O, Tannenbaum

It´s that time of year again!  Christmas at Marion´s is turning into something of a tradition.  This is my last evening here, so while Marion and Kallah are out swimming (mad), I am at home, listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas, drinking a lovely glass of Tempranillo and preparing to prepare a marvelous dinner.  Roasted beets, rosemary potatoes, and steak au poivre with mushrooms.  Marion asked, naturally, if it was going to be fattening.  I responed with, "it doesn´t have to be...", leaving the caveat of "...but it´s better that way" secretly in place.  A little butter and cognac at Christmas time never hurt anyone.
I have had, as always, a wonderful time here.  They picked me up late Saturday evening in Dusseldörf during a snow storm, the first real, heavy snow that I have seen in a long time.  Suddenly, Christmas time became real, and a tear of gratitude and sentimentality rolled down my cheek.  After weeks of henious weather and tacky, half-assed Italian christmas decorations I was in need of an escape, and Germany was definitely the place to do it.
Sunday night we went to "make sport" with their exercise group.  This is a club of friends who have been getting together every winter sunday for the past 30 years to exercise, socialize and dine.  We spent this snowy, freezing evening in a toasty gym, doing aerobics and playing badmitton.  Kallah, who has continuously proved himself to be The Sweetest Man in the Entire World, partnered up with a tiny, beautiful little girl of about 3 for the relay races.  Even during the exercise called hopping-on-one-foot-over-old-mens´-legs-in-a-giant-circle, which requires serious concentration if one wishes to not make a fool of themselves (...), I couldn´t help but smile the entire time, keeping my eye on Kallah and the child.´
After exercise, I casually opted out of the rather cultural (German) "next step", which is to shower, re-do ones hair and make-up, and then stand around stark naked making conversation in the changing room.  Tried to keep my scandalized, up-tight American eyes on the floor, tying and retying my shoelaces in order to keep occupied.  To me such things don´t make sense.  I´m just not (and I don´t think I´m alone here) quite "free-spirited" enough to want anyone other than FL to see me naked (and I try and keep the lights dim even then..."wobbly bits" and all, eek), and more to the point, I have no desire to see anyone other than my beloved´s naked body.  The human body, in most cases, is not attractive, and people have weird markings and things which are best kept hidden.  Also, communal showers are dirty, and I much prefer my own.  Marion, who is clearly a member of a much more open-minded, confident and evolved culture, cleared up my confusion by pointing out a reason for doing these things that I had never considered.  Water, she says, is expensive in Germany.  If they use the shower at the gym, they get to take a long, hot shower for free.  Priorities are cultural, as well, I suppose. 
After the gym we stopped at a "typical German" restaurant to have dinner with Kallah´s son.  The food was heavy and wild-game inspired and wonderful.  Kallah had goose, I had buck, and I was in heaven.
On Monday, Marion and I spent the afternoon at a Christmas market in downtown Mülheim.  One long, picturesque street had been lined with boothes and merchants selling wares.  There were knitted scarves and hats, wood-carved santas and elves, fresh cheeses and local specialties.  One booth sold vintage clothing articles, and we found the most precious pair of black velvet heels, and a funky scarf\hood hybrid lined with fox fur.  Old German ladies bustled me into a chair and aided me as I tried on the heels, my bear toes freezing in the icy slush, bringing the old saying "beauty knows no pain" to mind.  We window shopped and browsed for a while, stumbling into a charming tea shop.  My eyes landed on a display of plates, dishes, and other dinnerware, and I was almost knocked to the floor with awe.  The designs and colors were positively gorgeous, Anthroplogie-style, flirty and delicate.  There were depictions of sparrows and patterns of roses in bright pinks, blues, and taupes.  Gold edges alluded to the glamour that is inherent in china patterns, those thin lines of class and elegance.  I was in-love, I coveted.  And Marion, for whatever reason it is that compels her to do such things, in her business-like, finalized, unsentimental manner, instructed me to chose the set that I wanted.  I would need a Christmas present, right?  Well... And I didn´t have any dishes at Bosc di Sot, nothing to eat on, good grief!  Well...
I admit, I didn´t try to argue.
We chose a set of 6, gorgeous dinner plates, dessert plates, bowls, and mugs.  I will love them, cherish them, and think of Marion and her unending kindness everytime I eat from them.
Happy, giddy in our find, full of Christmas spirit and light-headed from Glüehwine (sp?), we went about our day, spending a while that evening playing Rummycub, and talking all manner of things over her kitchen table.
Tuesday I accompanied Marion to school, which is also something of a tradition.  Her new group of students this year was delightful, and I stood nervously picking at my nails in the middle of the classroom as they asked me sweet questions in English, and told me interesting things about themselves.  Marion had me explain to them my life in Italy and my new position in the wine industry...
oh, I forgot to mention that!  Last week I got a call from a guy in Cormons whose family runs a winery.  He is a friend of FL´s and had hard that I had interest in wine.  We met at his house and discussed their desire to vend their wines to America, and I told him all I knew of such an enterprise.  I assured them that the markets in America are looking to small, family-run wineries that offer a unique, high quality product, and that I could see no reason why their wine, which is fantastic, should not find buyers.  We shook hands on it, and I was given the position.  So, I have a client!  lalala.
Readers: anyone with contacts in the wine import business, or have suggestions for restaurants or wine shops that would be worth talking to, please let me know.  When I am home for Christmas I will use the time to make contacts, meet importers, and really get a hand on how to go about this business.  This is an incredible opportunity, and I am excited and honored to make it work.
I fly home tonight, back to Venice, back to FL.  One week of hard house work there and then...GEORGIA! 
 

