September 8th Saturday Random thoughts
I've been here at my second farm with Maria Pia now for 1 week. I'm getting adjusted to new people with different ways of doing almost everything. I am 1 of 2 WWOOFers here so some tasks get done
together and I always have someone to do things with.
Everywhere I go (almost) has to be by bicycle which I don't mind until it gets dark. There are no street lights and not being able to see the holes in the road or the road ending altogether is a little scary. But there are many little villages doable by bike in this area that I will definitely take a day to go to.
Jonathan the other WWOOFer is almost constantly fixing at least one of the 5 bicycles we have here. They're old but if working, work real well. San Salvatore is just about 1 mile from here and if it's not between the hours of 1 and 5 in the afternoon has many shops and places of interest to see.
Last night I went with Maria Pia and Jonathan to Benevento. Very lovely, very big compared to the towns around here. Many, many parts of the city are 2000-3000 yrs. old. The streets are made of these huge stones and the alleyways between the buildings are a little wider than a small car. So walking and avoiding fast moving cars can be very tricky. Jonathan and I went walking around town while Maria Pia sold or traded stuff at the market (which is why we all came in the first place). It's extremely helpful going anywhere with someone who speaks fluent Italian. (Jonathan)
We just got invited to go to a friends house tomorrow to have gnocchi. They live right down the road. So I guess my bike trip to Guardia will be postponed. Guardia is about 18km (15 miles) and was just on House Hunters International. Claire from Scotland was here and is the owner of the property they featured because she bought her house (in need of a lot of work) for 10,000Euro ($13,500). She invited me out there to see her house of which work is not all done. Claire came here because she buys veggies from Maria Pia once a week. She's dating a married man. Enough said about that.
Yesterday was tomato day. All the tomatoes were picked, sorted, washed and the ones that needed to be used right away (bruised or not quite perfect-of which there were many) were cut up and cooked for sauce. That was a back-breaking job; leaning over a sink and cleaning thousands (it seemed like) of little pear shaped 1-1 1/2 " long tomatoes. But it's done and my back still hurts.
For anyone who might think I'm on a vacation-I'M NOT!! I work very hard and my bed is hard and I have only one pillow. I'm used to 3. Showers are short. Hot water is heated by 1 solar panel so runs out quickly.
Hot water is scarce. Because it is heated by solar and can only be used for showers. I have to wash dishes by hand using cold water only. After a couple nights of that, I started heating a large pot of water on the stove and that is ever so much better. The WWOOFers before me didn't do that. I don't know why.
We have a girls and a boys bathroom. Right now the one upstairs (girls) is used by just me and Maria Pia. The guys bathroom is kind of gross.
Every single day we have visitors.
Lunch every day is many hours of preparation by Italo and is treated like a celebration. We usually eat around 1 p.m. Today we had rosemary foccacha, buffalo mozzarella, pizza with just sauce, fried potatoes with peppers and zucchini greens cooked with peppers and potatoes. Kind of a mixed bag but was all very tasty. No one bakes so guess what? I made apricot/peach muffins. Fruit from our orchard. Bottles of water (our own) and wine at each lunch. And sliced tomatoes.
Wherever we go, Maria Pia knows many people. Grocery store, post office, book store, on the street etc. She greets each with the traditional double kiss.
The post office deserves a separate entry. Everywhere in Italy it is used as a bank/post office. Anyone on Social Security, unemployment or any other social assistance gets their money from the post office. They have to show up in person to get it. There's no direct deposit or mailing of the check. You have to always take a number when entering the post office and it is a dreaded trip like going to the DMV in the U.S..
Grocery stores are interesting. Prices seem for many products cheaper than at home. But the minimum wage here is 4Euro (approx. $6). Maria Pia won't buy cheese or meat unless she knows which village it comes from. She say there are some she just won't buy from-not pure or good enough.
But she smokes probably 2 packs of cigarettes a day. I'm definitely getting a lot of second hand smoke
so my short stay for that reason isn't short enough. Everyone smokes. Maria Pia fills her empty already put together with filter cigarettes. Most of the time she smokes part of the filter.
But recycling is done so precisely. I never am exactly sure which bin things should go in. So people care about the environment so, so much but smoke cigarettes like crazy.
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