Nature's Lead

Michelle and I tried to build this fire, but in
the end, Giordano had to help us out. We will
master the skill before we head back to the U.S.

I haven't blogged about the farming techniques used at this farm, and that's because Michelle and I haven't had any experience using them. The ground is still too wet for winter planting, but we're hoping to get to do some gardening before we leave. Giordano educated us about the positive effects some mushrooms can have on soil, even if the mushrooms are planted a considerable distance away from other crops. He said that, as long as the soil remains "unbroken" or not plowed, the mushrooms create their own ecosystem.

They keep an electric fence around their garden to keep out big animals. When I asked Giordano what kind of plants they use to keep the insects away, he said that it's all about balancing nature. He said that you can use aromatic herbs like thyme and rosemary but that it's also a good idea not to plant crops in rows. Tamara explained that it's easier for a swarm of bugs to destroy a certain type of plant if you group them together in a row. Tamara and Giordano intersperse their plants here. They are also learning how to locate and use edible plants. Apparently they took a class, and the instructor came by their property and said she could see 18 different edible plants and weeds from the car window.

The chess board that Giordano's father sculpted sits outside the
house. Harry Potter, anyone?

We eat mainly vegetables here and lots of whole grains, which is a definite switch up from the other farms. We're actually losing our Italian stomachs! It is truly incredible how fresh ingredients make every dish taste delicious, even though there's not a whole lot of seasoning used. I'm telling you what, that fresh olive oil is key. KEY. I don't know how we're going to readjust to not having it back in the U.S.

A couple days ago, Michelle and I had a long chat with Tamara about birth. She said that labor and delivery are "not painful!" and after searching for the right word, she called the experience "strong." She believes that this is one of the greatest powers of woman. She had a Lotus birth for both of her children, and she said that she and her husband were the only ones in the house while the midwives waited outside the door. With the Lotus birth, no one cuts the umbilical cord. The thought process is that the cord has tons of nutrients still pumping to the baby after birth and that the cord dries a few days later on its own anyways. Since the baby is so intimately united to the cord in the womb, it is said that cutting the cord while it's still working is a shock to the baby and that the baby should choose when to separate itself from the cord.

Giada gives Michelle a makeover.

Michelle and I have had a difficult time watching the children, specifically because the parents believe that the body is the highest form of wisdom, so they place a lot weight on the wants and feelings of their children. Basically, Michelle and I don't think we are "allowed" to tell these kids "no." Their parents don't like to tell them that something is right or wrong because they believe that right and wrong are based on culture, not Truth. (Giordano, interestingly enough, believes in Truth.) There is no sin, just experience, according to our host. When one of the girls throws a tantrum, we feel required to give into her demands because we can't appeal to anything higher than what we want versus what she wants. It's such a strange predicament. Granted, the language barrier is also a problem when it comes to babysitting.

The take-home message from this farm will be--perhaps--to have a healthy reverence for nature. There is a season for all things, after all. Natural functions, of both the body and the earth, work the way they do for a reason. The earth provides for our bodies' needs (if you happen to live in a part of the world where the soil's nutrients haven't been sucked dry). Plants that can be harvested in winter are meant to be eaten in winter. Nature has its own built-in balance that we would be wise to recognize and utilize. Fresh is best. Etc, etc, etc. I should write a jingle about it.

In other news, Michelle and I watched On the Second Day of Christmas on youtube for some general cheer. I can't recommend it for its value as an art form, but we did laugh a lot, and that was what we needed at the time. Oh, and "namaste" is written on the front door here, and because I read this post about Whole Foods two months ago, I laugh every time I walk up the front stairs. Please be advised that the linked article is really for adults only.

The Wind Down

Yesterday's sunset in Assisi

Well, Michelle and I have bought the tickets home. The last thing we want to do is get so excited to see people we know and love that we forget to live each moment of our precious time left in Italy, but I have to admit that it's a big temptation for me. With the days getting shorter and much of our time being spent with our host family, it is definitely easy to think of being home with my actual family...or at least with people who speak English around me and perhaps share a common goal or belief.