baaaaah.  this winter weather is brutal and beyond depressing.  cold i can deal with, or rain, or even sleet and snow, but not all together.  the sky outside looked sick and yellow today, like someone tossed an old dirty sheet over the snowglobe of cormons.  bursts of violent rain, followed by gusts of the notorious wind they call "bora" has everything cracking and cold, frozen breaths and soggy noses.  weather like this prohibits even the simplest of activities.  going downtown for a cappuccino is now an exercise in self-preservation and time-consuming perseverance.  one has to not only dress in layers of uncormfortable, bulky clothes that prohibit the arms' full range of motion, one must also undress and redress at the coffee shop, and then undress and spend an hour hovering over the heater to thaw out\dry out upon return.  it's far easier to just drink tea at home, which is what i opted for.
spent a while today rereading some of my old blogs.  am truly a terrible writer, at least grammatically, and my spelling is atrocious.  found my old entries from novembers past, in which i bitch and moan about this exact same climate.  entires from later in the season point to the inevitable pnemonia that follows such inexperience (i say "inexperience" because as an innocent georgia peach i just cannot fathom winters such as these, am totally unprepared, even three years running), and i fear my fate will be the same this year, too.  must buy some rain boots, at least. 
so, the lovely zoe was here!   we picked her up from the station in cormons last wednesday evening, the poor thing just as ill as ill can be.  the flu, or something like it.  aside from the dissapointment of not being able to take her to the newly refinished and cozy Bosc di Sot- where octopi wave blissfully from the kitchen walls and a fire roars in the place where fires roar, kittens curl up on laps purring and kaki (persimmons) fall gooshily and sweetly from the trees- it was probobly most definitely for the best that we were instead staying with FL's family.  Paola (FL's mom) is definitely that: a mom.  medicines, hot teas, boxes of tissues and pairs of slippers in varying sizes and colors are stacked like ammunition throughout the cabinets and closets of this house.  Zoe, who was almost translucent in her paleness, weak as a lamb, was in good hands.  paola pumped her full of syrups and honeys, FL made her fresh-squeezed orange juice, and i set her up under the blessed, hot tiger duvet in our bedroom, where she slept well into the next day.
that next day being...THANKSGIVING!  woke up bright and early to get all of my shopping done.  Cormons was bustling, and I popped shop to shop greeting the people i knew and smiling at those i didn't.  Bonelli, the sweet butcher, apologized profusely for not having a turkey on hand.  he hoped a giant chicken would suffice, and i told him honestly that between the two, i prefer roasting a chicken any day.  herbs and lemons were bought at a fruit shop, porcini mushrooms, root vegetables and barley at a market around the corner.  Zoe kept me company while i cooked, and regardless of how "simple" i had planned to keep the menu it still took all day.  started off with deviled eggs, in honor of nana, and then moved on to what i thought was a rather delicious invention.  for some reason i had been craving barley, so i made a dressing of barley (instead of corn bread), and baked it with carrots, celery, celery root, parsnip, porcini mushrooms and shallots.  topped with fried sage and a "cheesy bread-crumb crust", i think it's going to be a thanksgiving staple from now on.  garlic and leek mashed potatoes were thrown together, delicious as always, and the chicken was absolutely perfect.  Paola carved the chicken, and FL's dad was rather impressed by the mashed potatoes.  FL ate the majority of the chicken, his dimples blinking with pleasure bite after bite, and paola told me that she has no fear that her son will ever go hungry with a woman like me.
after dinner i took a little plate over to condor, who was working at EventualMente, the new bar that some of FL's friends have just opened around the corner.  Zoe was both entrigued and nervous to discover that the club is sponsored by communists.  an association called the ARCI, which has something to do with arts and films, is a political group that funds creative spaces around italy.  bars qualify, naturally, as do some movie theatres, restuarants, galleries, and libraries.  FL's friend roberto, who is politically extreme, opened an ARCI here in cormons in the only form that would be fully supported by the community: a bar.  there are books and board games and "areas for discussion".  the walls are blindingly red.  for "tax purposes" one must fill out a little card with your name and birthdate upon your first entry and pay a small fee, thus being given a membership card and being granted access to ARCI clubs all over italy.  I told zoe that her name would undoubtedly be on some northern-italian communist list serve from here on out, noting her as an american member and, in fact, supporter of such a cause, but told her not to worry.  as the "communitst party no longer exists in italy", i doubt much will come of it.
FL and i worked on the house all day saturday.  it gets more and more depressing every time we go over there, as it seems that things just keep getting worse instead of better.  finally, though, we got around to painting the kitchen its primary coat of white, and things began looking up.  Udine was having some sort of Santa Caterina festival all week, so saturday night we roused ourselves from the warm cocoon of FL's parents house and ventured out.  The festival was lovely, though more of a big market than anything.  nicknacks, winter wear, antiques, delicious foods and fresh candies were sold from pleasantly lighted booths around one of the main squares.  we strolled through downtown so zoe could see the city, which is really so very beautiful, and then found ourselves at a restaurant outside of town.  FL and I ate like we usually do- steamed mussles and octopus carpaccio, a whole roasted fish and a giant cut of beef- and zoe had pizza.  we had thought to go on to cividale, a gorgeous mountain town a little ways away, but it was frigid and icy so we opted instead for hot tea and a movie at home.
Sunday evening, Zoe's last evening in italy, we took her to slovenia.  made sense at the time, and i think she was happy to be able to say she went.  i feel awful that the weather was so bad and the whole of friuli pretty much shut down during her time here, but i think november is november and cannot be avoided.  advised her to come back some summer, take a walk through the lush vineyards and rambling mountains, have a swim at porchis pool and ride a vespa through collio.  that's the life right there.
trying to keep my spirits up through this crappy weather.  lonely days stuck at home make me even more greatful for what is coming up: my long-overdue trip to see gorgeous marion, FL's and my winter wonderland mini break in alto adige, and, last but not least, christmas.  at home.  i cannot wait. 
 
    

**Blogger has set up some new-fangled photo installation program that is dfbwfbqBULLSHITsdfjhhq and i cannot make it work properly.  Consequently, the photos on this blog (and the last) are arranged stupidly.  I have given up trying to right the obvious wrongs in order to just write and lessen the chances of becoming so frustrated that i launch my laptop across the room into the wall.  sorry for the confusion.  When my blood pressure returns to normal i will write a patient but strongly worded letter to the haughty, python-speaking people at Google asking why they have to make things so damned technical and complicated for the rest of us. 


Is 11am on Sunday morning and I am snuggled in bed, eating bon bons (seriously) and listening to the Church bells toll for the 4th time today.  I am being a bad, lazy girlfriend, but I figured that as long as I blog then I can write the morning off as productive.  FL is over at Bosc di Sot working hard to bring order to the chaos that has befallen our beautiful home.

