Modica and Ragusa

I was a little high after my cocogasm.  partially because I ate so much and also because I had essentially not had sugar or caffiene for a month.  I was feeling silly and ready to walk myself quite inside.  Mondays are sleepy days for tourists in Italy.  Often the shops are closed until afternoon and the streets are significantly more quite.  The good news is I am more of a people watcher than a shopper so I was a happy camper. 

Modica Alta is made up mostly of residences and the Duoma.  After peaking in and getting a fix of Santa Lucia Alter, I returned to Modica Bassa to get my fill of people watching.  Compared especially to my arrival to Noto this visit was totally uneventful.  It was quiet and contemplative.  I stole moments from innocent bi-standards with my camera every time I could, honing my skills of sneak photography.  My new phrase for the day which was  "Voglio andare . . . Questa e la mia prima volta qui poterla mi aiuta grazie  I would like to go blah blah blah.  This is my first time can you help me.  I practiced quietly under my breathe, like a montra.  I gave the phrase full stereo the first time with the woman at the ticket  counter trying to appear confident shoulders broad, chin high.  She smirked a little but she gave me a ticket to where I wanted to go. The second time with the bus driver and he stopped where I wanted him to.  The third time with another bus driver who told me what bus to take next and I understood completely.  The combination of all these things and the chocolate made this a perfect day.

Chocolate and Oranges

My ride to Modica smelled of wood and oranges.  I was propped comfortably in the back seat with 14 crates of fresh picked fruit.  The real purpose of the trip was to deliver them to a client, for Massimo to treat one of his physical therapy patients and return a friend home after a stay at the farm.  I was just worked into the mix. 

I packed for the day, my black mail carrier bag with camera, dictionary, notebook and verb workbook.  The plan was to return by bus after spending the day wondering around Modica and Ragusa.  My lunch plan was chocolate.  Modica was famous for it.  The vegetarians don't eat chocolate-sugar and milk are in the category of NO GOOD.  For me I can't really comprehend this complete elimination of things when it is not emphatically prescribed by a doctor, but to each his own. 

The chocolate in Modica has been made in the same way for centuries.  The texture and richness very specific.  The chocolate is mostly dark, even the milk chocolate.  I will describe it to you and there is a chance that you may think--Marianne are you sure that was good and i will promise you here and now that it was indeed ecstasy.  I had heard about this chocolate so I found a pretty spot in Modica Alta to enjoy my treat.


The bars are thick like baking chocolate in the States.  You bite through with a snap, deep craters formed from a toothy grip.  The secret to this cocogasm is in the smooth paddled chocolate is the gritty sugar.  Unlike any other chocolate I have ever had the sugar is not melted into the chocolate to become a ubiquitous cream but big granuals of sugar are folded in and are suspended in place.  When you bite and let a bit dissolve on your tongue the chocolate becomes soupy and bitter.  Just when the bitterness starts to dry your palette the granuals of sugar slowly melt around the chocolate like a blanket.  The texture is like sand, crunchy and firm.  I ate an entire bar (recommended three serving) and wanted to cry when it was over.  It took me almost an hour because I tried eating it as slowly as possible.  No one could tell me how it was done, or maybe no one would tell me how it was done but when I was done I need to pat the sweat from my brow and bite back the urge for a cigarette.

Ciao Sicilia

A pattern had taken hold.  I wake in the morning with a clear idea of when it is time to go.  Sometimes with a date or a day or a time or a moment.  This happened here in Noto.  Waking and glancing at my thorn torn flesh from the lemon trees, I realize it is also time to leave Sicily all together.  It is almost December.  Most of the olives on the island are harvested, or owned by people I don't care for and now it is thorny citrus season.  I want to wear sleeveless dresses for the rest of my life so no more scratches for me.  My plan begins to unravel before I swing the covers from my night nest and place my feet on the ground for the day.  One week more, some travel in Sicily and Southern Italy then work harvesting olives in Italy.  My goal, Mount Etnea,  Napoli, Pompeii, Syracusa, Modica, Ragusa, Enna than back to another farm for work.  I do not know the farm yet at this point but the order of things has become clear.  I will travel to Modica and Ragusa on my last Monday here and then on my own after I leave I will travel to the rest. 

I made my announcement of my departure to the Janne and Massimo. 

