”Dear Beppe,
This evening in my city, as in many other cities, there’s the beginning of the festivities for 150 years. But of what? I have refused to attach a flag to the balcony because I don’t believe that Italy truly exists. Formally yes, but not as a people. We are a bunch of individualists who see ourselves as a people only when the national team is playing. We no longer get indignant about what our ruling class is doing and saying; the important thing is to have a full shopping trolley and a great TV with a Sky subscription. I am feeling bitter because after graduating I was working for a number of years as a freelance professional combining work and family and I have given this world a reasonable number of offspring. After a very controversial separation, I went back to work issuing an invoice for every euro that I was paid (and also for those that some clients have never paid). I have never stopped looking after my children and fighting with a state school system that is very patchy with teachers that don’t know how to speak Italian and that made me have to do extra work in the evenings to help them with their studies so as to be sure that they learn how to express themselves in the national language. With all that, I have always paid the same taxes as a colleague with no children and who perhaps is living with their own parents … And the result was: for the last few months I’ve changed my job: I have an appointment system for receiving men. Basically I’m a prostitute. I couldn’t do anything differently. I was about to go mad. I was fed up of getting to some weekends with the children at home, the fridge empty and twenty euro in my wallet. I have tried everything but in the end I have thrown myself into this work that definitely allows me to earn well and to have free time to dedicate to my children. And to pay off the debts that have unavoidably mounted up over the years. It’s not easy but at least I feel the pride in being able to guarantee there’s the minimum indispensable for my children. However, I leave it to the others to fly the ‘tricolore’”. Maria