Our beautiful home!  Oh readers, we were so naive, so eager, so young and in love!  When the papers came through and Bosc di Sot was finally ours we rushed with abandon into our new home, ignoring the strange smells and bubbling floors and rust that poured out of the water pipes, blind to the scary collapsing shower and sagging ceiling and lights that wouldn't turn on.  We had a home!  A kitchen!  We just wanted to cook and paint and make love and plant flowers in the frigid, November garden.  I lined the sticky kitchen counters with cookbooks, hung the 5lb sparkle shirt from a pre-existing nail on the wall, and lit a fire in our gorgeous fireplace.  Smoke poured back into the living room and choking, laughing, playfully we opened doors and windows.  The house was ours, and regardless of whether or not we could breath or had to wear three pairs of socks to keep warm, we were happy.

FL's father came over last Wednesday to have a look around.

"Puttana!" he exclaimed.  This was not a good sign.

Examining the house, he began to point out the obvious flaws, the ones that we thought could be lived with and dealt with from the inside.  The walls, under the coat of dirty white wash, we covered in mold.  He pulled back the ugly wooden paneling in the living room, found the walls there to be decaying, in places black and crumbled.  The removal of the ugly wood paneling led to the destruction of the ugly faux-brick linoleum on the floor, leaving only bare cement.  A removal of the tacky, filthy ceiling lights left only bare bulbs and faulty wiring.  The entire house would have to be re-wired, he said, which would involve getting inside the walls.  The water pipes were rusted and the shower was nothing short of scary, the entire bathroom in need of new tiles. 

"Pack your shit up," he said, in his gruff yet humorous way.  "We're gonna have to start from the beginning".

And so our home has turned into a construction zone.  As I write, from the comfortable (now) "guest apartment" of Mr. and Mrs. Cecot', FL is over at Bosc di Sot knocking holes in the brick and cementing in new outlets and wires.  Yesterday, when I wasn't sitting indian style on the floor gazing lovingly at him while he worked (my god, he is beautiful, all muscly and manly and he can do and fix anything!), I spent the day removing layer upon layer of paint, stucco, and mold from the walls of the bedrooms with bleach.  Thursday and Friday I worked there by myself while FL was at work, cleaning like a mad woman and removing debris, pulling up flooring and scrubbing the fireplace, removing countless nails and screws and changing the glass in the windows (FL helped me with this), and trimming the garden which had grown wild during these past weeks of constant rain.  It is going to be a time now before the house is actually habitable, but it is all for the better.  When it is done, it will be beautiful.

The house sits on a hill surrounded by a tiny forest, a little ways away from the bigger mountains that protect Cormons.  The name Bosc di Sot is Friulian, but translates to Italian as "bosco" (meaning "forest") di "sotto" (meaning "under").  This little forest is at the edge of a tiny national park on one side, and private vineyards and valleys all around the other side.  We drive up a windy, steep road to the top of the hill, and there sits the house.  The front of the house faces west, but that hardly matters: there is nothing to see but a wall of trees and brush.  It is the view from the side facing north- where on a clear day in the winter when the leaves are gone one can see Mt. Quarin and glowing Cormons- and east which is killer.  From our upstairs bathroom window, which faces out the back of the house, we see first the garden down below.  It is lush and rambling, full of fruit trees, tiny overgrown paths and wild bushes of herbs.  Up from the garden there is a hedge of huge pines, and above that, the view goes on forever.  First, tiny towns, their church steeples and the roofs of houses, rolling hills and patches of vineyards.  This earthly world gives way to darker mountains, first those of Italy, and then those in Slovenia.  They are blue and black and fog hangs over them, they are infinite.  I like to play a little game called "how many castles can I see from my bathroom window"?  Sometimes 3, sometimes more.  They are illuminated on the mountains at night, their spires poking up from towns closer by. 

On the side of the house there is a canopy of grape vines, hanging over a table and chairs (currently nasty cement, we will have to find something more comfortable), a perfect place for summer meals.  The garage and what is to be my writing studio are detached, a red tile-roofed building unto itself.  Underneath there is a giant room full of wood for the fire, old tools and furniture that i just cannot wait to get my hands on to refinish.  There is a wooden gate to the side door of the house, a pretty little area with potted plants and a tiny porch.  The side door leads to the kitchen, which is small and desperately in need of updating and new cabinetry, but cozy.  It has a window looking out over the garden.  We are blessed to have a cast iron stove and a new oven, but the refrigerator is a disaster.  Curved brick doorways lead to the other downstairs rooms, and the fireplace presides over the main entry hall, which will be our dining room.  Classy marble stairs lead to the second floor, where there is the bathroom, too small and in need of remodeling, and two bedrooms.  Our bedroom is at the end of the hall, and it is perfect.  Old creaky wood floors and huge windows that open wide, it is small and cozy.

After all of our work yesterday, our reward was a trip to Ikea- where we bought a little chandelier for the bedroom and some other odds and ends- and dinner at Giat Neri, our favorite romantic date night destination.  On the way home, FL remembered that Gradisca, a town nearby, was having it's annual Chocofest, a festival of chocolate (duh).  For about an hour we wandered about, drinking vin brulee (red wine brewed with spices) and sampling truffles, until our eyes were closing on our own accord and sleep was the greatest idea that we could come up with for how to spend the rest of our Saturday night.  At home, we put on Four Weddings and a Funeral, and FL was snoring before Andie McDowell and Hugh Grant met up at their pub with "Boat" in the title.  It was 10:30pm.

I'll try to take and post pictures during this remodeling process, though this is contingent on blogger's photo system cooperating.
 

 

Sicilia, the end

 Sweet Fabio (I had already decided he was sweet based on our first telephone conversation. The kindness in his voice, his enthusiasm and most of all his immediate willingness to accept 4 total strangers into his house on less-than-24-hour-notice told me so) asked if we could take an early afternoon bus out to Sciacca. This afforded us a morning of sightseeing in Palermo. We woke early for four kids as exhausted as we were, but our internal clocks had us set to the hour of the rising sun. At 8 we roused ourselves to the table in the living room of the bed and breakfast, where Claudio had set out our colazione. A croissant, yogurt, juice and milk, butter and jam, and, most spectacular of all, American-style coffee were served. Couple this with Claudio's Morning Musical Selection, Dr. Dre, to kick things off, and our moods were set on "jubilant" for the rest of the day.

