The Incendiary Entry in my Journal
This happened to me just before I went back to Brazil. After my exchange program ended, I went to a farm in the middle of nowhere in the south of Italy and stayed there for 20 days.
For half this time I shared cottage with Beppe, the owner of the place, and a couple.
One day, it was actually my first day as a shepherd, after I went walking with the sheeps and goats in the morning and had lunch, I was having a break in the front porch of the house while having a Mate.
I heard Beppe, the owner of the place, complaining about a smell of fire. Then we saw it:
Rings of smoke enclouding the skies not so far away from us. While he was looking for the car keys to go there take a look, came a neighbor, Gabriele.
Gabriele was a cool guy. Under 30, he sported a mullet hair, full 80s style, and always carried an easy going smile. His wife was spanish and they’d spent a lot of years in Spain, so he had this good-vibes-almost-latinan-like personality.
But when he came he didn’t have that smile, nor the good vibes. He was in distraught.
The two went up hill where the smoke was originating from. I looked to the two other volunteer workers and they gave me back a curious look back. We waited.
Ten minutes later, Beppe returns and he was worried as hell. You see, although the fire was far away, it was summer, a very dry summer. It hadn’t rained in over four months. We were in the middle of a National Park, thousands of dry trees. We were in a funeral pyre… and fire was spreading fast.
“Ragazzi, il fuoco arriverà presto, dobbiamo pulire l’intorno della casa veloce, veloce!” Beppe said, which I immediately translated to “fuck, we’ll be toasted my chaps”, but I guess a more accurate translation would be “guys, the fire will arrive soon, we need to clear the area around the house fast!”
The first lesson I learned that day was that negligency and lazyness are dooming. You see, the house was made of wood, and all around it was grown grass, hunks of cutted trees, small and medium branches and even one or two tree trunk. With hell approaching ever close, that wasn’t a house anymore, it was a bonfire waiting for a spark to be lit.
Why they were all laying there? Because over the years, Beppe postponed creating a warehouse for them, away from the house, and out of sloth and commodity just left them near. Now we had to move them.
We started carrying them away from the house and throwing them somewhere else. To accelerate the process, one person would stay by the branches picking them up and loading them in the arms of one of the other three, he them would carry them away while the next one get his load and the third one was returning for the next load.
The problem was that the responsable for loading the trees was this small thin girl that didn’t seem to have any muscle at all. Either that or she didn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. She would slowly pick a log from the mount, slowly put in the arms of someone, and then slowly pick the next one. The line for loading was always jammed with us three waiting.
I was about to scream something, but unpatiently Beppe burst out before me: “ANDIAMO RAGAZZA, VELOCE, VELOCE, PRENDI QUESTI LEGNI VELOCE”, which I immediately translated to “ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED?”, but I guess a more accurate translation would be “Come on girl, faster, faster, pick those logs fast!”. If I wasn’t so nervous with the notion of impeding doom, I would be laughing my ass off.
I think it is fair to say that: ok, I wasn’t particularly close to life or death scenario. I wasn’t literally running from fire as it tries to engulf me in its flames. But we could smell it and see its smokes approaching. It was frightneing.
We manage to clear the house area and proceded to new tasks, and while at it, I rememberred I should get my documents, like passport to ensure if something happens, I wouldn’t be trapped in Europe unable to go home. So, I ran to the house and went looking for my passport… but my room was a mess that I haven’t properly organized since I arrived, and as good as I could search for in so short amount of time, I could not find my passport. Remember when I said that lazyness is dooming?
I then heard Beppe shouting my name. Outside, he was next to a couple of policemen that were cursing us and telling us to get the hell out of there before the fire came.
I sighed, and, accepting the consequences of my negligency, went to Beppe’s car, carrying whatever important thing I could shove in my pockets. We drove up a hill away from the burning to get a better view of the situation.
There, we all sitted on the top where we could have a good look at all the village of Riffreddo. And it was a sad sight. An once beautiful landscape now all surrounded by smoke and spots ablaze.
I sat down, knees close to my chest, arms crossed and over them, with my head rested on top, just looking at that mess and while sad for all those in distraught, I was more concerned about my situation.
Then the second lesson came.
Beppe looked at his sad bunch of ragtag and tired volunteers and, making us turn our sight to where was his home said: “look there children, there is my home. I’ve built it myself, I’ve been living there for 15 years; my animals, my plants, all my life is there and as far as I know it can be now all ashes. If that’s the case, well then, I’ll just move on and rebuild it and begin again. The important thing is that we are all fine. Do not worry to much about things you can’t change.”
Shit.
I was there worrying about losing some clothes and some pieces of paper while the guy who was losing the work of his life wasn’t giving a single dime of fuck about it.
That cheered me up and we went to the church of the village where everybody was gathered waitin for the fire to be extinguished. To pass time Beppe and I tried to learn some french words.
The firemen allowed us to go back. The house didn’t burn. All of Beppe’s property wasn’t damaged by the fire, and it didn’t pass close even.
Our celebration was short lived however, because we then hear the fire had passed by Gabi’s house, and decided to stood there. And it had left its mark.
We went there to help him and sttod for a couple of hours putting out some blazes in a pile of charcoal that used to be wood. Half his house was burned and a third of his crops were destroyed, but the real damage could be seen upon his face. He was devastated.
After doing what we could, we all went back to Beppe’s for dinner. Gabi set by a column all night sobbing and barely ate. We all tried to cheer him up, but to little avail.
For the nex two days, Gabi was bedridden. He had inhaled too much smoke that he got sick. On the third day, however, when Beppe and I went to his place to get some apples he was there sitting in a chair, hearing reggae music, smoking a blunt and drinking a beer.
He was happy, very happy. He looked to me and smiled saying “I saved it” showing his cigarette. I didn’t understand, then his wife came and explained:
“You should have seen this crazy. We were here watching the house burn trying to salvage what we could when I lost track of him. I kept calling him and no sign of him. Until, he came bursting out of the flames from the house, holding this damn marijuana, all dirty with smog and shouting ‘I saved it, I saved it’”.
I laugh my ass off with him and then I could see that the good vibe was back to him again. After I gathered the apples we went around the house and he talked about his plans for the reconstruction.
He was excited to start rebuilding. There next to me was a man with half a house but twice the disposition. “Destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation” as it sings Anthony Kleidis.
I long for my return to the farm. To again live as a shepherd and see how his house looks.
