Ever lived without the electricity? Or water? Even a holiday? A week, or just a weekend camping in a tent ...

Then imagine living in a city where you have water every two or three days. In my old home city, Palermo, there was water, exactly, every 2 to 3 days, depending on which part of the city you live. The storm making black "my" other city makes me remmber the other, real home ... so. The Old City is not the greatest and most desireable place to live. We used to have the running water every two days, but a few years ago it got switched to every three. That is some hours in the morning or evening every three days. Old city is the home, is The city, but not the comfort zone in no sense. In Notarbartolo you get water maybe everey day, in province up to every six days. Can you imagine that? If you don't have big private tanks of water to store it for that many days, you don't cook, wash dishes, clean, have a shower more than barely once a week.

The water runs so weak in the city that if you live higher than the 2nd floor, you need a pump to get it. Some years ago, the pump of my home was stolen. In the middle of the day. As the others were gone, I could survive a week, going to the beach, Mondello, daily .. having an ice cold shower and a lot of sea there. If it wasn't august, it would have been impossible. Anyway. Did you say you love Italy? Italy is also the poor cities of south where the not enough employed plumbers run to houses to steal water pumps, only to sell and install them back. It is also non-working, old water heaters. That summer the water heater broke down. I think I had some hot water around june .. In the end of september, I moved to UK, and the first night there felt heavenly. Cold and rainy outside, but with a pleasure I spent at least a quarter an hour under nearly boiling water. After so many months, it felt really good.

The water heaters break elsewhere too. In september, again .. Due to letteral pain caused by the cold, I could just not have a cold shower. So, a week no shower .. what a luck it must be to have the skin soft as a baby elephant's bottom.

I am not very used to no water or no light, but I try to keep at least a week of ascetism a year. Camping. That makes me respect better the everyday comforts. Water, lights ... net, and so on. Visiting the Africa (of not the turists) will be educative in this sense too, but I haven't had the chance yet (nor interest going there alone, not speaking arabic or french). So the camping has to do. It makes me remember my grandma, she died around 1980. I was really small, I have rally vague memories of her. I remember she liked me. And I know for sure that she lived all her life in an ascetic home. She never had running water or electric light home. She and wireless internet are light years apart. I have a picture of her visiting our ugly suburban home (in the cheap element built, anonyme ad dell, blocks of flats) .. and I think it must have been an adventure to her. A few days of not boiling the water to do the laundry .. she could read in the evening if she wanted to, no forced dark or danger of falling asleep with the candle on. A shower that was home... I was tiny in those pictures, I don't remember it at all. But it is not that far ago.. and that world is still in a great part of the world. Not all have running water, light... and editing php templates in a candle light on a notebook isn't probably the most ascetic and authentic way to commemorate but I can't do anything better tonight ...