The four of us walked through the chaos of downtown Palermo in search of Ballaro', the famous market. I had seen it, but the others hadn't, and since we were all obsessed with food this was the perfect morning activity for us all. Ballaro' is set up on one long, windy alley, connecting the dots of tiny piazze. Stands of all types are set up in rows along both sides, and one must weave and duck and spin to catch everything there is to be seen without crashing into little old men playing accordions and big fat men shouting Sicilian gibberish at the top of their lungs and slinging still-struggling Mediterranean fish onto mountains of filthy ice. There were baskets of snails, dauntlessly trying to make their escape up and over the side, only to be flicked cruelly back down to the bottom by the callous forefinger of a filthy, happy merchant. Walls of marzipan in the shapes of fruits and animals and historic buildings ran colorfully. Local cheeses and cured meats of all varieties were layed out by men who smoked cigarettes right above them, the ash flying perilously over the food as customers bantered for the right cut. Cows' tongues flapped in the wind and pigs' feet stood apathetically detached from their former selves. Sheep sawed in half hung on display, the innards wet and coiled and hanging admirably in place as though they were not in the body of a warm, recently massacred animal but made of plastic, sculpted only to instruct a group of biology students on the inner workings of the body. I wondered if they had run toothpicks through the back of the bodies to hold everything together. These things did not disgust me in the least. What did disgust me were the salt-cured fish, anchovies and baccala. The stench is rancid and made the sides of my throat water dangerously. I didn't think anyone would mind me vomiting in a place like this, but i rushed by these stands as fast as possible with my shirt over my nose just to be sure.

The alley takes a long time to walk from one end to another, and as we inspected a display of beautifully cured olives- dark and bright, some with rosemary, some salted with giant, pea-sized rocks of salt- music rang out from somewhere down the road. It was a parade of sorts, a marching band, brass instruments and drums and flutes, you name it. the band made their way through the alley to one of the piazze, where they set up shop on a tiny platform and played their hearts out for us. A miracle that we were there to see this.

Around noon we split up- Zoe and Chris used the internet, and Marianne and I had lunch. A selection of local cheeses, grilled mushrooms, a panino with eggplant and a slice of lasagna. It was a heaven-sent lunch, and we felt fortified for our journey to come.

1pm and we found ourselves running late and scrambling to get our things, pay for the room, and exit the B&B. 10 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off through throngs of traffic trying to find the right ticket office- of which there were far too many- to buy our bus tickets. Right as the bus was ready to depart, we boarded. Settled in for our 1.5 hour journey, we each took adjacent window seats and breathed a sigh of relief.
The ride out to Sciacca was spectacular, and we grinned and our hearts beat faster as we rode along, each of us knowing that such beauty was a sign of good things to come. Bright green hills reached up to silver mountains, rows of vineyards ran as far as we could see, and giant windmills dotting the peaks of mountains. At certain points we could look out and see the sea, bright blue. I heard Zoe gasp.

We arrived, happy and excited, and immediately were retrieved by Fabio. He pulled up in a tiny little car, his cute face peering out the window, eyes wide and amused with the sight of all of us and our luggage, as though he had only just realized that 4 travelers was a lot to deal with. I looked at the car and thought, oh shit, there is no way we are all gonna fit in there, but Chris, being the sweet boy of the group, left-brained and gentlemanly, immediately started stacking our luggage in like pieces of a puzzle. We squeezed in like chickens in a crate and were off, the back of the tiny car dragging a little with the weight.

Fabio spoke English, was cute as could be with his badly groomed mustache and cashmere sweater, and was just so nice. A bit flighty, a bit rattled, definitely a scientist, he drove us out to his house, which was not too far (thank god) from the city of Sciacca. The road to his house was gorgeous! Rocky and white, it was lined on either side by stone and an aqueduct-style irrigation system. Inside this frame of stone was a lush grove of aged olive trees, the grass green and lush and waving in the wind, bright dandelions sparkling angelically, their ghostly seeds swaying up and down with the breeze. The olive trees were stunning, their trunks old and twisted, the limbs heavy with olives. There were apple trees and kaki, a wonderful orange fruit that has the consistency of jello, pomegranate and unripe oranges.

We pulled up to the house and were just overcome with gratitude. We couldn't believe how gorgeous everything was, how comfortable the house, how perfectly everything was working out. We could see the sea from the top balcony.
Energized and eager to please, we worked long hours that afternoon in the olive grove, cutting back old brush at the base of the trees that probably had not been touched in years. As night fell, Fabio called us in for dinner. Exhausted, we all split a small beer and waited on his brother to arrive with the food.

A little while later, his brother did arrive. He was pleasant and gracious to us, and I had this nagging feeling that I knew him from somewhere. Impossible, I figured, since I didn't know any Sicilians. Put it out of my head. Over dinner, we were going around the table explaining who we were and where we came from and how we had all found ourselves together, and it got to me. I said, "well, I studied abroad in Udine..." and blah blah blah, and suddenly Alessandro looked at me wide-eyed.

"Wait. I met a girl once who was going to Udine, to study the wine. In Rome. It has to be you."

I looked at him startled, disbelieving. What? When?

"It has to be you," he repeated. "There can't be more than one American in Friuli, it would be an impossibility, we have met! I remember you now!"

Slowly I started piecing things together...Roma...this face...

"We went out in Trastevere, I believe."

"Oh my god! We did!"

It all came back! Alessandro, the sweet Sicilian who took me out around Trastevere during my very first two weeks in Rome, the night the Greek (with eyes like chocolate milk) stood me up. Unbelievable. This is the link to the blog I had written about him: http://sheconsiderslightandheat.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-just-had-dinner-of-pork-tenderloin.html

By the end of this little reunion we were all laughing hysterically and saying how bizarre and small this world is and how fated this all was and embracing each other as "an old friend". So funny.

To close out this fantastic first night, we were offered "the shot of the year". Alessandro, who turned out to be rather hilarious and zany, also in manner of a scientist, constructed the shot of some sort of rum and a flaming tangerine. He offered it ceremoniously to Zoe by biting one end of the tangerine and instructing her to take the other half. We were all standing in the kitchen with the lights off, flaming rum on the table, this was a huge production, and Zoe was laughing so hard she could hardly stand. Alessandro waited patiently, explaining, tangerine in his teeth, that it was certainly better when one had an orange- tangerines tended to be rather small- but that Zoe must take it or she would lose the full effect of the "shot of the year". We were in stitches, not only because Alessandro was ridiculous with a tangerine in his teeth, but because he was offering it to Zoe, who, we knew, was the last person to engage in something of this manner. She was bright red in the face and collapsing with giggles, refusing to take the tangerine from his mouth, and he just stood their earnestly, babbling as best he could about the "full effect". Was a wonderful scene, and tied the evening out perfectly.