Lea and Michelle and Giordano's father's sculpture expo

Lea, the girl doing WorkAway, left today, which makes our leaving seem all the closer. The final checklist inadvertently comes up when we're doing menial tasks: Woah, are we really in Italy? Did we buy all the appropriate gifts? Did we buy too many gifts? What if some weren't blessed by the Pope? Wow, is this really where St. Francis lived? Will our luggage be too heavy for checked baggage? Which pieces of clothing are we leaving behind? Are we really going to grad school soon? Where will we live in a month and a half? How much money did we spend here? Which towns do we think are important enough to visit before we leave this country? When will we do our laundry next? When will we wash our hair next? Do we want to have children after living with this family? Etc. etc. etc.

Oh hey! Breaking news: We saw the head of St. Catherine of Siena. Wouldn't you know her mom wanted her body back in her hometown, but some more powerful people wanted her body in Rome...so her body is in Rome, and her head is in Siena. Quite the compromise, right? She's incorruptible. I don't know if you've ever seen an incorruptible body of a saint (I would suggest the mostly incorruptible body of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini under the glass altar at Cabrini Chapel on the north side of Washington Heights in NYC.), but it's awesome in an Angus sense of the word. We were also able to see the crucifix upon which she was meditating when she received the stigmata, and it wasn't even a super cool crucifix. Il campo, where the horse race Palio is held every summer, was not as hopping as it normally is, probably because we visited in the rainy season. Did I say rainy? The sweatshirt I was wearing that day still smells like mildew. Too much information? This is real life, people.

Entering Il Campo

Piazza del Campo

View of Siena from San Domenico

My final words of note for this rambling blog post: Lea shared with us today three things you should never bring up to Austrians. The first, she said, was that we're not supposed to ask them if they've seen The Sound of Music, which, of course, is the first thing Michelle and I asked Lea. (I'm pretty sure we sang several songs to her, just to make sure that she had never seen the film or play.) The second is that we're not supposed to compare them to Germans, and I think that's because the Austrians feel inferior. The third is that we should not confuse Austria with Australia, which is something that she says Americans often do. Michelle and I shrugged and said that some Americans confuse West Virginia and Virginia; can we really expect them to understand the concept of two countries having similar names?

Michelle bought roasted chestnuts! 

We will be country-hopping before we head back to the States, so stay tuned to see where our adventure takes us!

Assisi Week One

Michelle in Assisi

Every farm is different from every other farm in some way when it comes to WWOOF, but for me, this farm has been the most difficult adjustment. The internet goes off around 10pm, and the house gets quiet, so Michelle and I get a little too much sleep at night. The stoves in the house keep the temperature around 68 degrees, but it's a little colder in the back rooms, and so we sleep with our doors opened. Thankfully, Michelle discovered how to get the hot water to work in the shower, because we had taken a couple cold ones. It's funny to me how you learn which body parts of a farmer are "essential cleaning" and which aren't when the water is cold. Ok, ok. These, I know, are first-world annoyances.

Giada, Gemma, and me

Tamara is half-German, half-Italian. Leah, an 18-yr-old girl doing WorkAway, is Austrian. They speak to one another and to the girls in German. Giordano is Italian, and he speaks Italian to his wife and to his daughters. Meals are usually pretty quiet, or they're in a different language. Sometimes we get a brief translation of a two-minute conversation: "They're talking about horses."

On the night of our arrival, Michelle and I learned about vitality levels, written by the doctor at your birth, which determine whether or not you should do well in life. The next evening, we discussed unschooling and the role of "the system" in stifling the natural curiosity of children. Of course, most of these terrible systems were instituted by the Church, according to Giordano. He has unusual ideas. Today he told me that he thinks people shouldn't pay taxes and that the government can simply print more money. I mentioned something about inflation, but he wrote that off as only happening when way too much money is printed. I didn't really catch it all, and perhaps the language barrier got in the way.

Tamara is the sweetest, and I think that because she's German, I'm just never expecting her to say something super kind and inviting. Germans are great (I'm more German than Italian!) but Italians are generally warmer. Anyways, at about 3:45pm the other day, she brought the girls up to weed with me and Michelle and invited us to come to town with her in about 30 minutes. Cut scene. Enter Assisi.

Yes, we live here now.

We had less than two hours, but Rick Steves' self-guided tour took us through the Basilica of San Francesco. Wouldn't you know Giotto painted the entire upper basilica! (I bet Angus, the man who suggested we visit the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua because of its Giotto frescoes, likes this church.) My favorite part of the basilica was that, surrounding the tomb of St. Francis, four of his closest friends are buried. They're not saints, but because they walked through life with St. Francis as friars, their bodies are honored in the same chapel as his. Sweet!

