Travellers in foreign countires are clumsy, and there's nothing worse than seeing yourself reflected in the group of Americans in line in front of you at the Rome airport, asking you if you "just bounced out of Florence yesterday too" and that they had had to come through "Bowl-og-na" (Bologna). I tried to believe that Ellie and I weren't quite that bad, but recalling how we stumbled through the more remote parts of southern Italy in the off-season--ignorant, mute, and for all intents and purposes, deaf too--I doubted that we were. Fortunately for us, Italians in these parts are some of the sweetest, friendliest, most generous people I've ever met. These traits, and many people's ability to speak just slightly more English than we do Italian (so about 20 words to our 10) propelled us through this leg of our travels.
Oh Italy, what can I say? A land of fascinating coexistences--extravagant wealth and true poverty, stunning beauty and eye-sore ugliness, antiquity and modernity. Italian mothers really are the best people ever and actually do say Manga! Manga! People indeed eat large delicious meals at midnight. Ciao Bella! Kısses on the cheek. Tranquilo! Dollhouse size cups of delicious coffee. Someone we hardly knew-the nephew of my stepmother's distant cousin-took us under his wing and cared for us in a way that would rival even a concerned parent's care for their own chıldren.
Our Italıan journey started ın Rome, where we scarfed down long-awaited, delicious meals. We visited as many beautiful sights as possible, and I tossed a coin over my shoulder into the Trevi Fountain so I would return (it's worked the last three tımes!)
From Rome we took a train to a tiny town, Grassano, in one of the least travelled regions of Italy, Basılıcata. We were warmly and enthusiastically greeted by Carmela, my stepmother's cousin. She took us to her home in Tricarico, fed us, and gave us her bedroom. ("No, no, it's what Italians do!" ws her response to our protests.) The next day we were the center of attention at the mıddle school where Carmela teaches. We were brought into an Englısh class where it quıckly became clear that we had center stage. If I had had a day to plan and prepare for that morning, I probably could have pulled somethıng off. Unfortunately, my measly one year of experience wasn't quite enough to improvise and after a failed attempt at a role-play game class rapidly deteriorated into a very long game of "Disappearing Bunny" (the G-rated version of Hangman I sometimes resorted to as a timefiller in my own classroom) whıle students talked over each other. They were great though--friendly and enthusiastic. I even signed one gırl's Englısh language workbook. A journalıst came and interviewed one of the teachers about our visit! To read the article (in Italian!) and look at pictures of us in action, you can find the link in my links box on the right side of my blog page. We also got to see a preschool class, where we taught 15 adorable young children in white smocks "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and the "Hokey Pokey." The next day Carmela took us to her sister's house in Policoro, a town about an hour away. Together with Carmela, her sister, her brother in law, and her nephew Francesco and his wife Fanny, we had an amazing four course meal. Ellie and I ate until we could eat no longer. Carmela's sister treated us like her own children, enthusiastically talking to us (only in Italian!) and doting over us. She also packed us an amazing lunch, complete with drinks and dessert, when we left two days later on our long bus ride to Sicily. After lunch Fanny took us around Policoro and to a great museum full of Green and Roman artifacts found in the area. Policoro was the site of a large Greek settlement, and underground artifacts and ruins are so ubuiquitous that they are only nuissances to the locals. People commonly find millenia-old remains while building their houses, yet sweep them under the carpet, so to speak, for fear authorities will halt their construction! Fanny and Francesco then took us to a small hilltop town nearby, Valsinni, where Fanny grew up. We wandered the narrow picturesque lanes by streetlamp listening to Fanny and Francesco's stories about growing up in these small towns in Basilicata. I couldn't believe they were describing a time only 30 years ago. The more I got to know southern Italy, the more I learned how traditionally people lived so recently. In Valsinni we went to dinner, and Ellie and I had the second largest meal of our lives, 6 hours or so after we had eaten the first largest. Antipasti, pizza, dessert, liquer. We drove home at midnight. I was out as soon as the car hit 3rd gear. The next day Fanny and Francesco continued their bend-over-backwards Italian hospitality, packing the day full with food and incredible sights--the beach, Greek ruins, and the stunning troglodyte city of Matera where a scene from Passion of the Christ was filmed.