We worked so hard all that week. The land was cleared of brush and the harvest began. All of us worked together so well, and knew, at this point, the edges of the puzzle pieces that had us fit together so well. Each of us liked certain teas, had certain ticks, could be counted on to laugh at certain humors. It was nice. I think we were gracious and eager guests, and we were blown away when our "thank you"s were met with "no, thank you!" Our escape from the previous farm had been justified, we were where we were supposed to be. We were well fed, happy, relatively dry, and thanking our lucky stars that we had been afforded such an incredible adventure in our lives.

I left that friday bright and early. I am terrible at good-byes, so they were fast and light-hearted. A big hug and a kiss on the cheek for everyone, "thank you"s all around and promises to keep in touch. It's a wonderful thing making new friends, and being in a position to do so. I feel like I learn a lot about myself in these situations. One can reintroduce oneself to oneself by introducing oneself to others, if that makes sense. When this trip began I had no idea who I would meet. I am blessed to have known these people, to have experienced this with them. One puzzle piece less or more and we might not have fit.

As it was, we were just right.

Link to Sicily photos:
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2840397&id=4913936&l=eb73653af5

Sicilia, pt. 5

The next morning we rose at down. I had wondered the night before if our “sleeping on it” would bring a change of heart or any fears to the surface, but we all got up and packed our suitcases without a word. It was settled.

Over coffee, we discussed calmly and quietly what we would say to Eleonora. We wanted to be as diplomatic as possible, as “adult” about the situation as we could be. The thing to do, it seemed, was to sit her down and get this out before everyone left for the olive grove. I was going to tell her calmly that we weren’t happy, that we had decided to leave, but that

a) we would be happy to work through till lunch, harvesting all morning in exchange for a ride to the train station
or,
b) we would be willing, if necessary, to stay a couple more days in order for them to contact other WWOOFers as back-up

Christopher came into the kitchen, letting out an exasperated sign immediately upon arrival.
“aaahkay,” he began, in his best Sicilian-in-charge tone, “we’re going down to the grove now. You lot should follow us when you are ready to begin.”

“Actually,” I said, “we wanted to talk to Eleonora for a minute.”

“uuuugh, really? Baah, ok,” he sighed, as though I had just told him the car battery was dead or the hot water heater had exploded.

The four of us giggled as he left, taking bets on Eleonora’s response. The options varied from her throwing a tantrum and kicking us out immediately, to her putting on her sweety-sweet manipulative huggy face and trying to talk us in to staying. She came in to the kitchen, and immediately let us know that neither of those things were going to come to pass.

“Well, ok,” she started off quickly, “we are going to harvest now and if you want to come you must be ready-

“But actually, we wanted to talk with you for a-“

“No. We do not talk here, we work. The weather is getting bad and we don’t have time for this. If you want to work, come, if you want to leave, leave, but there will be no ‘talking’.”

She walked out the door with a mild slam.

Marianne, Chris, Zoe and I locked eyes, shrugged, and went to get our bags.

All packed up, our shoes on, we stood for a moment collecting ourselves in the front yard. There was no one but the mama, who came outside and asked, “You are leaving? Was it so bad here?”

I thanked her for everything and told her goodbye, not even opening that can of worms. David and Tomasso, who were going to stay, came out and gave us all kisses on our cheeks and wished us well. I gave David my email and told him that when he gets to civilization and had a chance then he must write me, in detail, the look on Eleonora’s face and the aftermath of this mass exodus. He promised that he would record it all as well as he could, and skipped off loopily to deliver the news of our departure. It would be something along the lines of a pleasant, “Well, they’ve gone”, I knew, all British and in manner of guests taking their leave after tea. Priceless.

With that, we took one last look at the house, and walked away.

There we were, on the long, deserted road to a train station in the middle of nowhere. Clouds hovered threateningly in the sky, and the only noise was the sounds of our shoes on the pavement and our rolly suitcases rattling along behind us. Chris took up the lead, with his boyish, easy-going energy. Zoe and I filled the middle, and Marianne, who had packed as though she were moving to this country and was loaded down with a suitcase full of electronics and a backpack, gallantly took the rear.

Intermittent giggles and rehashes of recent events would burst from us every now and then. We felt wonderful, brave, and finally free of that weird place. Though we were void of even the slightest clue as to where we were going and what we were going to do, we didn’t fret. It seemed that together, as a mish-mash team, we could use what forces each of us held to handle any situation.

The walk was long, and sometimes it sprinkled. Cars full of Sicilians drove by, honking and waving and craning their necks at us, obviously crazy foreigners, but no one stopped.

Two hours later, our wrists broken from pulling, poor Zoe and Mariannes’ backs wretched from carrying, we reached the train tracks. A line of cars was waiting for a train to pass, and in classic Italian fashion, windows were rolled down and people emerged from their vehicles to inquire as to who we were and what, exactly, we were doing. I explained in my best, most polite Italian a brief clip of the situation, that we were workers on a program who had come to Sicily to learn about olive oil. We were currently on our way to Palermo, and yes we know that it is Sunday, we just thought that a stroll to the train station 4 hours before the next train arrives would be a pleasant, morning thing to do.

We reached the Villalba train station, still deserted and covered in dead pigeons and colorful bullet shells, and set down our luggage with a relieved permanence. We had quite a wait, but at least we could sit. Suddenly, the family that had been in one of the cars talking to us came round the corner. A mother, father, and pretty young daughter, they wanted to inquire more about this “working the olive harvest” thing. I explained that we would work and learn in exchange for room and board, and food.

“Well we have a farm,” the wife said excitedly, “and a new house with a beautiful kitchen! We would be happy to have you with us, we need help starting next week. There is room for four, you could help us harvest and then be our guests. It would be fun and we would all eat very well!”

I translated to Marianne, and her eyes welled up with tears.

“I knew we did the right thing,” she said.

I thanked the family, and we exchanged numbers. With promises to keep in touch for whoever needed work the following Sunday, we bid them goodbye and our spirits rose. What wonderful confirmation, it was proof! There were kind people here, people who both needed the help, and wanted those who came to do so.