Basilica of St. Francis

The exhibition was in an old church
of St. Francis, wouldn't you know?

The next evening, Tarama invited us to attend an exhibition of Giordano's father in Gualdo Tadino. Giordano's father is a sculptor and is clearly good enough to make a living from it. While "my Italian" is not an actual thing, I'm pretty sure one of the presenters called his work "both simple and complex" while describing his simple people designs with complicated emotions and meanings behind them. Our favorite part of the evening by far, though, was being picked up by Giordano's parents. His mother speaks some English, and his father laughs a lot. On the way, we sang the English songs she knew: "LondonBridge" and "My Bonnie."

Leah and Gemma at the exhibition

Oh, and the actual work? Michelle and I spent four days transplanting something that looked like a baby pine tree from gravel to a rock wall and weeding plants that did not resemble the baby pine tree from another gravel pathway. Today we babysat for a little while, which was good because, when Leah leaves on Thursday, that will be our main task for the remainder of our stay.

Stay warm wherever you are, blog readers! Michelle and I refuse to let this wet chill dampen our spirits, and I'm hoping this November remains interiorly bright for all of you.

Oh, look! FLOWERS!!! Let me tell you, even
though we were damp and cold, these really
brightened up the day! I'll let you guess who
sent these to Michelle :)

Good-Bye, Roma! Hello, Venezia!

Michelle and I left Calatafimi on Monday to head to Rome. It was a heartfelt goodbye, a quick flight, and a relatively easy travel day. We had free "pizza" (only in quotes because it was similar to that of American chain pizza parlors and not done the Italian way) at our hostel and then strolled to the Coliseum to get our blood flowing again.

The Coliseum at night

statue with the flexed arm

The next morning, we went for a run to explore our area of Rome together. While I don't have a passion for running, this was fun! Later that morning, we took a tour of the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. Wow. My favorite thing about the tour was learning about Michelangelo. Did you know he refused the first time the pope asked him to paint the chapel because he insisted he was a sculptor and not a painter? My favorite story was that, in his day, people found an ancient Greek sculpture in Italy that had a missing arm. Everyone except Michelangelo thought the missing arm would have been positioned as an extended arm, raised over the head, because that was popular during their time. Michelangelo, however, studied the back muscles of the sculpture and determined that the original arm would have been flexed. When the arm was found a few years later, Michelangelo was proved right. I love it when people know their craft well!

The hall from St. Peter's to the
Sistine Chapel

The Gesu was lit for 15 min.

After we ate a delicious lunch near Piazza Navona, it was time to pick up our reserved tickets to see Pope Francis the next day. As soon as we arrived, we were given a brief orientation to the General Audience by PNAC seminarians. Wouldn't you know the guy giving the orientation lives on Martin's floor? And wouldn't you know we saw the guy who opened the door for us there on the street the next day? Small city. The rest of our afternoon was spent finding appropriate Christmas gifts to get blessed by the Pope the next day, and then we checked out some churches. Just after we walked out of the Gesu, a man came outside and told us to go back inside because the lights are only turned on once a day for visitors to see the beautifully decorated interior, and now was that time. What a gem! We split a quick (!) pizza before meeting Martin at The Fridge (Frigidarium) for gelato, which has become quite a habit of ours when in Rome.

Whoop! It's my birthday! That meant a 6:30am departure from the hostel to get to St. Peter's Square early enough to get a good place in line before security guards opened up the gates. Lunch is late in Italy; dinner is late; but Pope Francis is early! Thankfully, Michelle and I followed the advice of our orientation and waited to snag a seat in the front row of the second barricaded section. Starting the 10:30 Audience at 9:35, Pope Francis passed right in front of us in his Pope Mobile. The rest of the Audience was done in about eight different languages, and the blessing was relatively anticlimactic. (I think I was expecting angelic choirs.) But I got a birthday blessing from the Pope, by golly. Michelle and I followed that with cappuccino, a stroll, and pranzo at the seminary. The priest who sat at our table for lunch shared his love of history with us as we got onto the topic of the election. I didn't know that African Americans were elected to public office right after the Civil War. Boom.

The crowd of chefs lined up to see the Papa; Michelle and I ended up next to the seventh graders.

Oh, and my birthday dinner was marvelous, and a bird pooped in my hair for good luck.

