fpb | Strange heroism

Frascati is something which, according to Our Lord, cannot be hidden: a city built on a hill. It rises, a part of the historic crown of "Castles of Rome", descended from the Latin free cities of antiquity, on the volcanic ranges of central Lazio, steep and old and beautiful.

Years ago, a Polish woman came to the neighbourhood, meaning to settle. She had a little girl who was born in Frascati, and was therefore an Italian citizen. When her time came, she was sent to the local elementary school; and by her sixth year of school - which was this year - the Polish lady's daughter had built up a reputation as her year's star student, hard-working, well-behaved and always neatly turned out.

Which is impressive when you consider that she and her mother had spent the last month of winter living in a local cave.

The woman had never managed to get a permanent job, and the stream of temporary cheap jobs that had kept mother and child going for ten years had dried out. So she had taken that strange refuge - directly below a local public park; and every morning she and the child used the park's fountains to wash, and every evening the child did her homework, God knows how.

The woman had a boyfriend, who became worried and got in touch with social services. Eventually mother and daughter were found a place in a volunteer housing project. But there is something immensely impressive about the cleanness and dignity of this story - which, according to today's La Repubblica newspaper, is absolutely true.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wow. What an impressive woman and little girl...and how nice that a place was found for them.

I'm glad it all turned out OK, and that they kept their dignity, but I'm suprised about the time they were living in the cave. Europe's "social service safely net" is always held up as an example (here, to us). Didn't the school have someone checking up on the family? There was no sign at all that they were in trouble?

Europe's social safety net worked as it was supposed to work. It is not intended (except, who knows, perhaps in a few overexcited empire-building minds) to follow each existing family in a big-brother fashion. This was obviously a tiny family unit that had never given anyone any reason to worry. Children are signalled to social services when they come to school in a dishevelled state or with signs of abuse or neglect; this girl was the star student of her year and always neat and clean. (I can tell you, having been homeless myself for a few months long ago, that it is quite possible to live that way for a while; the trouble begins when clothes start to wear out and get stains that cannot be easily removed.) It took, in fact, the woman's boyfriend to inform anyone that anything was wrong. But when the social services were informed, they did their work efficiently (so far as I can see); the mother and daughter had been in their desperate shelter for less than a month when a place was found for both. I may add that Rome and its historical neighbourhood are notorious for their permanent housing shortage, so to find a suitable place for two pennyless persons was no easy task.

Less than a month is certainly fast enough for a response, under any circumstances, but I still worry about the mother. (The only examples I have for comparison are the local paranoid schizophrenics, who run and hide from the people who are trying to help them.) It's a huge job to help the mentally ill, and too often little ones (especially high-performing children)think the job is theirs alone. The life they were living seems (to me) to be a child's solution to a overwhelming problem - it met her need to stay close to the people she needed (her school-mates and her mother). I expect an adult to have a larger view of available resources, and chose different solutions. I think they both are very blessed to have found help.

You forget the boyfriend. He evidently was concerned enough to take action, and it is because of him that the whole story came to light. But I know quite a few people who would rather do that than be what they regard as a burden to others.

The boyfriend is the example of what an adult would do versus what a child would do. You wouldn't leave a child to live in a cave in the winter, friend or not, just as he didn't.

How incredibly impressive of that woman and her daughter, and it's nice to find a story of social services working well and swiftly. Apparently the boyfriend is also a good and responsible person.

Strange heroism

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