"You are going north for the winter.  It is very cold there.  You must buy a sweater or a coat.  I cannot help you with this because we are very small people."  Janne said. 

"Wow", I thought, "how long have you been waiting to be able to say that." 

"Well that is okay.  I will get something when I am traveling."  Looking at her wide eyed and sad like I was dying inside just a little. 

Tree Man

One of the last days working in Noto i was assigned to the duty of clean up crew for an arborist.  the first job of the day of course involved waking the tractor beast with Massimo, loading it and following it up the mountain to the work place.  I made it my business to understand the trails to and from the orchard and the loading and unloading routine of the cart for work.  This day I arrived ahead of the tractor.  My destination was clear.  It was marked by the buzz of a saw and the vision of a minuscule figure bouncing about from one tree to the next.  It was like watching a dancer from the nose bleed section of a theater.  On this day as many others, I was accompanied by the three ponies in toe.  Massimo smiled with friendly suspicion when he arrived and I smiled back knowingly.  It had become a practice now that I understood the difference between a trail man made and a trail made from the play of ponies, to pick cachi fruit for me and for the ponies on my way back to the house after work.  All four of us, me and the beasts are quite fond of them.  They of course had become quite fond of me.  I never did confess this to Massimo but I think he definitely knew I was up to something.  I also failed to tell him about The carrots and the cabbage and the apples that I used to entice the four leggeds into a friendship, ultimately rendering them into dog like behavior.


I have to introduce you to Stephania at this point.    She was not a WWOOFer but she stayed and worked on the farm for a short time while i was there.  Stepania is a gentle, kind spirit, with eyes that smile and tons of patience.  She laughs easily at herself and at others.  the combination of all these things made the fact that she spoke no English and I spoke no Italian an easy difference to reconcile.  I think she was my first Italian teacher really.  She would move her face, hands and body in anyway necessary to be able to tell me what she needed to.  I would  carry my black mail bag with a pen, notebook and dictionary to the field everyday that we worked together.  By this day that habit had been dissolved.  One day after expressing my frustration by biting my dictionary, she took it away from me and said in Italian, "You do not need this Marianne", putting it aside and gently shaking her finger at it and then at me, like mother to a baby that had just grabbed something she should not have.  I laughed madly and played my version of Italian language charades from then on.  I never used the dictionary again with her.  In retrospect it was with her that i started to understand how to simplify what i need to say so that i could be understood and work with the basic list of verbs that i had been teaching myself.  I started to think like a Dick and Jane book.  I realized that the first step in learning this language for me was to just get down to the very basics.  Like a child in its first few years, they listen more than they speak and when they do speak it usually has something to do with sleeping, eating, feeling or going to the potty.  I used this as my starting point and relaxed a little.  I was not afraid of being laughed at anymore or afraid to try.  I accepted that I will make mistakes and probably say something crass and inappropriate by accident but I will be forgiven.  More than likely, in the situation where I am very wrong I will learn the most.

After arriving with the ponies and Stephania, I was introduced to Tree Man, Signor Peppe.  He offered me his paw in a bear like grip, in the other he held a chain saw like a pistol.  I was more than half a head height taller than him so I was surprised by the size of his hands.  I think years of this work had stretch them. They were as rough as 80 grit sand paper and his fingers wrapped easily around the back of my hand almost meeting at the finger tips.  He smiled widely and said something that I did not understand.  It seemed pleasant so I nodded and smiled politely.  He and Massimo spoke briefly.  Tree Man held his face up to the sky a little,  stretching to check the direction of the wind. He turned to face in the opposite direction.  He pointed  to a spot, handed me a bucket with a small blowtorch, some paper and a machete.  He spoke some more, but again I did not understand but figured out from the contents of the bucket that my job was fire. "Cut some grass, some small olive saplings and start a fire nest for the burn."  Massimo confirmed.    I have a feeling of satisfaction in moments like these.  It seems the sum of my life experiences are helping me through some times of guessing.  Stephania's job was to start to gather the small wood.  Together she and I would make a separate pile of large wood that would be taken up to the house.  We were trimming nut trees this day, almonds, walnuts and chestnut trees.  As I busied myself with my task, I watched Tree Man carve the soil around young olive trees.  In one hand a chain saw, in the other a zappa, or a hoe.  three whacks to the ground behind the tree and there was a perfect bowl to hold water on one side that gently tapered down to allow excess water to run off.  He was amazing.  He stood completely upright and swung the hoe, slicing away earth.  The smooth sound of whomp whomp whomp pounding into the ground, rhythmically paused by the muffled swoosh of feet moving from tree to tree in the tall grass was soothing and hypnotic. It seemed like he was waiting for something.  He never looked away from what he was doing. He patiently continued but stopped suddenly as if someone had arrived.  

