19 February 2011
My married and forty-one year-old bus driver gave me another free ride, and I met his wife and children. Not quite as strange as it sounds: his wife brought his children to a bus stop and put them on without getting on herself. They were to spend some quality time with daddy…sitting in the seat behind him as he drove. His four and six year old, both questionably too small for the front seat of a car with a seatbelt, were placed in the giant bench seat behind him without seatbelts, standing, walking up and down the aisle, and alla round nearly giving me an ulcer as I sat next to them, jutting out my arm (Italian mother style) at every turn or deceleration.
Again, I need to get used to the less urban and less modern over-sensitivity with danger. Here, the more isolated, “out of sight, out of mind” rules. The two girls in Tempa del Fico, seven and nine, wear no seatbelts on their daily ride to and from school on unpaved mountain road, the younger one in the back inevitably standing up between the seats to be heard by those in the front.
Monday, April 11, 2011
WWOOFing in Italy: Best Bus Ride EVER
17 February 2011
Bus from isolated village to closest “city” of 9,000: 1 1/2 h, 2 trips/day, 6 days/week
As I arrived to the bus 15 minute early, the bus driver made the only logical decision in his position: he invited me to the nearest shop for an espresso while we waited. His name was Patrizio, or “I love Patrick!” as he introduced himself to me in his proud English with a good American handshake. We were three passengers on the bus, all sitting in the very front seats. The rest were clearly all old friends at this point; Patrizio must be one of very few drivers. Luckily, after my urging, they did their best to speak in Italian rather than dialect between themselves, so I may actually understand. From the beginning, Patrizio and I were becoming close friends. He practiced his eleven words of English, and told me about his cousin who lives in Brooklyn, told me about the time that he drove Sylvester Stallone and a diplomat from the White House, and showed me pictures of his two girls. A gem of the many conversations between he and the other two women was about his family.
“I’ve never been in love,” he was saying.
“You’re not married?” I ask, to which one of them women responds,
“Of course he’s married, to a beautiful woman with two children at that. Oh, Patriz’, how do you go and say you’ve never been in love…with such a beautiful wife! You should be grateful; your daughters got their looks from her.”
“Hey! I’m beautiful, too! …on the inside” he smiled back to me.
“But short. Hopefully your girls get some of your wife’s height.”
“Hey, I make up for size in other parts,” he responds with satisfaction and smiles back to me again.
These old Italian women don’t even flinch: “well, those genes are lost on daughters; they won’t do anyone any good until you have yourself a son.”
This 1 ½ hour bus ride covers a distance, from a bird’s point of view, that is no more than eight miles. 1 ½ hours? Painfully narrow, curving mountain roads, originally created in pre-car Italy. Not that this should be considered a challenge. For half of the ride, Patrizio was looking back to speak to us, singing songs in Neapolitan to me, talking on his cell phone while smoking a cigarette, or sending texts. I finally told him that I was very impressed by Italian drivers; by necessity they have to be much better than those in America, who have wide-open roads.
“We are great,” he agreed, “all this practice with maneuvering is why Italian bus drivers are great in bed.”
“Really? Well then, do you know any young Italian bus drivers you can introduce me to? Seeing as how you’re already married.”
“Married? What does that have to do with anything?” he joked. But, after joking, he immediately took my request very seriously: he called a friend in Rofrano (where I’ve been staying) who drives buses, also, younger and single.
Into the phone, “I’ve got this beautiful American girl here who would like to get to know an Italian bus driver… Take her out for a nice pizza when she gets back to Rofrano! Here she is…” and he handed the phone to me.
