Culture - Marco Marucci - Il Circo di Nando
I
soon find out that the inhabitants
of this small community can be divided into two distinct categories.
The first are the performers who are
well paid and living in huge trailers. Almost all of them are Italians and many
of them are related to one another.
The second are the workers who are
in equal number to the performers.
They deal with all the things that are
not shown on the stage, working hard
in the backstage, far from the spot-
light. Many of these workers are Romanians, some are Indians and some
are Bulgarians, but all are essential
gears for this ancient machine to run
smoothly.
I soon become friends with everyone,
especially with the workers, due to the
fact that they did not have the large
homes the performers had and so
were used to living in common spaces,
thus making them more likely to talk.
Or maybe it was because I had a lot
of questions and they simply wanted
to speak about their lives. The story is
more or less the same for everybody;
like many others they arrived in Italy,
doing hard work for low wages, and
sent remittances back to their home
countries which in Italy may not be
considered a lot, but to their families
made a big difference.
The Travellist | Issue 3 | July 2015 p39