Feeling confident now, I asked for Marianne’s WWOOF list. There were a lot of farms in the Sicily section, and we read down the list marking with a pencil those that requested workers for the harvest, and those that seemed to be able to take a number of WWOOFers into their homes. We were in four, and we were not going to split up until every one of us was in a good, safe situation. My biggest issue was the idea of spending too much money having to pay for lodging somewhere while I waited till my flight left on Friday. I could travel if need be, if there was no other farm, but I really would prefer to find somewhere nice and safe to settle down for the remainder of my days in Sicily. There was too much more to learn about olive oil, and such a short period to see some of this island to go home immediately. But at least I had a home to fly to. Zoe was scheduled to arrive at her next farm in Umbria in a couple of weeks, but until then she was on a whim. Though she was blessed to have the option to return to her previous farm in Tuscany, she wanted to see more of Sicily, too, preferably without paying for two weeks of food and lodging. Besides, two weeks is a long time for a little girl to be roaming around Sicily alone. And Chris? With no other plans, no contacts in this country, and no grasp of the language, he was sort of at a loss. Not at all worrying, cool as a cucumber, I knew no matter what that he would be fine. He had one of those outgoing, confident, honest personalities that made me sure that his cards would never be down, not in his life. Still, though, we were gonna stick together till everyone knew what was what. And for that, we needed the right farm.

The first one I called was kind, but only had place for one WWOOFer, so that wouldn’t do. The next farm on the list sounded promising. They were two brothers, one an agronomist the other a chemist, who harvested olives for oil to use in beauty products- lotions, make-ups, and the likes. It was in a town not too far, and they advertised as having space for 6-8 WWOOFers at a time. I called and got a guy named Fabio on the phone.

I told him that we were a group of four who were in need of work and lodging. I said that we had just left a bad situation, and that we needed a place to go immediately. Also, I told him, we have olive harvesting experience.

“Oh, that’s great! We need help right away. Can you arrive tomorrow?”

I literally ran back to the train station (I had had to walk a ways up the road to get cell reception), a huge smile on my face.

“We have a farm!” I said gleefully, “We did it!”

Next was to find a place to rest our weary heads in Palermo. Having still the business card of the bed and breakfast where I had stayed the first night, I called sweet Claudio back to see what he could do for us. I told him that we were in four, and would be eternally grateful if he had a place for us. He offered us his master room, and told us that he would make it up for four people at no extra charge.

Our wait for the next 3 hours was tranquil and without worry. We were set. Christopher bounded up and down the tracks collecting bullet casings and Zoe artfully lined them up in a domino line. Marianne read and told us some of her fun life stories, and I took brisk, tiny walks up and down the road, ipod on, thrilled with our little adventure.

Starving and feeling all out of sorts upon arrival in Palermo, a panino was eaten and a beer consumed immediately. Happiness and normalcy returned. I led them to the B&B, suddenly nervous as my apparent position as tour guide. I hoped they liked the place, and weren't took freaked out by the grimy, downtown Palermo atmosphere of the quarter the B&B was in. We climbed 5 flights of twisty marble steps up to the apartment, the walls appearing unfinished but in reality just decaying. The door opened from the inside, and there was our gorgeous savior, Claudio. I heard Marianne take in a little breath behind me.

The B&B was as cozy and as clean as before, happy orange walls and tapestries, high ceilings. Claudio took our luggage and showed us to our room. It was huge, and blue, with a large bed and two twins. Two balconies overlooked a giant apartment on the other side of the alley that was intriguingly under construction and wide open, and a view down to the tiny street showed shops and locals going about their business. The light was right, it felt like a too-good-to-be-true refuge. We all breathed sighs of relief, and Zoe came up and gave me a hug.

"Thank you for bringing us here," she said. I was thanking my stars, as well.

The water stayed hot long enough for all of us to take a long, well deserved shower. The beds were comfortable and the room big enough for us to all open our suitcases and reorganize after our swift departure. Claudio, unbelievably kind, located on the map for us a nice restaurant and other points of interest. He swore that there was to be no pasta and tomatoes on the menu.

"He is a beautiful man," Marianne remarked more than once, and I wholeheartedly agreed.

Scrubbed clean and pretty, Chris in his polo shirt, me in a skirt, Zoe in some fancy pants, and Marianne with her lipstick on, we looked whole again. Our first date was with a glass of wine, and we strolled the dark streets of Palermo till we found the perfect place. Brightly lit by chandeliers, with a huge bar full of classic Sicilian sweets and deserts, the cafe was also one of those gems of Italy that had happy hour: order a glass of wine and feast on a variety of free snacks. We gorged ourselves happily on stuffed fried olives, tiny pizzas, and trays of arrancine- a Sicilian tradition, a fried rice ball stuffed with meat or cheese. The free food wasn't even enough for us starved epicures, so we ordered seafood salad with giant citrus-spiked pieces of octopus, and the most delectable, indescribable piece of chocolate hazelnut tart/cake-thing that any of us had ever had. We took turns with that one, each of us passing the plate and taking a bite, fainting with felicity.

After this rejuvenating evening, feeling back in sorts with a system full of wine and sugar, we found ourselves in a gorgeous, old part of town boasting a number of restaurants. Sunday was a quiet night, so we had our picks of private, quiet patios. We chose a restaurant and ate like gluttons, considering our meal of snacks just before. A little more wine was drunk and meat was consumed. Food was a passion that we all shared, and the reason that we were here in one way or another. The conversation, therefore, was always lusty, always tasty. Dinner ended and, instead of throwing down and making a ruckus as we had so dreamed of doing on our boring, silent nights at the farm, we decided that it was time for sleep. 10pm, and we were wiped out. Bellies full and confidence in our feats secure, we went back to our haven of a b&b and fell right to sleep.

Sicilia, pt. 4: The Great Escape

Woke up the next morning having slept like a rock. Soundly, solidly, warmly; whatever that untitled liquor was had done the trick. Was nibbling cookies and giggling at the breakfast table with Chris over the home-made nyquil when Christopher, who had been silently pondering his orzo over by the sink, his stained mustard yellow hoodie pulled up over his head, set down his cup pointedly.

"You have to ask before you open things in this house. This isn't your house, you didn't have permission".

Wellll, sorry charlie. It was in the cabinet with the food stuffs, and I hadn't been told that anything there was off limits, in fact the opposite, so...

I apologized anyway, explaining that we were only looking for vinegar to use for dinner, and we didn't take that much, so oops.

