I forgot to tell you something

An important fact which i forgot to include in my last post.  Alessandro and Fabio gave us each a liter of olive oil from the olives that we harvested.  We were given the chance to watch the process and in the end we are all carrying around with us a liter.  Mine is always placed in the middle of my backpack, wrapped in my clothes.  If something should go wrong with this plan it will truly be a disaster but one which would make me laugh for years.  I hope to share a bit on good bread with everyone I know and love.  It is unlike anything you have every tasted.  "Spicy, green, thin, clean."

It was with Alessandro's help that Christopher, Zoe and I devised a departure plan.  Eleanor had returned to her beloved and was sipping wine and eating smores italian style by the fire in Cormon. We said our good byes to her and were left to our own itinerary.  Zoe and I had a few days before reporting for WWOOF duty at our next farms.  Zoe was traveling to Umbria, I to Noto but Chris however had no plan.  He hoped to stay in one place, Vallelunga for his time in Italy, a complete impossiblity.   Our mission was to find a place to stay in Catania and then a farm for Chris.  Our priorities were internet, close to the town center, LAUNDRY, LAUNDRY and cheap and more LAUNDRY. 

Our itinerary was a late morning bus to Palermo and then connect to a bus for Catania.  The plan was decided based on eating cannoli and sleeping in a little.  It was a Sunday and their had been a considerable amount of merry making to celebrate the harvest.  We would arrive by dinner time in Catania the same day. 

The cannoli were sublime and well worth being the lead in the days events.  Fresh, just made fresh, not pasteurized-FRESH, creamy ricotta mixed with shaved dark chocolate bits.   The ricotta and the chocolate had been gently mixed.  Each edge of the chocolate stayed slightly crunchy, rich, dark.  On each end was a lovely blob of orange marmelatta.  The marmelatta was not too sweet, just the right amount of acidity to help move the creamy ricotta evenly on your palette and enough sugar to render the juice and rind smooth and viscus.  Perfection.  The shells were filled after they were ordered.  They stayed crunchy even though they were filled with the creamy wetness, stuffed to fill every nook and cranny. Indeed the best I have ever had. 

The Olive Oil Process

Arrivato: Sciacca and the sum of all its parts

 

It will turn out that I will think of Sciacca for the duration of my stay.  Without knowing it  Sciacca and the Mazzotta brothers will be a hallmark on which I will measure all of my experiences in Italy and Sicily.   Every place has its good parts and bad,  but it is here that I start to understand reciprocity Italian style and the art of exchange, what I think is the founding concept of the WWOOFing program in Italy and probably one of the reasons why farmers and workers choose to do it in the first place.  

We were collected by Fabio at the station.  Not really a station.  It is a sign on the street.  His car was small enough for three grown men to lift and place on its side.  "Hello I am Fabio."  There was no reason to confirm who we were.   He greeted us knowingly.   Me, the lovely over packed and my three friends filled that car to the brim.  He just giggled shaking his head.  He gave us a brief drive by tour as we made our way to his home.  "Welcome to Sciacca.  Here is very famous for ceramics.  The best in all Italy.  Here is anteeka.  Very old."  "Oh I have seen italian ceramics when I was in Orvetto."  "No, no they are even more beautiful here"  he corrected me.
"It is very beautiful here"  I said.  Raising his brow, he nodded in an 'of course it is silly' kinda way.

As we approached the country side we started with a round of who am I and where do I come from introductions like one would at a workshop.  He smiled with genuine pleasure and mimicked our accents.  "Mar-e-etta." He repeated after Eleanor as though the letters were being pulled from his belly and his lips felt the form of each letter.  "Fantastic"  He looked at me as if he were prompting me to agree. I just smiled politely and thought.  "That's not how she sounds."

The little car whizzed and bounced us madly.  He turned on a dirt road as we approached the house, a steep dirt road.  "I hope she makes it.  If not I will take you up the hill a few at a time."  Smacking his knee and laughing at his own joke. "Cross everything",   he gunned it. we fished tailed a little, blew up lots of dust and climbed to the base of the drive way.  "Oh myee, what a gud carrr" he said and patted the dashboard, like a man would pat a horse.

