Sign of the Times
The post office in Neive "alto" is opened three days a week for the 100 or so residents of the village.
John and I have our mailed delivered to a post office box. They told us we were the first postal box they had ever assigned.
Casella Postale Numero 2.
"Why not #1, if we are the only box?" I asked.
"Because the post office itself is numero uno."
Ah, okay.
So for almost four years we have been picking up our mail, always aware of the potential crush of the elderly people of the village that crowd the post office on the first and fifteenth of each month to receive their pension payments. In Italy the post office is where people pay municipal fees and countless other financial transactions like magazine subscriptions and parking tickets. It is also where they receive their pension payments.
With the exception of two or three families the demographic of our village veers towards 85 years old. Which means the 1st and the 15th of each month at the post office is crazy busy. At any given time anywhere from two to ten neighbors catching up on news while waiting for their pensions to be paid - in cash.
Each transaction takes between five and twenty minutes. While I wait I eavesdrop on the discussion of aches, pains, births, deaths, grandkids and the like. I thought it would improve my Italian until I realized they were all speaking Piemontese dialect. The longer I live here the more I learn to speak Italian with a decidedly northern accent.
Technically, any postal transactions are supposed to cut in front of all of the other bill paying/pension activity, but I never accept the offer, it just wouldn't be right, me a foreigner, cutting in front of my geriatric neighbors.
Towards the end of last year the crowds in the post office steadily diminished. At first I was relieved that I could pick up my mail without a wait until I finally asked the clerk what was going on and she told me that they automated the pension payments so the cash went directly to the bank account of the recipients. If you know anything about Italians, at least those of a certain age, you will know they hate banks and they only deal with cash.
While their decision I am sure makes sense from a cost of business perspective, it has removed an integral part of the already fragile social fabric of the old folks in this village. Tags: italy, culture, banking, neive