On Monday we set out with our backpacks full of souvenirs and our large picnic lunch. Francesco had eagerly, with a bit of concern, gotten our bus tickets for us and called our WWOOF host in Sicily to arrange our pick-up at he bus station. The long bus ride went smoothly and our young host, Guiseppe, was at the bus stop to pick us up. As we pulled up to the farm Guiseppe's cell phone rang. "It's for you," he said. I was surprised at first, but then remembered that as long we were in Italy we were still under Francesco's close watch. He was calling to make sure we had arrived okay, and to tell us he was going to start looking for transportaion for us over to Puglia for our next farm. He dutifully followed up with another phone call a couple days later (two phone calls in a week--I was starting to feel very popular) reviewing the contents of an e-mail he had sent with details about how to get to Puglia the next Monday. I didn't understand all the worrying about us (it was only Italy!) until Ellie and I soon spent an entire day simply trying to: mail packages home (unsuccessful), find a place to eat at night (mayonnaise hot dogs--not really successful), and secure travel plans to Puglia (just barely successful, thanks to Francesco, my dad, and my sister). The locals of Noto, the town our farm was right outside of, must have gotten a kick out of the two Americani running around all weekend, one in a funny orange pullover and the other carrying a large cardboard box. I started to undertsand Francesco's concern, then understood it fully the following Monday, when after having made it Puglia, failed to meet up with our new host because the bus stopped in a new place. Our host had been in a panic and Fancesco had been in a panic (because of course he called our host Monday evening to make sure we had made it). While we stood in the dark cold on a corner in front of a large hotel on teh edge of town for an hour and a half, making light of the situation with joking banter, Francesco called Carmela once, Guiseppe in Sicily once, and our new host three times. We got a hotel room for the night, got in touch with our host and Francesco, mailed my box to my poor French friends who keep receiving large packages from me full of my stuff, and somehow made it, on a 90-year-old train, to our new farm. Moral of the story: southern Italy in November is a far cry from Rome in August. Proceed at your own risk, and preferably only if you have Italian family.
Back to our farm in Sicily. Guiseppe picked us up at the bus station in a small town called Noto. He was young, had curly blong hair, and spoke a little English. We drove about 10 minutes out of town to the farm. Ellie and I walked into the, well, I wouldn't quite call it a "house," and wanted to turn right back around. It was a work in progess, one in a series of small abodes next to each other on the property that Guiseppe and a handful of friends were renovating. There were only two rooms. One cramped one that tripled as a kitchen, dining room, and living room; the other was our bedroom, which consisted of one large bed and one bunk bed. The lower bunk was apparently being used as storage. There was a bidet also being stored next to the bunk. We put our pakcs in the bedroom and came out into the kitchen/dining room/living room. It was filled with maybe 10 people or so, not much older than us--strange faces speaking a strange language. Who were they all? We were introduced. Then after a couple mintues of standing akwardly, trying to look like we were just chilling (there were no empty chairs), someone pulled out more seats for us and we sat down. Italian conversation continued around us. This was a far cry from our experiences in the UK, where we were basically the center of attention for the length of our stay. We slept in cozy rooms we had all to ourselves, and our farm hosts usualy felt like parents. After a few more minutes of sitting awkwardly, still trying to look cool, I remembered that Guiseppe had said he had one German WWOOFer staying there too. That person would speak English! So after another couple minutes I got up the nverve to ask, "So who's German?" Probably not the best first words out of my mouth, but I was desperate. A pretty girl, who had been conversing with everyone fluently, identified herself. Indeed she spoke English very well, and cahtted with us for a bit. After work the next day (breaking plaster off a wall then chiseling it away from around the stone underneath--we thought we were going to be picking lemons) we decided we'd leave a couple days early-Friday instead of Monday. As the week progressed, however, we started to enjoy ourselves a little more. Guiseppe and his friends were really sweet. We warmed to each other as Ellie and I tried to start learning Italian, as I taught Guiseppe backgammon, and as we attempted to talk to them about things like Sicily and Italian music. One guy had a beautiful tamborine he had made completely by hand, and he skillfully played amazing Italian folk music on it. I have a short clip. I hope you can hear.
