Ludovico

Via Po, almost at the intersection with via Accademia Albertina. Bus and tram stops. There's a lot of coming and going. It is mid-morning when we see Ludovico kneeling in the middle of the portico. In his hand a small cardboard: «I'M-HUNGRY», he wrote. He is smiling, with a friendly and calm air, her hat on the ground to collect some coins. Kneeling in the middle of the porch. With a sign. In short, you can't miss it. But it acts as a bollard, nothing more. Yet he does not lose his calm and solidity in the position.

It was 2005, he had obtained a large mortgage, at a variable interest rate, to buy land and a building. His dream was to create a farmhouse. It was difficult to cover the monthly payments, as well as all the bills, and by skipping just one the bank would have ordered the forced withdrawal from the current account, and then the foreclosure of the assets.

In 2007 the beginning of the personal disaster. The metalworking factory for which he worked declares bankruptcy, Ludovico has no more income. The requests to find the money begin. Nobody helps him. The welfare of his Country does not provide a parachute for those who lose their jobs. The crash is inevitable. As well as the end of his marriage. What to do? Emigrating seems to him the solution. He arrives in Italy.

Ludovico is curious, he wants to get involved, but when the street becomes your home for too long, he loses the rhythm of life. So the years go by, faster than the people who get off at bus and tram stops, between via Po and via Accademia Albertina. «I'M-HUNGRY», he wrote. Hunger for air, for rhythm, for life. He says it to himself even before the passers-by.