Ten years after the earthquake, Giuseppe doesn't give up: in Pescara del Tronto between hope and loneliness

"I'm tied to this place and I continue to believe in it: I'm not used to giving up."

Giuseppe Filotei is 28 years old and has never wanted to leave Pescara del Tronto. Ten years ago, when the earthquake of 24 August 2016 wiped out the hamlet of Arquata del Tronto (Ascoli Piceno), he was barely an adult. Today he still lives in an Emergency Housing Solution (SAE), works on the family farm and continues to imagine his future there, in a place where almost all his peers have instead chosen to build a life elsewhere.

"How have these ten years been? Lots of promises and few facts, words in the wind. The situation is still this", he tells ANSA looking at what remains of Pescara del Tronto. "Everything has remained like this for ten years, but we don't give up", he reiterates. Giuseppe helps his father and mother in the family business, a farm with sheep, goats and lambs connected to the butcher's shop in the industrial area of ​​Pescara del Tronto. The sister, however, left the territory five years ago. He remained: "I am tied to this place, I was born here and I didn't feel like leaving. Hope is the last to die."

On the night of the earthquake he did not lose family members, but he lost friends and above all, he says, an important part of his youth. "The best years we could have lived here were stolen from us. - he says - Before, especially in the summer, it was full of people, many Romans came, many friends. Now they never come back because they don't even know where to go".

His family's house was destroyed and every day Giuseppe looks out without seeing the village in which he was born and raised. "After ten years you almost get used to it - he says - but it's not normal and it shouldn't happen to anyone." Staying also means dealing with a loneliness that weighs heavily on a 28-year-old boy. Giuseppe would like to build a family one day, but admits that even finding a girlfriend has become difficult: "Many people have left, many of my age have never returned." When asked if he is happy today, he smiles bitterly: "Halfway, let's say. It's not easy to wake up every morning and not be in your own home." Yet Giuseppe continues to be there. He works, resists and looks to Pescara del Tronto as the place where he would like to continue living. "My future here? Let's hope. I'll try", he says with conviction. After ten years of waiting, his choice remains the same: not to leave and continue to believe that that country can come back to life.