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Tra i nomadi c'è molta flessibilità: chi lavora in spiaggia, chi in una caffetteria.

Tra i nomadi c'è molta flessibilità: chi lavora in spiaggia, chi in una caffetteria.
Among the nomads there is a lot of flexibility: some work on the beach, some in a coffee shop.
From Lesson 439:Distributive correlative (chi ... chi ...)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Tra i nomadi c'è molta flessibilità: chi lavora in spiaggia, chi in una caffetteria.

How does chi ... chi ... work here, and why isn't it translated as "who"?
In this paired structure, chi ... chi ... acts distributively to mean "some [do this] ... some [do that]." It divides a larger group (the nomads) into subgroups. Even though chi usually means "who," here it is used to contrast different people within a group without specifying them.
Why is the verb lavora singular when the translation "some" refers to multiple people?
The pronoun chi always takes a third-person singular verb in Italian, even when its meaning implies a plural group like "some people" or "those who." That is why we use the singular lavora instead of the plural lavorano.
Where is the verb in the second half, chi in una caffetteria?
Italian often drops the verb in the second half of a correlative phrase if it is identical to the first. The sentence is perfectly understood as chi lavora in una caffetteria, but omitting the repeated verb avoids redundancy and makes the sentence flow better.
Why do we use an article before caffetteria but not before spiaggia?
The phrase in spiaggia is a fixed expression meaning "on the beach" or "at the beach," which naturally drops the article in Italian. We use una before caffetteria because we are talking about a countable, unspecific location ("a coffee shop").

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