Now for the cream: We met the cousins of our hosts in Calatafimi while we still in Sicily. These particular cousins live in Venice and invited us to stay at their home and eat their food for four days. And so we did, and it was absolutely spectacular! 

Angela, me, and Lilia

Lilia, who speaks no English, picked us up at the train station. That's right, folks. We did not have to lug our luggage through puddles in Venice-Mestre or figure out the tram/bus schedule or call a cab. Our gratitude just grew from that point. The apartment is BEAUTIFUL, and an artist friend of theirs decorated it for fun. Our daily breakfast consisted of homemade bread and homemade jam and fruits of our choice. The niece of our hosts in Sicily, Clara, met with us the night we arrived to take us out for aperitivo and then the three of us returned to the apartment for dinner. The next morning, Clara texted us to let us know that the water level in Venice was too high for us to enjoy ourselves and that we should wait for a bit. Then in the early afternoon the three of us went into Venice together on the bus so that Clara could make sure we felt comfortable getting around the city. (Already mentioned it, but the gratitude was growing.) We spent three hours in the l'Academia Museum and really only covered about half of it. Michelle and I had no idea we liked art museums so much! We finished out the evening the Venetian way with aperitivo.

Michelle and Clara

Justin Timberlake in the museum??

In Padua, we started out doing Rick Steve's four-hour tour. Wouldn't you know that as soon as we walked inside St. Anthony's, Mass was starting, and we were moved to participate? Well,  there went our plan! Just think, St. Anthony's tomb on your left, Jesus in front of you; it was a good decision. We still hit everything on his list, though. We just didn't get to the Scrovegni Chapel as far in advance of our scheduled tour as most people do. But we made it, which is the important part. According to Angela, the only "pity" was that we missed seeing the Baptistry, which wasn't on Rick's tour anyways.

For those of you who don't know anything about the Scrovegni Chapel (I didn't before Angus suggested it.), Giotto was commissioned to paint the entire interior, on which he included scenes from the early life of Mary and scenes from the infancy, life, and Passion of Christ. The kicker was the back wall, where Giotto painted the Last Judgment. He depicted Scrovegni junior as one of the blessed on his knees offering the chapel to Christ through Mary in atonement for his own sins and the sins of his father, as they both got rich from exacting interest on loans (usury, according to the information video). Interesting that Scrovegni believed reparation could be made without turning from his sin, but perhaps the information video just didn't mention that part.

Lilia and Angela insisted that we attend the 11am cantata (Gregorian chant, in this case) Mass on San Giorgiano, a Venetian island, on Sunday morning. The vaporettos took longer than usual due to the elevated water levels and boat changing involved to fit under the bridges, but we made it just in time. Although sparsely attended, the Mass was simple but beautiful. It was especially lovely that both our hosts came with us.

Hey there, water!

Lilia is a retired art teacher, and she took us to the Friari church because she wanted to explain to us the works of Titian, Donatello, and Bellini that were found there. Angela translated. What a delight! Art in its intended location speaks to the heart more clearly than in a museum, in my opinion. Michelle and I never felt so bad that we didn't speak Italian as we did when Lilia tried to communicate her knowledge to us. She is clearly a fantastic teacher, as we learned all about the rise of Humanism during the Renaissance and the difference between the Florentine and Venetian schools. And we just looked at three pieces with her. Imagine if we had been to the l'Academia with her!

This is Bellini. The painting runs right into the frame!

While we had a pleasant-enough day visiting Murano, the glass-making island of Venice, and taking Rick Steve's vaporetto tour, Michelle and I reaffirmed that our joy in travel doesn't come from visiting places but in getting to know people. I hope you all take time today to appreciate the people who surround you. You never know when that will change. It's off to Assisi for Michelle and me!

Mount Etna and Country Roads, Take Me Home

Since we finished the harvest early, and because Michelle and I had such a good experience renting a car the last time, we decided to take off for about a day and a half to see the other side of Sicily. Mainly, the plan was to climb parts of Etna and to visit the hometown of my great-grandparents, called Fiumedinisi. And that's exactly what we did.

It was an early-rise day again, as the bus from Calatafimi to Palermo left at 6:20am, and Angus wanted to leave the house at 5:45am to make it to town. He considers the buses to be erratic, which gave us plenty of time to hit the ATM before heading out for the day. The rental car process went much more smoothly this time since we had booked online, and we left Palermo around 8:45am. (But not before we ate our packed breakfasts and sat against the wall outside the rental car company's door like we were homeless.)