I could not see or feel what stopped him but swiftly with one hand he grabbed a 14 foot wooden ladder and placed it in an almond tree.  His chain saw still like a pistol he climbed the ladder with as much ease and rhythm has he had walking on the ground.  He paused and looked at the tree  and selected.  Limbs large and small fell with the lash of the blade and the small man seemed to wait again.  He paused for  a moment, observing to see if his task was complete for this tree.  His closed thin lips curled up always with a sparkle in his eyes.   He climbed down called Massimo over and handed him his saw.  Tree Man placed the ladder in the next tree and this time Massimo went up.  Massimo looked like a giraffe on the ladder.  It was so different then the Tree Man, I burped out a giggle. Like a shy school girl, I covered my mouth and looking away.  Tree man pointed to limbs from the ground and Massimo trimmed.  This routine was repeated until Massimo trimmed on his own and Tree Man watched.  i was a witness to a graduation of sorts.  As Massimo progressed he was less giraffe like and his trees were sparse and obedient as Tree Man's.

"How do you know where to cut the tree?"  I asked Massimo

"Well Signore Peppe is trying to teach me to wait for the tree to tell me?"   He smiled, handed his saw to Signore Peppe, waved good bye and left for the house. 

For the remainder of the day I worked alone with Stephania and Tree Man.  Tree Man spoke and pointed and smiled, I would look to Stephania for the Italian version of his directions and proceed to complete the task and try my best to understand the Sicilian dialect.  By the end of the day I was understanding a teeny tiny bit.  It wasn't the words really it was more the gestures and the pointing. For the most part I just gauged my progress by his grin and the way he moved his hands.  He congratulated me like one would a hero, grabbing my shoulder with one paw and shaking my opposite hand like one shakes a table cloth after a meal.  He respected WWOOFers, admired their hard work and willingness to do whatever was necessary.  He told me he will climb trees until he either dies or can no longer walk,  he knows nothing else.  It did not matter what he was paid, trees were something he needed like air.  When I meet his he was 73 years old.

Trotting along

I am in low grade agony.  It is a luxury problem, but the truth is that i am gnawing at the bit trying to catch everyone up to the present day.  I have just arrived in a small town on a big farm where the sheep out number the people, 4 to 1.  I love this kind of proportion.  Although sheep have a reputation for being really stupid I still really like them and think they are cute close up.  The list of wonderful experiences continues to grow and my love for this kind of work and for this country is mutating.  I will stay on track though, try to write well  and be comforted with a brief list.  The adventures include a motorcycle ride through Napoli, a short stay with a cranky man with lots of nice animals, the arrival in Toscana where no english was spoken and tickling the belly of a hawk, a week running around Florence with my mom, and getting closer and closer to finding the birth records of my grandparents.  Stay tuned and know that I am hard at work trying to get my ducks in a row.  My brain feels like a cistern of stories that are eeking out at a snails pace.  I miss everyone so very much but am having the time of my life.

Arrivato: Night time

Well if you throw a rock you will hit something beautiful in this little city.  It is magnificent.  In the late 1600's an earthquake destroyed Noto  and damaged neighboring cities like Syracusa and Modica. Essentially what followed after was a huge pool of funds by the wealthy families in an effort to rebuild the city.  The result is a city with every inch, a few inches here in there perhaps not,  build during the Baroque period.  This is the only city, as far as I know, in Italy where this is true.  Certainly the only city that was constructed with such a focused and sweeping effort.  Stupendous.