"Well, ok," he whispered seriously, as though this were, like, some sort of big deal, "just ask, next time."

He loped out of the room and I promptly forgot this weird exchange, figuring that he was just having the morning grumps, or maybe was feeling a little paranoid that his post as Sicilian-of-the-House was being usurped by other non-Sicilians who were not fooled.

Work that morning was wonderful! Everyone was apple-cheeked and pleasant, chatty and eager to begin. Zoe worked with Marianne and me, and Chris orbited cheerfully around the base of our tree, a true gentleman, swooping in when the heavy lifting parts began.

About 10am Eleonora arrived to help harvest. She had brought another WWOOFer, a cute Italian named Tomasso from Puglia, and some friend of hers from Palermo. They greeted us all kindly and took up their posts at another tree nearby.

The mama gave the signal for lunch around noon, and we all swept into the kitchen, hungry and dirty but so happy. As there were now 12 of us (all the WWOOFers plus family plus friend) the kitchen was packed. We passed plates to the mama, who had made some sort of rice casserole with peas, cream, and a wafer thin slice of ham. She cut us servings and one by one we graciously took our plates and plopped down to eat at the table, packed in like sardines. The family and their guest took their food outside, leaving us in kitchen alone.

About 5 minutes into our meal, Eleonora came in to the kitchen for what seemed to be no real reason other than to say, "Did you tell my mother thank you for the lunch?"

This was met with silence, and blinks. Our mouths were fool, I was mid-chew. We looked at her patiently, waiting to see where she was going with this.

"You have to thank my mother, because she stayed up all last night working very hard on this, yes? All day she worked hard over her hot stove, so you must say 'thanks'."

With that she turned and walked out of the kitchen. Glances were exchanged, chewing recommenced. That was weird. I mean, absolutely we said thanks when our plates were handed to us, and I don't know of anyone in that kitchen who had been brought up not knowing how to behave, not knowing to thank the person who cooked and then, at least, clean the kitchen for them, which is what we did everyday, anyway, so...

Void of formality, registering immediately the absurdity of this accusation, I think the look on Chris' face, who had his back to Eleonora, said it all: this rice casserole with boxed cream did not take all evening over a "hot stove". Give me a break.

We were all too polite to say anything like this, though, and anyway, we were hungry, so we kept eating.

The weird thing about the way the casserole had been cut was that some people had full plates, and others had a portion half that size. My portion was in the latter category, so i went to the little fridge to see what there was. There was a new loaf of bread on the table, and an opened jar of olives, fresh oil and even some grapes. Someone had been grocery shopping! Inside the fridge I found yogurt, a whole drawer full! and MEAT! Wrapped all together in a COOP deli bag (with a price tag, I noted, that read 3,50 euro, total), I found a package of sliced salami and mortadella. PRAISE JESUS, I cried, maybe more from the depths of my heart than audibly. I opened the salami and took a slice, savoring its saltiness. A few more slices were taken from people around the table, and we all leaned back in our chairs, relatively content and thinking of making coffee.

The cleaning of the kitchen started directly, everyone doing their part to either wash, dry, put away, or make the coffee for everyone assembled. Nina Simone was playing (for about the 80th time that week), and the mood was high: I think, for once, we were full, and ready to head back out to the fields.

Suddenly, the kitchen door flew open and Laura ran through the room, grumbling angrily in Italian. On her way back out she paused a moment to rant at Eleonora, who had entered behind her, flailing her arms and motioning toward us and yelling about something I could not understand. Or something I did understand, actually, but I had to look over at Zoe to see if I had really heard these things, if she was hearing what I was hearing.

Laura was saying things like, "no respect!" and "if you want something you have to ask!" and "what we put on the table is what there is to eat, this is our house and family's food" and "cannot deal with this anymore". etc.

She finally ran outside, leaving all of us in shock. No one but me or Zoe could have understood her words, necessarily, but it was clear to everyone that she was angry, and angry at us.

Eleonora, is her faux-Buddhist, air-of-calm, patronizing manner, folded her hands and started off with an apology.

"Laura is too young, she is my little sister and she is not old enough to be able to express herself maturely. I will be here now to manage all of you."

We all sat rigid, in utter confusion.

"Things here are bad. We do not have time to waste, there is too much disrespect and we are losing harvest time", incoherently said the woman who had not been present to help harvest but 2 hours so far.

Someone, I don't remember who, asked for her to clarify. What exactly was the problem?

Eleonora seemed to skirt around the issue, citing the stress of the new house being incomplete and the bad weather delaying the harvest and her unattached jaw and Laura being "too young" (29).

"People take things without asking and no one is abiding by the rules of the house. Laura had told me that everyone is taking advantage and someone is slowing down the work and making us lose time and who broke this cup??"

She picked up a ceramic espresso glass off a tray on the table, incidentally one that none of us ever used: it seemed to be part of a set, and as only the larger mugs or the espresso cups that we were offered espresso in initially by the family and Christopher were in rotation, no one ever touched this tray of cups, no less drank from them. The cup in question had a tiny kittens' incisor-shaped chip in the rim. We squinted to identify what she was talking about.

"We don't use those cups," someone said, remembering reality (probably chris). "We always use the colored ones".

It was at this dreadful moment that her eyes fell on one of those "colored ones" standing by the sink, broken. In all the confusion of 12 people eating and cooking and washing dishes, it had broken, though it was impossible to tell when or how. It was a fallen soldier, the obvious result of a days large lunch. Delicate dishes by busy sinks get cracked.

I thought she was going to turn purple.

"It is this sort of disrespect that we are trying to make clear. We have never had trouble like this ever from WWOOFers!"

This was too much. What trouble? It was an accident. And what disrespect? We cook and clean after every meal, go to sleep at 10 fucking pm, work all day, never complain. As far as we could see it things were going great with us. We all got along, helped out. No one was walking on eggshells, but this was the first we were hearing that we needed to be.

David asked her to clarify the "someone" who was "not pulling their weight, slowing everything down". He was trying to encourage some sort of clear-headed discourse, perhaps in manner of, well if you tell us the problem and person that you are upset with we can all work to fix it, but this went right over Eleonora's head. Or maybe she was waiting for just this moment.

"Well," she began rambling, "I mean I don't want to say it's not that it's a problem that- it's her!"

She pointed dead at Zoe, and now our mouths were really hanging wide.

"But, wait," I said, through the knife-cuttable air, "Zoe works great, she's doing just like we are."