The drive was nice, despite the half hour or so of rain. Michelle and I almost have a routine for road trips at this point. Sometimes we listen to music. Sometimes we ride quietly with the windows down. Sometimes we have deep discussions. We stop for gas when it's at half a tank. (On our first trip, we figured out that "senza piombo" is unleaded all by ourselves! Big thanks to Miranda for being senza glutine at our last farm and to the Periodic Table of Elements for introducing us to Pb.) Our favorite thing to do, though, is read together. Well, more accurately, Michelle reads and I listen. For me, it's like an audio book, and for her, probably a monologue. Anyway, the book is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, and we both recommend it.

I don't know what we were expecting to see on our way to Mt. Etna, but we weren't expecting to be able to see the volcano for about two hours of our drive. At one point after coming out of a tunnel (There are TONS of tunnels along the autostrada in Sicily!) Michelle was reading, and I just said, "Woah!" There it was, towering in the distance; Mount Etna is huge.

We drove around to Etna Sud because we read that there were good trails on that side, so this was taken just as we went south of the mountain.

I can't adequately describe the mountain to you, and the photos Michelle and I took don't really do Etna justice. But it's all we have, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. I just want to say that the lack of oxygen was noticeable, the ash was difficult to walk on because it was so light, and the slopes were steeper than pictures show. It was a cloudy day, so we weren't able to see the towns below Etna, which made us feel as if we weren't that high, but we most likely reached an elevation of 7,800 ft. (I don't know how high our hour of hiking got us from the Refugio Sapienza, which is 6,233 ft, but it looked to be quite far.)

Craters!!

This was the first crater we walked around, and it was made in 2001.

I'm pretty sure someone drew that crop circle, but who knows.

A nice British couple took our picture.

Look at those colors!

highway to the danger zone

Jesus is everywhere.

That peak in the right hand corner is 10, 991 feet (unless there's a higher peak we couldn't see somewhere), but we only made it to this point.

I like this view. In the background past the cable cars you can see 3-4 craters/tops blown off the mountain, and in the foreground you can see how the lava hardened the ash.

Because hot chocolate is rich, thick, and delicious!

Fiat 500. It was both totally automatic and totally manual, and on top of that,
if you didn't like the gear automatic used, you could switch it manually. We
were the last car in the lot that day. 

We got to drive down the volcano with the sunset.

We then had a bit of GPS confusion, as we had put in one city and address, and the GPS changed it to another city. Interestingly enough, in Milo--the city we ended up in accidentally--there was a church called Our Lady of Providence, and they were having a Mass that evening to celebrate the 17th Anniversary of the dedication of that church. What a great name for a church in the shadow of Etna! We didn't stay for Mass because we were supposed to be at our bed and breakfast at 8pm. Of course, we didn't make it there at that time because of the GPS problem (which involved Michelle going into a random pizzeria to use the internet in order to email our B&B host, while I fell asleep in the car outside, and a peanut butter explosion happened later). Eventually, we arrived safely and slept in an extremely comfy bed.

The next day, we headed for Fiumedinisi--the Sicilian town from which both of my grandfather's parents arrived in the United States. It was Halloween, and the cemetery was full of visitors honoring the deceased. There were many flower trucks out and about that morning as we drove there. Unfortunately, my visit was poorly planned, and I hadn't gotten the first names of my relatives. I took many photos of gravestones with family names on them, however, so perhaps I did get a photo of one of my grandfather's relatives.

Considering that this is Sicily, I probably could have shouted my last name and been introduced to five distant cousins on the spot, but not knowing much of anything else in Italian, I didn't do that. I did see the abandoned church where my great-grandparents were probably baptized, and I got a photo outside the newer cathedral as well. (CHRISTMAS GIFT SPOILER ALERT!) We stopped in a "souvenir" shop, and I was able to purchase a small ceramic bowl made in Fiumedinisi for my grandfather. There really was nothing else made in town that I could buy in that shop since the tourist season is over and because the town is quite small. The best part, however, was probably sipping a cappuccino in the bar while Country Roads came on the Italian talk show on TV. Not kidding! It was a God moment. Michelle even turned to me and said, "Is this real life?"

Before heading back to Palermo to drop off the not-scratched car and catch the bus to Calatafimi, we had a picnic lunch on the seaside, about three miles from Fiumedinisi, in Nizza di Sicilia. What a beautiful day!