the sound of my little cart on the cobblestones echoes down via della paglia, where a little group of street sellers is huddled. its sunday afternoon. what happened? i ask, since they all seem quite flustered about something. adel the moroccan tells me the police has come sweeping through rome, on its latest power trip, confiscating all material sold on the street, be it illegal or handcrafted. some have had days worth of craft shoved in a van, to be dealt with only at the hands of a merciless beurocracy.
where are the others?
santiago has gone to ponte sisto, to see if its safe there.
i waddle on with my cart, until i run into oscar, from cordoba, guitar on his back, and we're off to ponte sisto, beer in hand.
on the bridge a few have opened up. there's nura, and gaia, and here comes edgar the mexican with his jester's head, dreads boppin and arms open, and valentina with her dog frida. i set up and we're off, people stop but its a little cold, and bridges you see, are made for passing over things, so we sit, and chat regardless, and watch the world take its stroll. the sun is fading and the vespertine haze of the evening envelops the first lights over the tiber.
at eight we decide to try piazza sant'egidio again, although we are warned the cops might make another appearance around 8:30. so we decide to get some chinese. carts echoing together on the cobblestone. i ask nura, what happened to mustafa?

mustafa is from senegal. he's been here for four years or more, works his ass off, like many others, as a street seller, in limbo between the impossiblity of a permit and the absurdity of returning home. he sends most of the money he makes from burnt cds to his family back home. the people know him, he is among the many recognizable faces of trastevere, the cops know him, and despite the many confiscations he keeps coming back to his spot, to do the only work he can do.

nura tells me they came undercover, everybody thought they were tourists. they pulled out their badges and then, instead of simply telling everyone to leave, which is the ususal style, they went about tearing down tables; jewlery and scarves flying into bags, sellers with no legal rights standing back to watch their work being tossed away. they even confiscated the inflatable bunnies from the guy in the square. when it came to him, mustafa didn't run, so the young policeman decided to spray his eyes with the pepper spray. he went home that he could barely see. nura tells me that once, because he resisted slightly, they sedated him with a needle, so that for a week he would come to work wobbling like a sick dog, barely able to stand.
he has no rights, he is among the millions of faceless immigrants who stick out like a sore thumb in berlusconi's empire of bullshit. i feel a rage surge, but it stops there somewhere between trachea and aesophagus, creating a bubble of heaviness. she tells me the old man from the apartment on top opened his window to tell the cops to stop breakin everybody's balls they're just kids they don't bother anyone. we represent the law, says one. i don't give a fuck! yells the pensioner before slamming the window shut. at least we got street solidarity.

eventually we open up again on the thin street that connects the two squares, michel is already there, chatting up italian girls, with that ecuadorian charm. i manage to sell the first painting in two days, the others clap, at my disbelief mainly. then we sing a little something, echoes of the previous week's improvised folklore, boy with accordeon, boy with guitar, a bunch of us dancing the tarantella arm in arm, and rome becomes a village again.