out. Stay tuned.

I have to mention the driving. Doug is such a good driver, and that is what is keeping us alive. For example, the local drivers often will come up to pass on our right, then turn left across all lanes of traffic. Motorcycles pass us on the right, too, even when we're merging into traffic. Frightening.

I love the visual treat of the gorgeous buildings and sculptures all around us. You never know what delight will be around the next bend.