I am grieving still for the lost photos and pray when I return that perhaps one of my computer genius friends will be able to extract what I could not extract myself using a program.   During my stay here I spent a lot of time wondering the streets at night in Noto alone.  The family often had business there and I was given a ride whenever they did.  Every night old men walk arm and arm in pairs to gather up with other men to chat.  Every one of them, dressed impeccably usually in a suit and a hat like little Cary Grants, often with little dogs in sweaters in tow.  In one of the public squares is fuzz ball table and kids of all ages gather to play.  The kids waiting their turn were often kicking a soccer ball around or just chasing on another in the shadow cast by yellow street light on neighboring trees.  There is an order to things here.  What I was a witness to on these evening walks was people in their lives.  They too were making passages on foot, their caveat before sleep. They were practicing the art of keep and making good company, creating the epicenter of modern Noto, the who did what to whom, when, which, why and where.

One evening I wondered into a palace.  Now this may sound silly the use of wondering in this sentence, but often a door to a palace is the same as any other place.  In a dark street when a doorway is open and lighted, I find it impossible to resist just poking my head in.  Often through these doors are gardens with amazing flowers and sculptures.  Most of these places I have wondered into are indeed private but I indulge myself for a moment.  This evening a polite man waved me in, promised me he spoke English, which he did not, asked for three euro and then pointed to the stairs.  I climbed the bare stone stairway to the second floor to find almost everything dark.  One room was lighted and furnished.  "Wow I have been taken,  still cheaper than a beer." I crossed the room  and leaned in to get a closer look at the drawer pulls on a piece of furniture when I was startled by a booming baritone "Buona Sera"

I turned to face the man.  There stood a guard looking firm and grim.  "Mi dispiace signore." I said taking a giant step back to try to create a gesture of apology for stepping in too close.  He smiled "Viene Signora" He motioned for me to follow through a doorway. He walked ahead of me switching on lights, pushing out darkness to reveal one amazing room after another.  I oohed and aahed like a game show contestant.  This pleased him.  Now he started swinging open doors marked Private and switching on more lights.

His cell phone rang, he answered it, continuing to motion me to follow.  He pulled back curtains, opened more doors inviting me onto a balcony.  "Vede" (You see) pointing to the carved rail and the street below.  His face was bright with pride like he had just pointed out his child.  I gasped.  He nodded with satisfaction, left me alone on the balcony, took a place inside and continued his phone call.  I poked my head in after a few

minutes and pointed to my pretend watch.  He shook his head and waved to me with a smile as if to say, look as long as you would like.  You will only have those photos and this night as a piece of your past, not a part of your every day.  Take as long as you like.

Noto: Lavoro-Primo Giorno

 

The first job of the day was to start this thing.  If you look at the front of the tractor bed you see a rope tided and dangling.  That essentially is the starter.  On the front of the tractor is a metal disk.  The rope is wrapped around the disk and Massimo and I pull gently on it three counts and give a good yank on the forth.  Needless to say it didn't work the first time.  "Mariannknee hold it like this, you fut hereee"  moving my hand a hair up the rope and tapping my foot out gently further away. "  He has a look that tells me maybe he thinks I can't do this.  Well those that know me know how inspiring that look is for me.  I am standing behind him, close enough for it to feel like vertical spooning.  "Piano, Piano Mariannknee., and then VAI"  Slowly slowly.  "Uno, Due, Tre, VAI"  Second time it started with a blench and a smelly black puff.    He nodded handed me three buckets and said.  "Now go get the sheeeit" , his mouth curled a little.  That might have been a smile.  Hum I thought maybe he should be more specific about who's and where.  I ask politely where.  I skipped the who's because I am not sure how this kind of humor translates culturally.  He motions his head in the direction of the barn where the ponies live when they are not in the field.  I smiled grabbed a shovel and go.  "Full"  I ask, with a tone that would have been the same if he told me to fill it with orange juice.  "Yes" he answered in a tone the also implied OF COURSE.  Lifting his eyes under his bushy black brows to meet mine. 

  I return with them full.  "Viene"  come.  I follow obediently to the workshop. Massimo walks like there is cement in his shoes.  His legs bend at the knee and his feet for each step are dangling, as if for that second they are in the air, there is no bone that connects the foot to the ankle.   "Put these on di traycktore"  "Ah we are planting trees" pleased to be given a clue.  There are six.  I pick one up gently kneeling down placing the plastic wrapped root ball in the crook of my elbow like a baby's "bottom.  "No like this."  Massimo said grabbing it by the base of the tree and flinging it swiftly into the crook of his own elbow.  "No so much bending this way."  he returns it to the ground. "Now you try."  I put my plant down and do what I am told.  He nodded with approval.  I make six trips to the tractor.   Next hay and bamboo.  The tractor is loaded, warmed up and ready to go.  My place in the parade is in the back behind the belching beast.  