Smallness breeds conviviality. Especially in Southern Italy; I can’t lie that small town or big city in Italy is definitely more convivial than its counterpart in the States. Patrizio even confided in me that, North of Rome, bus drivers don’t even speak with their passengers (gasp! I acted surprised, as if what I’d seen in his bus were the norm for me). The bus driver and passengers knew each other by name and joked around together. For every car that we passed there was a honk of greeting and a wave. Most of the street corner piazzas with congregating Italian men—quintessential, even on a cold, rainy, winter day like today—we passed were met with shouted greeting out the window, and at one point the bus driver stopped in front of a house, honked and a woman came out for a conversation. Normal state of things, here.
Two-thirds through the ride, the manual gear shift broke going uphill, so the last section of the ride, conveniently just as we reached the only highway stretch at the bottom of the mountain, was spent using the only one shift available and moving between 25 and 40 kilometers an hour. Yikes.
When we finally arrived to Vallo della Lucania (where I was to meet my old Italian host family from a year of exchange seven years ago in high school!) the bus driver promised to bring me some mozzarella from his home in Paestum tomorrow, renown to be the best mozzarella in Italy, and wouldn’t let me pay for the ride; it was his treat. We exchanged phone numbers, of course; by now we’re old friends.
Bus from isolated village to closest “city” of 9,000: 1 1/2 h, 2 trips/day, 6 days/week
As I arrived to the bus 15 minute early, the bus driver made the only logical decision in his position: he invited me to the nearest shop for an espresso while we waited. His name was Patrizio, or “I love Patrick!” as he introduced himself to me in his proud English with a good American handshake. We were three passengers on the bus, all sitting in the very front seats. The rest were clearly all old friends at this point; Patrizio must be one of very few drivers. Luckily, after my urging, they did their best to speak in Italian rather than dialect between themselves, so I may actually understand. From the beginning, Patrizio and I were becoming close friends. He practiced his eleven words of English, and told me about his cousin who lives in Brooklyn, told me about the time that he drove Sylvester Stallone and a diplomat from the White House, and showed me pictures of his two girls. A gem of the many conversations between he and the other two women was about his family.
“I’ve never been in love,” he was saying.
“You’re not married?” I ask, to which one of them women responds,
“Of course he’s married, to a beautiful woman with two children at that. Oh, Patriz’, how do you go and say you’ve never been in love…with such a beautiful wife! You should be grateful; your daughters got their looks from her.”
“Hey! I’m beautiful, too! …on the inside” he smiled back to me.
“But short. Hopefully your girls get some of your wife’s height.”
“Hey, I make up for size in other parts,” he responds with satisfaction and smiles back to me again.
These old Italian women don’t even flinch: “well, those genes are lost on daughters; they won’t do anyone any good until you have yourself a son.”
This 1 ½ hour bus ride covers a distance, from a bird’s point of view, that is no more than eight miles. 1 ½ hours? Painfully narrow, curving mountain roads, originally created in pre-car Italy. Not that this should be considered a challenge. For half of the ride, Patrizio was looking back to speak to us, singing songs in Neapolitan to me, talking on his cell phone while smoking a cigarette, or sending texts. I finally told him that I was very impressed by Italian drivers; by necessity they have to be much better than those in America, who have wide-open roads.
“We are great,” he agreed, “all this practice with maneuvering is why Italian bus drivers are great in bed.”
“Really? Well then, do you know any young Italian bus drivers you can introduce me to? Seeing as how you’re already married.”
“Married? What does that have to do with anything?” he joked. But, after joking, he immediately took my request very seriously: he called a friend in Rofrano (where I’ve been staying) who drives buses, also, younger and single.
Into the phone, “I’ve got this beautiful American girl here who would like to get to know an Italian bus driver… Take her out for a nice pizza when she gets back to Rofrano! Here she is…” and he handed the phone to me.
Smallness breeds conviviality. Especially in Southern Italy; I can’t lie that small town or big city in Italy is definitely more convivial than its counterpart in the States. Patrizio even confided in me that, North of Rome, bus drivers don’t even speak with their passengers (gasp! I acted surprised, as if what I’d seen in his bus were the norm for me). The bus driver and passengers knew each other by name and joked around together. For every car that we passed there was a honk of greeting and a wave. Most of the street corner piazzas with congregating Italian men—quintessential, even on a cold, rainy, winter day like today—we passed were met with shouted greeting out the window, and at one point the bus driver stopped in front of a house, honked and a woman came out for a conversation. Normal state of things, here.