We unloaded ourselves and our goods.  The car free from the burden,  was at least six inches further away from the ground.  I placed my backpack on with a grunt and followed everyone inside. The property was in a panorama of olive trees, the house a stuccoed cube with terraces outside every door and window, a cat walk per say, but deep enough for tables and chairs.  The hand rail was curly and deep red.

The house was three floors.  The first a lab for Alessandro, a chemist, the second the house and the third for storage.  The height of the house made the sky to big here.  I think I photographed the sky more than 100 hundred times over the 6 days that will follow.

We climbed the stairs to the second floor and were showed the rooms.  "It is not my business how you arrange yourselves for sleep but I will tell you this is where you will do the sleeping."  He pointed to the doors and gestured that we should decide.  Zoe and Eleanor in one room,  Christopher and I in the other.  I put my things on the bed after asking Chris if he had a preference.  Fabio waited in the doorway.  He pointed to some bottles on the dresser "Don't drink my whiskey or my absenthe."  I sighed.  "of course not."  I replied with a smile.   It seems that we will need to prove ourselves here too.  Fabio was restless, watching us as we settled in a little.  We sensed that the tour is only just beginning.  The two of us followed like ducklings behind their mother.  We walked down the hall to collect the girls.  All of us in tow,  he brought us to the bathroom.  "Here is the switch for the hot water for the shower.  Turn it on 30 minutes before you want to shower.  There is lots of hot water after it heats.  Here is the bucket and moppa.  Clean up after yourselves when you are done.  clean very clean.  Moppa after the shower.  Everytime."    Next to the kitchen.  "Here are the lights.  The switch closest to the outside are for outside and the one on the inside if for the inside.  if you are not in the room do not use the light."

"Now we will go outside.  I must leave.  The house will be locked.  Do not go into the house." he said pointing to us.  "I show you what I want."

For some perhaps they may have felt like they were being treated like potential theives but for me, i was feeling relief.   After being in a house where the rules seemed to be inforced with yelling and humiliation but were never described, his specificity was welcomed.   I knew I was going to work hard and not steal anything so I did not mind his firmness.

I have to confess, I did have an underlying feeling that no one else can see starting to mutate.  It was similar to your socks rolling down under your pant leg perhaps a little more intimate for me like your underwear falling down, still being held up by the crotch of your pants.  A secret sense but still a little embarrassing.  It rendered me shy and self conscious, with a small dose of paranoid.  I was twice the age of  most of these
people I was traveling with and I had this nagging question can I keep up or will I be asked me to leave. Or even worse, will people just smile at me politely, knowing that I am the slow one in the group, the weak link.

He brought us to the fields.  Olive trees obediently placed in tidy rows, most were around 30 years old.  He handed Chris a saw.  "You are the man.  You will clean the wild olives away from the base of the trees, all the blackberries and vines.  For the ladies, they will clear away for you these things and move the piles into one."  That being said he was on his way and we were left to the task of doing as we were told.

 It will amount to 1000 kilos (2200 pounds) of brush, branches and weeds cut, pulled, moved and then placed into a container to be taken to a composting factory.  I will tell you I kept up it turns out and I will tell you that after this particular job, I worked without doubt until this day.  Hooray for me.  I mean it.  Horray.  I was so pleased with myself. This particular job paved the way for other thoughts.  A bit more space.  Maybe soon there will be more room for Italiano.

Fabio returned.  He drove by us in the car.  He pointed to his watch,  "work until 7."  he said.  "Well we are all pretty thirsty and hungry."  I reply,  a little surprised by his demand.    I dismissed it for the moment and manufactured a smile.  I put my hands on my hips and stared at him.  He looked over my shoulder, placed both hands in the air as though he was holding up two trays, resigned. "Va Bene, come to the house."  After he drove off I looked at Eleanor in disbelief and she waved at me as if to say. "it will be alright, come on girl let go in."

We met him at the drive way. Behind that car were four six packs of liter bottles of water.

 "Take one each upstairs, there is one for each of you."  Fabio said.

 "Eleanor does he mean a bottle?"  I asked.

"No I think he means a six pack."  she replied.

"Really?"

"Really" she confirmed smiling.  Looking at me like I was just plain silly, but not really minding.  

"Wow, how exciting."  i said.  I grabbed my water and marched upstairs.  