"Mariannknee"  go to the gayt"  he screams "open it and then close it after I am trew."  Off I go, sprinting ahead.  Do as I am told.  Follow behind up and up and up.  The land here is like a bowl.  The base and sides of the the bowl are the farm, every inch that can have a tree does.  He waves me away from what might be the parking spot for the tractor and proceeds to turn it around.  He is now facing down hill.  My gut tells me this is not quite it, the rest will be on foot.  There is another terrace.  Literally the last one until the mountain pushes up the sky.  "Oh dear" I say as I look at the filled tractor bed knowing Italian men well enough to know  that there is an excellent chance that I am going to be the shelper and not the digger.  The angle to the future home to these little sapplings in nearly ninety degrees.  To get there I step like I am playing twister:  one foot on green and way over the other foot on red, one hand on yellow the other hand on blue.  Pride will not allow crawling for too many more tries plus there is the shelping reality.  I am going to be a shit Sherpa.  I practice when I have to tools in hand.  I am pretty open minded but I have no interest in having a bucket of crap fall on me no matter how old and dirt like it looks.  The potential for this is great.  

My second try is with a plant.  Up I go, like evolution of all men, more upright. By the time I get to the hay I am bouncing up like a champ.  Massimo starts to dig.  First a metal rod he pounds into the ground, wiggles, removes, pounds in again, repeats, and repeats, until the clay soil gives way.  Then the zappa, essentially a hoe, to loosen a little more and form the hole as if a perfect bite was taken out of the side of a cone.  "Mariannknee go get water in a bucket."  We are a half a mile from home and I am thinking  "WATER.  Where is the water."  Noticing probably a look of bitch slapped confusion, he stops, leads the way down the slop to the tractor and pulls a long black hose from the under the thick growth of grass.  "Ahhh, thanks."  I say politely.  For me the retrival of water was not an uneventful thing.  Unfortunately my tugging technique needed a little work so I managed to completely remove the baby hose from the momma hose causing a blast of water to sprout from the ground with a hiss.  Stubborn, I try to return the hose without help, pushing the baby back to the mother, oh but not quite making it,.  My failing efforts increase the force of the flow and also make the flow of water more random.  Now I am being squirted in the face and my chest and sometimes my hair with water that is strong enough to sting.  The mother is too fat to bend so i try one thumb.  I push with one thumb as hard as I can and slip the baby back into the mother.   Now my hair and face are soaked and I am laughing knowing that I will have to explain myself to a man that really doesn't seem like a talker.  I fill the bucket and go up the hill.  This is not so easy.  Unfortunately I filled the bucket as though i were walking a straight line and the water sloshed about toppling some onto the clay creating a slippery uphill slope on which I proceed to slide down on my bottom, land straight back where I came from.  Ha ha, now the story will include water in the face and mud on my bum.  These people are either going to love me or send me packing.  

I refilled my bucket, like trouper and went up the hill again.  This time a optimistic and successful running start.  When I arrived Massimo stopped like he was shot with a stun gun, frozen for a minute. . . Oh dear I thought is he going to yell like the train station ladies.  He smiled the toothiest grin I had seen yet and laughed and laughed.  "Next time Mariannknee, just tell me and i will make gud di water."  I turned around and showed him my muddy back.  He laughed even more "For dis I can no help."  When we finally stopped laughing, he asked me to hand him the shovel.  i grabbed the handle and also a bee or two.  Squishing them dead between my palm and the handle of the shovel.  I yelped.  "Whut happin Mariannknee?"  "Oh just a bee.:  "You have promblem, go back to the house, ask Janne for the bee medichini."  "No I am okay" refusing to leave my post.

It was five more trips like this.  Each tree we climbed a little higher.  Fortunately the sliding and water issue did not repeat itself and no more bees.  We loaded the tractor, started it with one try and we were on our way. "Mariannknee you go straight down and open the gAYt for me and wait for me to arrive."  