Two-thirds through the ride, the manual gear shift broke going uphill, so the last section of the ride, conveniently just as we reached the only highway stretch at the bottom of the mountain, was spent using the only one shift available and moving between 25 and 40 kilometers an hour. Yikes.
When we finally arrived to Vallo della Lucania (where I was to meet my old Italian host family from a year of exchange seven years ago in high school!) the bus driver promised to bring me some mozzarella from his home in Paestum tomorrow, renown to be the best mozzarella in Italy, and wouldn’t let me pay for the ride; it was his treat. We exchanged phone numbers, of course; by now we’re old friends.
Friday, April 8, 2011
WWOOF Italy Farm Lesson: Cold
16 Feb 2011
Everything is so cold! The water is cold when I wash my hands. The soap is cold. The floor is cold, beverages at room temperature are cold. We have really numbed ourselves from reality in the modern world, now unused to any discomfort at all. For all but a sliver of modern history, people were ecstatic to have access to a fire for warmth. Why does it seem such a sacrifice to me today? Although there is absolutely no heating in my room*, there is a lovely fireplace in the kitchen and a handy lighter to light it…cavemen would have been envious! This complaint comes as I sit in Southern Italy, hardly the Tibetan plateau or Alaskan tundra. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.
*I sleep every night with a brick that has been heated in the fire. Usually the mother Donatella wrapped it in fabric for me and sent me off to bed, but once I had to do it myself. I stuck it in the inside pocket of my coat and went off to brush my teeth. I got to my room, unzipped my coat, and a cloud of smoke puffed up into my face. Apparently Donatella carefully made sure the brick cooled off before she wrapped it. I’ll have to find a way to fix that hole in my coat when I get back home…
Everything is so cold! The water is cold when I wash my hands. The soap is cold. The floor is cold, beverages at room temperature are cold. We have really numbed ourselves from reality in the modern world, now unused to any discomfort at all. For all but a sliver of modern history, people were ecstatic to have access to a fire for warmth. Why does it seem such a sacrifice to me today? Although there is absolutely no heating in my room*, there is a lovely fireplace in the kitchen and a handy lighter to light it…cavemen would have been envious! This complaint comes as I sit in Southern Italy, hardly the Tibetan plateau or Alaskan tundra. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.
*I sleep every night with a brick that has been heated in the fire. Usually the mother Donatella wrapped it in fabric for me and sent me off to bed, but once I had to do it myself. I stuck it in the inside pocket of my coat and went off to brush my teeth. I got to my room, unzipped my coat, and a cloud of smoke puffed up into my face. Apparently Donatella carefully made sure the brick cooled off before she wrapped it. I’ll have to find a way to fix that hole in my coat when I get back home…
WWOOF Italy Farm Lessons: Animals' Usefulness
15 Feb 2011
Donkeys.
Why would a farmer have donkeys, I ask myself? Goats and cows make milk. Sheep make wool. But donkeys? Well, they carry stuff, but Angelo has a truck, so is that really necessary anymore? According to Sergio (who as an Italian anthropologist studying identity in Italy’s Campania region (this one) has come to be my top informant), donkeys are a part of Campania identity. Angelo told him that how a farmer treats his donkeys is “a reflection on his ability and success as a farmer”. So they are symbolic…for all this extra work? “For Angelo, yes, but not for all. Donkeys are such a large part of Campania identity because they have historically been so necessary for transporting heavy loads in this mountainous terrain. In Amalfi, (a quaint town and tourist Mecca that is known for its houses built into the side of the mountain), many who built houses there today still use donkeys. The machinery necessary and practical to build on such difficult, steep terrain is often too expensive and impractical. Long story short, because of their past usefulness and at times because of their ongoing usefulness we still have to take care of these damn donkeys.