"Dinner will be very simple tonight.  My mother made for us some couscous, some salad, there is cheese, mortadelle and panino.  we have of course some olive oil for the panino if you would like.  My brother will be along shortly.   We will wait for him."  The wait was a little ackward but not unbareable.  It was the ackwardness of not knowing one another.  There was a willingness to know though so we asked lots of questions and he asked many of us.  Fabio was on his way to work at a school on a very small Italian island closer to Africa than Sicily.  The number of people there may not be much greater than 300.  Fabio joked saying " now there will be 301 because I will arrive."  He was not sure when he would leave because the trip was very weather dependant.   Travel was an 8 hour ferry trip over the open ocean.  With the slightest chance of rain the ferries were cancelled.  fortunately for all of us rain will prohibit Fabio from leaving for the duration of our stay.

Alessandro arrived, like his brother, cheerful, grateful and charming.  He introduced himself to all of us and made entertaining small talk as we all readied the table for dinner.  The "simple" things were magnificent.    The couscous container was brimming with bright colored vegatables chopped with great attention, uniform and  perfect mixture of all the ingredients were represented on your spoon.  "my grandmother chopped like this"  I thought.  "It is because she was Italian."  The salad crunchy and fresh, tossed lightly with olive oil made from their harvest last year.  We were allowed to eat as much mortadelle as we wanted and the cheese, the gorgeous not so soft not so hard creamy mild cheese.  "Couscous is very typical here in Sicily."  we were informed by Alessandro.

We all chatted politely.  It was the newness of everything.  This was the first time that Alessandro and Fabio had so many WWOOFers in their house at once.  This year was the first year for them to participate in the program.  We did not want to overwhelm them.  They were out numbered by strangers in their home.  Like Fabio, Alessandro asked each of us where we came from.  We spoke on at a time around the table.  When it was Eleanor's turn.  "I live in Friuli.  I went their in college to work on  farm for an internship a few years ago and now I live there with my boyfriend."  she said.

"I remember meeting a girl in Rome that was going to Friuli.  I thought she must be the only American there.  Maybe you know. . .  nO nO YOU ARE HER.  I remember now.  You were reading a book. . " he leaped from his chair like something hot plopped in his lap, causing it to topple over and hit the ground.

"Oh my god that was me." she interrupted.

"and i started to talk to you." Alessandro continued.  "Oh my god you are in my house. I have to call my friend.  Now you are here.  You are picking olives on my farm in S I CI L Y." delightfully frantic and pacing.


"This is so crazy."  she replied.  I was silent just shaking my head. 

"You met us for a beer that night.  Nothing more just a beer and you left.  Nothing happened."  he looked at her playfully.  

"oh MY GOD you are her and now you are here in my house."  he said.

Eleanor, rosy cheeked.  All of us laughing.

Well this was the mother of all ice breakers.  From that moment on all the tension, ackwardness and low grade suspicion had evaporated.  there would be absolutely no concern about us drinking the absenthe or being lazy.  The next morning the house was left unlocked and we were free to come and go as we pleased.

It would be a day or two before we could collect the olives.  We did lots of cleaning and planting of trees.  At breakfast, Alessandro informed us, "I had a mind storm this morning,  I will bring little things for messages on the trees you planted.  Two each."

I just don't think people get much sweeter than this.

Instantly I announced.  "I would like to dedicated mine to my parents.  One for my dad who died this January and one form my mom."

"Oh that would be lovely.  Take two in the garden.  I will give them special care knowing they are for them."  I believed this to be true.  I think that Alessandro will be an old man and he will remember when the trees are tall that they were planted by four Americans.  I don't think he will remember our names but he will remember the time and look at them with kindness. 



For a week we ate incredibly well.  Alessandro happily accepted help and company as he cooked.  He prepared traditional Sicilian dishes like Pasta alla Norma, risotto,  meat balls.  What was wonderful about cooking with Alessandro was he did not throw anything away. With every meal there was some delicious concoction that would probably never be possible to duplicated completely.  He cooked lunch and dinner for us each day that we were there.  There was always plenty and it was always good. 

 

Pasta Alla Norma

Local Mortadella.  Sublime.  Is all I can say

In Sciacca I learned that sage grows like a hedge and snails come into the world with their houses on their little backs.

