Taking a job at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) was kind of always on the cards... but never seriously... (they get an average of 120 applications per job)... so when i was offered a senior position there, we had a “mature” talk with Vibeke... and went for it... I wanted to try for professional an non professional reasons (back in 1988 I did a FAO run training that opened unimaginable doors in my future life, and my first job in development was consultancy for them).
I finish paying my mortgage back in NZ so i was ready for some change, Vib wanted to be closer to her sick dad, and we think would be good for the children to live in a big city for while... ergo... here we are
Rome:
Feels like Buenos Aires, which shows me the HUGE influence that Italians have over the city.
Of course... there are things 3500 years older and cars are tiny and new... but I can not stop relating them in my mind… I see a small car crash… and it was so similar... the stone paved street… the old trees… the gestures… the thumb that joins with the four fingers to form a pyramid while the hand rises up and down… the moccasinos, the jeans, the stripy shirt, the gelled hair back... the other cars passing for the side… the bus going off with the horn… the bystanders... the punters in the corner‘s cafe (there is one in every corner) chatting among them and adhering its comments (of course without moving their bums off the chair).
The city and its histories stacked above each other… literally… in many places the foundations are of a long past century and 200 years later the place was transformed with stones removed of other ruins, and later reconstructed again in the medieval period… and then it finalises reconstruction 100 yeas ago tto what you see today… at times is like to walk in a museum where lives people, with many pizzerias, cafes and ice cream parlours.
The great difference is that in Buenos Aires you have the city in a grid, and Rome is a spaghetti of streets that only locals understand… things change once you leave the walls of the old city and the world of the monoblocks begins which is quite depressive (as everywhere I imagine) that is where inhabit the remainder of the people that cannot pay the exorbitance of the prices of the city.
But the fact that I am going to work walking a street in which 3000 years ago another bloke like me, also walked to to face his day… is full on… from my office I see the termas of caracalla… I have my macchiato looking toward the circus maximus, the coliseum and the Roman forum… quite cool i have to admit…
Food:
Impressive and excellent… everyone knows about food… for example the bloke that came to install the phone... i asked him how you say kumara (sweet potato) in italian... and of course he knew, as well where and the best season to buy... the conversation stop because he got a phone call... one of many actually... he was home from 11 till 4.30 pm! and most of the time on it mobile... but now we have 20mb fast internet
Remarkably the city is full of small food business, salumerias, butchers, dairies, bakeries, stores that are of the size of a garage and they subsist based on the loyal clientele… there are supermarkets… but the percentage per capita is the lowest of Europe... you need to leave the city to see a big supermarket
Already I have an adopted family… they are the guys of the pizzeria around the corner… a cubicle where you eat standing up…" angeli and diavoli" … masters…. to do pizza at home never will be the same…
Work:
Uh… forms, hierarchies, image, e-mails, PCs, permissions, entry cards, index, forms (yes again), coffee in the eighth floor, salary, subsidy, UN passport, etc… all this is new for me… many times claustrophobic…
For example: my category is P4 s9 (they go from P1a P5 and of s1 to s12), so I have the right to a large desk with formica cover and 2 chairs without armrest, a library and a coat hanger, if i was P5 then my equally serious desk will have a wood cover and the chairs would have armrest… the P3 and P2 has the right to smaller desks, 1 chair (without armrest) and they do not have access to coat stands!
Outside those idiocies... I’m learning a lot of… there are always interesting courses around (climate change, property rights, sustainability indicators, and so on) and my work while similar to what i did before is in a wider spectrum… and i manage to mix managing programmes and being a foot soldier
The people… as everywhere i guess…. crappie people, some conceited and useless, but also many cool and efficient people with fascinating backgrounds, Norwegian that grow up in Ecuador and is married to a girl of Ivory Coast... Swedish that grow up in Liberia, a Chinese bloke that is completely Italian, Portuguese American that lived in Wellington, and so on… professionally you have the whole spectrum, some are like me that came for the experience and to see what’s up... to others whose ambition of life It is to do career in the system of the UN.
i pass from feeling like a martian, to be among peers several times during the work day. I suppose that I will get used to it… but so far I really do not I see my self being part of the system.
Said so, coming to Rome was a family decision, and so far I believe my family has adapted remarkably well (better than me perhaps). Felix is flourishing at school, Kika shines at Kindy, and Vibeke seem full of plans and enthusiasm... even so we all miss our little island in NZ.
See Vib's blogg (The sack of Rome) on our life in Rome for a more day to day perspective