Okay.  I bound down like a good little WWOOFer but realize pretty quickly that straight down is not straight forward.  I follow a path down and hear though that the sound of the tractor is getting ahead of me.  "oh no oh no" I say, "Where is the damn gate."  I keep following the trails and hasten my pace, down down i climb.  I end up in the valley near a spring, i hear the tractor slowing down for the last little hill before the gate.  I leap from marsh grass to a rock and SPA LASH! in the water I go.  "ARgh"  I just wade now, shoulders up completely soaked from head to toe.  Massimo eyes wide, caterpillers eye brows high enough for me to see his upper lids for the first time, teaches me how to say what the hell are you doing in Italian.  Wet, bee stung and filthy I still call this a very good first day.

 

Noto: Senza Carne (Without meat)

 Me the meat eater, chose this farm because it was senza carne, without meat.  Me the meat eater that would eat every part of an animal from it head to it hooves, have signed up to eat nothing but vegatables for a month.  Frankly I was not sure how this was going to go.   I am mad for vegatables like I am mad for a great pair of shoes for a splendid dress.  You can't really just have the shoes on now can you?

I check the refrigerator in the kitchen when I woke up from my nap to see if I could potentially sneak a stash there for private consumption if it was necessary.  I laughed at the idea of crouching in the dark with a leg of something, ripping the cooked flesh from the bone while the vegetarians slept upstairs.  I wondered if I would be visited by dancing cured meats in my sleep.  Ha.  Ha I thought.  Marianne you are silly.

I arrived to the kitchen door at 8:05, shoved a kitten in my jacket and waited for five minutes, American punctuality.  I knocked lightly, turned my back to resist looking through the glass.  After waiting I tried again, this time a little harder.  I hear the soft swoosh of feet dragging against  the flloor tiles in my direction.  Janne answers, bundled in a long scarf and wool sweater, in one hand  a book, her thumb still holding its place.  I smile, place the kitten on the ground outside and walk in.  The kitten tries for the door before I have the chance to shut it.  I watch while Janne scoots it outside with a swift pop of her felt Berkenstock.  "Wow I did not know that vegetarians kicked kitties."  I thought.  When I returned my glaze to meet hers she did not seem amused.  I don't have a poker face and frankly I am not sure what it is saying at this moment.   I could tell that my affection for beast was clearly a personal, solitary adoration this part of the world. 

"You are welcome to come in.  We are waiting for Massimo.  I do not know how long he will be."  Her words flat and foreboding. Basically in this instant I realize that the time quotes for meals are simply an idealized reality that will never come true not even once for the remainder of my stay.  It was not uncommon to eat at 10:30 at night once even at 11.  Usually times like 9 really mean 10 or 10:30 and a five minutes really usually means at least a half an hour but the truth is it could mean absolutely anything.  I take this in and make a mental note, always bring a book, always bring a sweater, always make sure that you pee before you leave the house.

I sat for a little while and watched Janne read.  I felt like a hologram.  Sophia entered the room and glanced over quickly but looked as though she wished she could have done to me what her mother had done to the kitten.  I write it off to adolescence and call it a day. 

"Ah,  I was writing a letter to my mom.  I think I will go back and finish it.  Should I come back in a little bit or can you call me when it is time for dinner."

She looks up from her book, moving only her eyes, knowing that she will not be away from the pages too long.  With a deep sign Janne replies "That would be fine."

"Yes but which",  I thought. I smiled politely, thanked her and went back to my room. 

I wasn't writing a letter to my mom but it seemed like a nice idea that probably an Italian would excuse and maybe like a little.  I went back to my little house and just worked in my verb workbook.  For some reason this comforts me in the same way that Highlight magazine did when I was a kid. There are not connect the dot pictures of monkeys in trees but filling in the blanks with verb conjugation completely consumes me and feels like company.

My stomach growling, I sang out loud to myself rubbing my belly.  "Hush little tummy don't say word, momma's gonna feed you but it won't be a bird. Ha Ha that's funny"  I state to myself and wonder what the hell I was thinking and if perhaps I might be unraveling a bit.     

It was almost two hours before the sound on the ceiling excited me and filled my belly with hope.  Above my head the scrap of wooden legs on a tile floor as if they were being pulled away from a table and the tromp of feet across the room, the crash of shutters and then "AH MARIANNE(EEE) PRONTI."  Massimo's voice was like thunder .  I jumped a little and I hurried my pace to arrive.  I did not know what Pronti meant yet but in the context of this situation I thought surely it meant come and get it. 