We especially gained their favor when we brought out our knitting. "Belliiissimo! Brava!" They cried. "But Americans can't make anything!" "Just us!" I replied. They laughed. After work in the afternoons (we only had to work until lunch), Ellie and I took walks, eating pomegranates, oranges, and almonds along the way. Maria Paola, Guiseppe's friend's girlfriend, really held things together at the house, keeping it clean and cooking amazing food. Friends were constantly dropping by and we never quite knew what was going on. We relaxed into it, sat next to each other, chatted while we knitted, and had a good time watching the warm and friendly, enthusiastic young Siucilians cooking, talking, and playing mausic together. However, Friday came and were were ready to go. We spent the weekend in a hostel in Noto. We were the only guests there and had an 8-person dorm room to ourselves. On Sunday we visited the beautiful town of Modica, known for its chocolate! We wandered, mesmerized, through the streets: steep, winding, narrow, quiet cobbled roads, decorated with hanging laundry flapping in the wind. We climbed to the top of the town and were rewarded with a view I'll never forget. It was one of those sights for me that, no matter how hard I stare or how long I look I can't seem to really absorb it all. How can I describe this feeling I get with special vistas in special places? They are like the visual equivalent of being too complex to fully comprehend. I took a million photos, but unless you're Ansel Adams, cameras of course can so rarely capture the enormity, scale, and depth that the human eye can. So I took a video of the panorama that still didn't do the trick but it was a little better.
On Monday we left our little corner of Sicily for Italy's heel.
When we walked into our new hosts' house we felt like things were back to normal. The house was spacious and nicely decorated. We had a nice bedroom that we shared with another WWOOFer--a great girl our age, Laurel, from Wisconsin. Every night the three of us sat by the fire, chatting, knitting, reading, journaling. Our new host, Guiseppe (also), owns and runs Piccapane, a small company that produces olive oil and pasta. Not only does Guiseppe run a successful small business almost entirely on his own, but he's young, really hot, and he cooks. Actually, he has a lot of male friends who cook. I sat by the fire one evening, savoring the sight of six men in the kitchen. Guiseppe always had nice friends dropping by to visit, many of whom spoke a little English and would spend a few minutes chatting wıth the three American girls sitting wide-eyed toegther in the corner of the room. During the week we harvested olives! It was something I'm not sure I could do for a month on end, but an experience I thoroughly enjoyed gaining. Ellie, Laurel, and I worked with a handful of young Italian guys. First, we would lay nets around the base of the trees. Then Guiseppe would come by with a big machine that he drove. The machine would grab ahold of the tree trunk and shake it. Olives rained down. Then we would clean up after him, gathering the nets and pouring the olives into buckets. Then we would move the nets to new trees. Repeat for 6 hours! Our last afternoon harvesting was particularly fun as I talked and joked with the guys, learning Italian swear words and exchanging English ones. On the weekend, Guiseppe and his equally attractive girlfriend took us to his brother's house for lunch, to walk along the coast, and to a small town for some more delicious food.
I've now been away for over three months. One of the most ınterestıng thıngs about travelıng for thıs long ıs the change my trıp has made from vacatıon to real lıfe. As lıfe has caught up wıth me abroad, more and more of my tıme seems to be spent takıng care (and fıgurıng out how to take care) of such thıngs as buyıng toothpaste and Kleenex, pıckıng up knıttıng needles, goıng onlıne, makıng phone calls, managıng fınances, faxıng thıngs, maılıng thıngs, prıntıng thıngs, tryıng to make sure I'm eatıng healthfully and gettıng exercıse, sewıng patches on my pants, doıng laundry, and makıng travel arrangements for our next destınatıon, and next sprıng. The fırst half of my journal ıs fılled wıth prose and reflectıon and the second half wıth to-do lısts, phone numbers, addresses, a calendar, accountıng, tımetables and other travel plans, and notes on such thıngs as books and musıc to buy. It's true that my daıly lıfe tasks and concerns are sımpler and much more straıghtforward, and not nearly as numerous as than when I was, for example, teachıng last year, but they take three tımes as long! You can't "escape lıfe." Stress follows you wherever you go, ıt just changes forms.
Blog updates: I've uploaded all my Italy photos to Pıcasa--clıck on the "my photos" lınk on the rıght sıde of my blog, and ıf you haven't already, check out the other lınks!
