‘Speedy Gonzales’ street-line painter proves hit in Italy

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/20/speedy-gonzales-street-line-painter-italy-indrit-mema

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There is a new sensation from the land of Michelangelo and Caravaggio. His name is Indrit Mema and the roads in Cosio Valtellino, an Italian alpine hamlet in Lombardy, are his canvas.

A video of the 38-year-old going about his job as a street-line painter has gone viral thanks to the Albanian immigrant’s speed, efficiency and precision.

The man now being called “Speedy Gonzales” said he travelled to Italy on a dinghy in 1998 for one reason: work. Since then, painting streets has become a passion.

In the four-minute video, Mema can be seen riding a road-marking machine as if he is a Formula One driver. He races along, spraying the paint and placing orange marker cones down without wasting an instant of taxpayers’ time.

“It’s my job, that’s all,” Mema said, shrugging off his newfound fame.

The fact that the video generated 1m clicks on La Repubblica’s website seems to tell an even bigger story, according to the Italian paper: that an ordinary man doing an ordinary job has become such a rarity in Italy that it is met with awe.

At a time when newspapers are full of stories of “Mafia Capitale”, the ongoing corruption scandal that has touched nearly every public service in Rome, including the yellow bins that collect second-hand clothes meant for the poor, any hint of people going about their work honourably is celebrated.

Argilio Giacomazzi, the captain of the Norman Atlantic ferry, was dubbed a hero for not abandoning the ship after it caught fire on the Adriatic Sea, in contrast to the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia ferry.

Mema, who owns his own company, said his job sometimes reminded him of being a kid on a go-kart. But he insisted he was not the only hard worker in his adopted home town. “Whatever I know, I learned from Italians.”