I took two steps at a time to arrive to supper.  I skipped shoving a kitten in my jacket and went right for the door.  Knock knockity knock knock.  Massimo answered.  "Is it a big bad Wolf." For a second I don't get it, then I realize he is playing with the acronym WWOOF.  "si, si, si Il Lupo." I replied. (wolf in Italian)  He flings the door open and asks.  "Ha fame?"  (are you hungry?)  Oh just a little. I smile knowing about my little song and my little lie.

Arrivato: Valle Tortorone

Gigio

  I was collected from my post with the friendly helpful man by Janne and her daughter Sophia.  I was a nervous wreck wondering if they would think I was rude just showing.  I had arrange this date for my arrival a month before.  I had attempted to confirm with a call from Catania a few days before and spoke to her husband Massimo.  This call had mixed results.  I heard his voice, felt after that he probably he was expecting me, but when I identified myself to him he said.  "What dew yewe  wahnt?"  Rather than assign extra meaning to this greeting and allow it to question my discussion to go, I wrote it off to him not understanding some of the subtleties of the English language.  This is something you say to a  stranger that knocks at your door with a big brief case wearing a suit but maybe not to someone that is going to essentially be living and working in your house.  Okay.  Good for me.  Open minded and all.

I apologized for coming, kinda unannounced and for the call from the Santo.  She assured me with a flick of her wrist. her bony fingers fanning away my idea as it were a fly,  in absolutely perfect English that it certainly was not the first time such a thing had happened, for both Santo helping a WWOOFer headed to her farm and for a WWOOFer coming without calling.  It was just fine.

"He told me he wanted to take you to my house but i did not want this man to come there.  Once he was talking to me.  The next time I saw him he was driving a school bus.  He turned the bus around to say hello to me.  There were children on the bus Marianne.  This man is a little out of his mind." 

"Yes, but he was friendly and had a phone. But yes indeed a little crazy." 

 The car ride was quick.   I was asked the usual questions.  Where do I come from?  How long have I been here?  Why am I a WWOOFer?  It was pleasant conversation.  Janne ended all of her sentences with a sigh. which I was not sure how to interpret.  She just seemed a little sad and tired.  I don't think I did this to her. 
Sophia, her daughter watched her mother speak.  She stared at her mother as if she were portraying her. 

When we arrived Sophia extracted herself quickly and punctuated the gesture with a swift thud of the car door.  Janne whinced a little but her attention was steadfast on my arriving.  We went to the trunk.  She removed one of my bags.  When I moved to her to stop her, she held a firm flat palm up to face me in a clear gesture of NO. 

"Here is our house where we live and where you will come for meals.  Breakfast is at 8, lunch is at 2 and dinner is at 8:10.  You will work in the morning with Massimo until lunch six days a week with Monday off.  In the afternoons and evenings and your days off you are free to do as you like.  Now you are free to do as you please.  Dinner will be at 8.  If you are hungry now I have something for you."  I quickly replied no but was actually hungry enough to chew off my arm.

As she spoke we walked down a gradual slope covered in stone.  We arrived at what will be my little house for the next three weeks.


It is a little flat, kitchen, private bath and a large bedroom.     "You will have hot water in the afternoon.  I must make a fire everyday for this.  We are country people.  We work in the morning."  she looked at me with her chin tucked down and her eyes on me, as expecting a confirmation. "You are free now.  See you for dinner."

I ripped open my pack as if I were in some kind of a race and found a place for everything.  I was amazed how comforting it was to have my belongings in neat little piles.  My books stacked on a desk, my computer next to them, a notebook laid out and a pen ready to be used.  I folded my underwear and bras out of my water boots and placed them in a drawer, lined them up in order from lights to darks.  I never do this at home.  My work shoes, stored outside on my cute little porch.  City clothes hanging, work clothes folded.  I layed on the bed for just a moment and I was sacked by the weight of sleep brought on my hunger and relief again to have arrived in a new place, for the most part without incident.  Ah La vita-Troppo Dolce.   

The view from my little porch

Noto: A Peak at Paradise