*this is hardly a worthy complaint; their personalities can be more developed and they can be more playful than dogs. And since it is rare that someone asks a dog owner to defend a practical use for his dog, donkey owners deserve the same rights.
Bunnies and Chickens.
At this farm, they eat primarily the meat that they make themselves. Thus, bunnies and chickens. So little and infrequent. This is the tradition diet of this area, pre-WWII. People ate very little meat, lots of vegetables, lots of grains. Closer to the sea they would have eaten more seafood; here perhaps the occasional wild boar from the mountains. This is the more realistic Mediterranean diet. Very little meat, lots of vegetables, and another major food group often under stressed: legumes.
Glorious Legumes.
Fava beans (as well as other legumes such as chickpeas) have developed as a necessary part of Italian peasant cuisine because they are a necessary part of agricultural sustainability. Very abridged agricultural lesson: of many very important compounds, vitamins, and minerals in the soil, nitrogen is one that plants absolutely cannot grow without. Legumes, however, are different than most other plants in that, rather than taking nitrogen from the soil, they fix nitrogen from the air and actually add more nitrogen to the soil. So a traditional farmer would know that seasonally fava beans need to be rotated throughout the garden to keep nutrients cycling and the soil nitrogen rich. Conveniently, the same beans are also an extremely important source of protein and fiber, so necessity made beans become an important part of the traditional cuisine.
Donkeys.
Why would a farmer have donkeys, I ask myself? Goats and cows make milk. Sheep make wool. But donkeys? Well, they carry stuff, but Angelo has a truck, so is that really necessary anymore? According to Sergio (who as an Italian anthropologist studying identity in Italy’s Campania region (this one) has come to be my top informant), donkeys are a part of Campania identity. Angelo told him that how a farmer treats his donkeys is “a reflection on his ability and success as a farmer”. So they are symbolic…for all this extra work? “For Angelo, yes, but not for all. Donkeys are such a large part of Campania identity because they have historically been so necessary for transporting heavy loads in this mountainous terrain. In Amalfi, (a quaint town and tourist Mecca that is known for its houses built into the side of the mountain), many who built houses there today still use donkeys. The machinery necessary and practical to build on such difficult, steep terrain is often too expensive and impractical. Long story short, because of their past usefulness and at times because of their ongoing usefulness we still have to take care of these damn donkeys.
*this is hardly a worthy complaint; their personalities can be more developed and they can be more playful than dogs. And since it is rare that someone asks a dog owner to defend a practical use for his dog, donkey owners deserve the same rights.
Bunnies and Chickens.
At this farm, they eat primarily the meat that they make themselves. Thus, bunnies and chickens. So little and infrequent. This is the tradition diet of this area, pre-WWII. People ate very little meat, lots of vegetables, lots of grains. Closer to the sea they would have eaten more seafood; here perhaps the occasional wild boar from the mountains. This is the more realistic Mediterranean diet. Very little meat, lots of vegetables, and another major food group often under stressed: legumes.
Glorious Legumes.
Fava beans (as well as other legumes such as chickpeas) have developed as a necessary part of Italian peasant cuisine because they are a necessary part of agricultural sustainability. Very abridged agricultural lesson: of many very important compounds, vitamins, and minerals in the soil, nitrogen is one that plants absolutely cannot grow without. Legumes, however, are different than most other plants in that, rather than taking nitrogen from the soil, they fix nitrogen from the air and actually add more nitrogen to the soil. So a traditional farmer would know that seasonally fava beans need to be rotated throughout the garden to keep nutrients cycling and the soil nitrogen rich. Conveniently, the same beans are also an extremely important source of protein and fiber, so necessity made beans become an important part of the traditional cuisine.
