INTERSOS project manager Daniela Zitarosa describes what it is like to live and work in the winter months in the informal settlement of Borgo Mezzanone. “Once the summer rush has died down – she explains – when it seems that the waters are about to calm down, all the troubled situations end up coming to the surface. People have a much higher level of complexity”.
Winter has also arrived here, on the former runway of Borgo Mezzanone. This place generally peaks in the summer due to the exponential increase in its inhabitants, who come from various parts of Italy to find employment, occupation, or exploitation in the “fruitful” fields of Capitanata. It is a place that undergoes a sudden transformation on several levels between the summer and winter seasons: first of all, demographically, with the number of residents reduced to just the permanent ones, people who have been living in these shacks for many years; and climatically, from the suffocating sultriness of 45 degrees in summer to freezing temperatures close to zero, accompanied by violent gusts of wind, the only omnipresent element in the area, regardless of the season.
The most remarkable transformation, however, is reflected in the settlement’s activities and rhythms: when the demand for labor decreases and there is a lack of alternatives for gathering, the inhabitants of the ghetto slip into the vortexes of boredom, streams of thought, and disillusionment, and so the search for anesthetics for the mind or other escape routes that erase this place and this present for a moment become a daily practice. And so the work of INTERSOS, with its mobile clinic, social workers, and all the valuable partners accompanying it on the runway for years, also changes its appearance. However, the services provided remain the same. What actually changes are the problems that users bring to our attention.
No longer do we only see injured or burnt faces, hands, legs, and arms or cuts caused by work tools and the absence of adequate protection systems. The people who come to the clinic in the winter period present a much higher level of complexity, another side of the usual dysfunctional system that characterizes this place. People come with chronic illnesses that have been neglected because, in the summer months, when no opportunity to bring home a few euros can be missed, they end up skipping meals, forgetting to drink and rest, carry on with their therapies, or have the time to go to the doctor to obtain the prescription for medications. Then, some cannot store their medicines, considering that most denature at high temperatures. Think of D., for example, a young man with a severe heart condition diagnosed years ago who came to us in pain and barely breathing and then ended up being admitted to the CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit), where he was implanted with two bypasses and a difficult-to-follow multi-therapy. He, like many others, spent the summer working in the fields despite his severe health condition.
Here on the track, therefore, the equation that a decrease in the number of patients corresponds to easier management of health needs does not work. On the contrary, once the summer rush has died down, when the waters are about to calm down, all the troubled situations end up coming to the surface.