Arrivato: Sciacca

 

A huge sense of relief overwhelmed all of us.  the bus ride to Sciacca from Palermo was breathtaking.  Emerald colored mountains with patches of sepia, dotted with small bursts of orange and yellow from ripening citrus trees.  In my body I could feel with each mile my shoulders were finally moving further away from my ears. We were collected from the station by Fabio.  He was friendly and welcoming.  His sense of humor was instantly apparent when his very tiny car was jammed packed with Americans and their gear, suitcases as booster seats, narrowing his visibility tons.  "How many olives do you think we have and how long did you say your were staying."   

Fabio Mazzotta

Alessandro Mazzotta

 

Arrivato: Return to Palermo/ Posso fare un photo?

The four of us traveled to Palermo almost completely without incident.  One night of rest in Palermo and a half day to follow.  In the early afternoon the next day, our plan was to travel to Sciacca.  We were all without tickets for the train from Valle Alba to Palermo.  Fortunately for Eleanor's beautiful face, charm and ability to play the I don't know anything card at exactly the right moment with wide wet eyes, we were all given free passage on the train.  The only hostage taken was a love sick Italian that thought he would have a date in Agrigento the next night.  (Bastard was probably married).  Lesson here, always travel with gorgeous people.  The ones that glow from the inside to the out are the best for sure.   One can profit from the power of their looks and indulge in the richness of their company in every way. 

 

What I can say about this time is, it all felt easy.  We arrived in a sweet little pensione owned by a man that will officially be counted as my first crush on a beautiful Italian man during this adventure.  We unload our goods, rested for a spell, cleaned up, got dressed in our city clothes and started our walking and eating adventure.  In the hours that followed I turned into a Shutterbug.  I crossed over from being just a pedestrian to becoming an observer again.  I watched my fellow travelers and I mirrored them.  Eleanor taught me how to ask someone if I could take their picture.  Now I am certain i have asked this question about 100 times.  In one evening and a morning I regained a huge chunk of myself, a part of me that eroded.  In the last few years of my life I have forgotten how to see.  I had forgotten to seek out the odd little everyday things that make being alive amazing.  That seems campy and tright but when you loose this idea and regain it, life feels renewed and exciting.  Maybe it is a little like falling in love.  The  overwhelming feeling of bliss, hope, potential, all bubbling up like a hot spring.  It shocks me that I am actually writing something so sacrine, but there you have it.  Watching Zoe and Eleanor click away, then mimicking them brought me one giant step closer to myself, it blew smoke on the coals deep inside my belly, an artist's belly.

Arrivato: Stazione Valle Alba

Well Eleanor did it.  She negotiated and secured a farm for the four of us to go to.     All of this before we had caught our breath from our trek to the station, maybe more accurately, before I caught MY breath.   She rounded the corner, cell phone in one hand and with my  photocopied list of farms in the other hand,  rustling the sheets of paper as though they were the source of a overdue invention or discovery.    "We've got a farm" she exclaimed "and they are sweet AND they have olives."    "Hooray. "  (No kidding we really did say Hooray all at once).    Suddenly, my gut impulse to flee was being supported with a confirmed reality.  There were  olives  owned by happy people,  I would remain in the company of my new friends for another week and in between the two there will be meat to eat and wine to drink.   Phew on all counts.  We could just wait now.  There were no worries, only a sense of adventure and a need to do good work for people who probably said thank you.  

We were left to some wondering about at the station, some idle chatter, and long pouts of  silence. Often the silence was comfortable, like a cozy chair you could give all your weight to.  But some moments for me were like a rest on a bed of nails.  Laying  on the tracks like confetti were headless pigeons  with hundreds of  empty shot gun shells, apparently a pass time here.  Thankfully I don't think they were very good shots, the number of color cartridges greatly outnumbered the grey carcasses of the ill fated bird.  Chris quickly made a game of collecting the shells .   None of us could stomach the birds.    Zoe lined up the collected shells and photographed the hell out of them.  She placed them mindfully in a serpent pattern near the DO NOT CROSS hazard yellow line before the tracks.  Chris and I wagered a bet on how many there were.  I was trying to win back my Euro from the will we be walking or get a ride to the station bet from the night before.   I won this one , I think he collected 120 odd cartridge, some still remained uncounted.   There weren't nearly as many birds thankfully but there was enough to be creepy.  When comparing the two, I was  left wondering how does someone else that has a brain just like I do end up doing things like this.  So many of us are given the same components but we just use them so very differently.