First WWOOF Host: Farm's Self-Description
14 Feb 2011
WWOOF Italy's list has over 450 hosts. Thus, a potential WWOOFer needs to sift through hundreds of paragraph descriptions that sum up a unique family and farm to choose where they most like to stay. To get a sense of the descriptions, here is the description of the first farm. I assure, the description is much less colorful than my three weeks spent there!
Google Map Location:
Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa
---
La Tempa del Fico is a farm where we run courses and workshops (for schools and associations etc) about rural ecological education, the use of wild aromatic herbs, water cycles, bread making etc. We have 2.5 hectares of land, use only natural methods and have a synergic vegetable garden. We grow 'Casusedda di Pruno' and 5 other ancient varieties of wheat. We are also hoping to install a stone mill. Activities include trekking with 2 donkeys (to increase to 7 when the stall made of chestnut posts, stone and straw bales is constructed) along the paths of the Cilento. We promote communication and solidarity for high quality organic produce from the sea to the mountains. Accommodation in room or in own tent during busy periods. Stays of at least three weeks preferred, children welcome. Meals vegetarian.
WWOOF Italy's list has over 450 hosts. Thus, a potential WWOOFer needs to sift through hundreds of paragraph descriptions that sum up a unique family and farm to choose where they most like to stay. To get a sense of the descriptions, here is the description of the first farm. I assure, the description is much less colorful than my three weeks spent there!
Google Map Location:
Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa
---
La Tempa del Fico is a farm where we run courses and workshops (for schools and associations etc) about rural ecological education, the use of wild aromatic herbs, water cycles, bread making etc. We have 2.5 hectares of land, use only natural methods and have a synergic vegetable garden. We grow 'Casusedda di Pruno' and 5 other ancient varieties of wheat. We are also hoping to install a stone mill. Activities include trekking with 2 donkeys (to increase to 7 when the stall made of chestnut posts, stone and straw bales is constructed) along the paths of the Cilento. We promote communication and solidarity for high quality organic produce from the sea to the mountains. Accommodation in room or in own tent during busy periods. Stays of at least three weeks preferred, children welcome. Meals vegetarian.
Backed up Queue of Posts
After many computer woes, I have numerous already written but never posted entries. Posting them now will throw everything out of mental order, but when life gives you lemons... (I suppose my implication is that non-chronological blogposts give you lemonade).
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Three weeks with a broken computer...
I have found a solution to my computer woes! I spent two days in Rome with two girls, Simona and Maura (names changed to conceal identities), the daughters of close family friends of my host family in the South of Italy. Of course being in Milan, I thought, I’ll have as good of access as I’ll find in Italy to Mac stores or Mac repair. I did not have quite as much success as I had hoped, however, as import taxes, Italian keyboards, and absurd Mac Store repair prices made getting help unrealistic. After spending half of the day at their house Skyping my mother and ranting to the poor woman about how the world was out to get me, contemplating every way to save an extra $10, Simona finally said, “You know, my second laptop I never use.”
“Second laptop?”
“It’s a smaller one, like purse size…I actually don’t really know why I bought it.”
In the end, I’m borrowing Simona’s extra laptop for the next month and a half and returning it before I leave. I planned to give her 100 Euros for the month and a half I’m using it, but in the end she decided not to let me pay her! In retrospect, thank god: this computer’s keyboard is about 8 inches wide and it is slower than a snail…in some ways I am finding it as much of an impediment to completing work and communication than not having a computer at all.
“Second laptop?”
“It’s a smaller one, like purse size…I actually don’t really know why I bought it.”
In the end, I’m borrowing Simona’s extra laptop for the next month and a half and returning it before I leave. I planned to give her 100 Euros for the month and a half I’m using it, but in the end she decided not to let me pay her! In retrospect, thank god: this computer’s keyboard is about 8 inches wide and it is slower than a snail…in some ways I am finding it as much of an impediment to completing work and communication than not having a computer at all.
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