It was a four hour wait at the station, the time passed swiftly.  I was sleepy.  The walk with 40 pounds of gear for two hours made me sweat and made me a little sad.  The walk  became the catalyst for a battle with myself.   I wasn't sad because I had to leave I was sad because it was so hard, the shlepping, the walking.  The sadness felt like grief.  It was humbling  taking the end of the line even though I started off first.  The young ones rushed past me, flush with excitement not cardio overload, the zip of We have got a place to go and were going dammit.  They waited for me politely at the turns and at the top of the hills, offered words of encouragement along the way.  I waved them on, smiled to acknowledge the gesture.  I was embarrassed honestly and struggling to keep myself in motion.  I felt haunted.   At some point  I was ready to just take a few pairs of underwear from my backpack, my computer, rubber boot s and one tube of lipstick,  just leave everything else  by the side of the road. By some miracle, I talked myself off that ledge. 


I was  being brow beat by recent and past memories involving the reality of my chubbiness.  At one point when we were all squeezed around the table to eat about two bites full of  hot water and hydrated beans (yuck), Laura indicated to a WWOOFer, "Sit here this is where little people sit, Marianne you sit here" , she pat the chair at the head of the table gently like a momma pats a baby's bum, looking with wide eyes like she just did me a huge favor.  My cheeks flushed and inside I died a little.  "Oh no I am in the land of the little people." I thought, " How did I get skipped on this gene?   I have the hair, the skin, the eyes, the short but not the little how did this happen."  I have kicked these facts around all my life.  It is a terrible waste of time but I find myself pacing this line over and over again.   Next I sparred  with the memories of my uber fitness days when I had no real idea of what I looked like or how wonderful  just being young is.  I blurted out to my young friends,

"Listen stay strong, take care of your body.  Aging can kick your ass and leave you bleeding if you are not careful.  in the end it is just a sum of all of your choices.  all of them matter.  There isn't anything worse than having something you don't know you have until it's over.  Make sure your compromises are good for you .  Make sure they don't suck the life out of you."  I just blurted it out,  it was like it just got squeezed out of a place that was under a lot of pressure, icing from a pastry bag that you just twisted the hell out of or clay through an extruder pressed against leveraged weight and metal, just plain old squished forcefully, nowhere to go but OUT.   It was stupid.  I sounded like a song from the 70's .  I hated myself a little and was embarrassed.   I could not believe myself but the flood gate was open.   I meant it, thought,every word.   After my verbal purge,  I turned on my heels and went back to my corner. I did not even wait for a reaction.   I think it came out funny but I felt like raising my face to the sky and blubbing out a good wale.  It felt like there was enough tears to drown in.  Pacing away from the tails of  their laughter was like a good back scratch into a more soothing place.


The Gitty up Girl inside propped  me up against the ropes, cleared the sweat and blood from  the bludgeoning  I had rendered upon myself  and told  me what to do.  It was as though  she took out my mouth piece and rubbed  me down, squirt my face with water, looked deep into my eyes, grabbed my chin in a "Look at me" gesture.   I was almost falling apart.  "Shut up Marianne, You are in Italy traveling with three beautiful  people, one is totally fluent in Italian and all of them are happy people and horny for food.  Just close your eyes for a minute then go count sheep, the ones right in front of you stupid, right on the side of this beautiful mountain not the make believe ones before sleep. Wake up.  Jesus girl you are in Italy.  It is time to get happy again sunshine, it's good for everyone around you including yourself."

 Well alright then I consented like I just got bitch slapped.  Welcome back the Marianne I know and love. 

Resolute, content, I took a deep breath.  I was disentangled from my monsters and in the company of good people who understand the eccentric.   No one rolled their eyes or snickered.  They just smiled.  I settled in for the wait.  Found my place.   Perched myself  on a cement bench out of the sun, propped my feet on my suitcase and counted bleating sheep.