"Well that is just what my sister said, so maybe Zoe should go if she doesn't want to be here."

No one knew what to say. Eleonora eventually left, leaving us to say "what the what?" over and over.

We all tried to piece it back together. Was it the booze? David said that Christopher, in British confidence, had told him that the booze was some sort of homemade treat, but that a) it was not aged enough and b) that was all the family had for the year. Understandable that this would tick the family off, but it was an honest mistake, and it was booze. Surely the bottle could be resealed again, or left as so, it wasn't going to go bad- it was grain alcohol! And there were 6 bigger bottles anyway, not just the smaller one we had experimented with. David then said that Christopher hadn't told Laura that it had been opened (though I don't know how she could have missed it- it had been sitting out on the counter all day), more out of fear for himself than for us. So that was ruled out.

Was it the Salami? Was it really, as I had understood, for the "family", and not for us weasly WWOOFers? I found it hard to believe that all of that was over them begrudging us a few pieces of luncheon meat.

Was it that we had sat immediately at the dinner table, forcing the family and their guest to eat outside in the garden? If they took offense at that they should have said something, like, "slaves! Eat your meal al fresco, we own this kitchen."

And what in the world was their grudge against Zoe?

Still completely confused, we returned to work, our spirits dampened. It wasn't fun being out there with them anymore. Laura was icy and wouldn't make eye contact and Eleonora tried to make small talk and pretend nothing had happened. I was just pissed, to be honest, and completely shocked. Though things had been weird, I really liked Laura. We had talked and laughed even just the day before, I had thought that she was happy to have us. Something must have set her off, but with their notoriously Sicilian communication skills- i.e. horrendous- we would never know what it was.

After work, the family went over to the not-yet-finished new house, leaving us at the old one. It had suddenly turned into two different camps, and tensions rose.

Evening came, and the discussion turned to the now awkward trip to town. All week we had been planning on this night, as Saturday night this far South in the Catholic world is the evening for mass. Mass meant, for those of us less pious, a trip to town. And town meant provisions. Meat, wine, chocolate, cigarettes, razors...our list had patiently been compiled all week. Naturally, seats would first be given to family members who desired to attend mass, and secondly to filthy WWOOFers who wanted to buy objects of sin and gluttony. We sat at the dinner table and put our indignation and hurt feelings aside in order to determine who would head in with the family. Pizza could be eaten out, a cold beer could be drunk...it was a hard opportunity to pass up, and we were all vying for it. Zoe had already opted out; she had been the first to go with the father to the Oleificio, the olive oil factory, to observe the process. As time to depart came to a close, and we were finally getting down to drawing straws for the trip, Christopher came in. He told us point blank and without the slightest sign of shame or apology that Eleonora and her friend would be going to town alone. Leaving the three seats in the back of the car empty, and not filled with the three WWOOFers who had so been looking forward to this tiny trip. They would be happy to take our money for anything we needed from the grocery store, though. All I could do was laugh, and go out into the yard to call FL.

FL, btw, had been FABULOUS all week, calling to check in, commiserating, answering my texts of despair and confusion with encouragement and sweet nothings. I had had him poised on the phone with my airline twice already, at times when I was so ready to come home I couldn't stand it. At one point my phone ran out of minutes (they have a pay-as-you-go system here, and one must recharge at a tabaccheria or grocery store in cash), and as I was too far from civilization to do anything about it, I fretted. Should have known better, though. 30 minutes after I didn't respond to an evening text from FL I received another text, telling me that my phone had been recharged. And just in time, too.

As I returned to the house from talking to FL, I saw Chris sitting out in the garden.
"Might not want to go in there," he warned empathetically, "I heard Laura yelling your name, and pointing at something".

Seconds later, Laura ran by me in the back yard. I stopped and said, "hey, are you ok?"

She would have spit nails at me if she could. Going off again about how "no!", she's not ok, and how I have no respect, and blah blah and then something about that stupid broken espresso cup. Days before she had mentioned these cups to me, telling me that Eleonora (who I was starting to suspect had some sort of bizarre older-sister-imperialism-thing going on in the house) had gotten the cups from Tunisia, and that they were very special. They were multicolored, with silvery designs, the kind of glasses that you see in Moroccan restaurants and the like. As we were currently drinking out of the glasses, and they were the only glasses I ever saw the family use or was offered, I understood that, while precious, they were not invaluable. Somehow now, however, because we had had this conversation, the broken glass was my fault. I knew better, she screamed. And I was disrespectful to boot.

She stormed into her house, Christopher padding beside her. It was at this point that I looked Christopher squarely in the eye and tried to zap him out of whatever spell it was he was under. "You are not one of them," I wanted to scream! What the hell is going on?

Trying to get him to explain rationally the mind of his girlfriend and her weird family was futile. He backed her up, saying stupidly, "well, just know that this is her house, that's all". I couldn't believe it. Chris got up and followed me supportively into the house. Not being nearly as resilient as Zoe, I went into the living room, where David had poorly lit the stove sending billows of smoke throughout the house, and Marianne sat patiently on a cot. I started to cry. Not a lot, just a whimpering cry of confusion and exhaustion. I was totally lost.

"I think we should leave," Marianne said.

We went into the bedroom and pulled out the list of WWOOF farms. Marianne had had the foresightedness to print out all 40 pages, wise enough in her travels to never trust in the existence of internet or confirmed plans.

We began looking at farms in Sicily that needed help with the harvest. Surely, we knew, other farms were picking olives, and somewhere on this island people both needed and wanted WWOOFers in their home. We were very calm about this. We were not mad or rash. We sat and discussed for a long time the pros and cons, the risks and opportunities, and the reasons to support our decision. It was clear that this situation had come to a head. We were adults, and we did not, be it over salami or broken espresso cup or base "disrespect", deserve to have people yell at us or talk down to us. We were already working over the required load stated in the WWOOF charter, and the living conditions were getting stranger. Neither of us had come to Sicily for this; we had come to learn and experience and work hard, and to be treated kindly in exchange. There were only so many days of our time here, and it was precious, so we deserved the right to spend it how we wished, how we were happy. Besides, we were not in contract to anyone. Marianne was wise and insightful about the whole thing, and it warmed my heart. She had not personally been attacked, she said, but how could she stay knowing that others had?

At some point later, Eleonora and her friend returned from town, with a bag of what sweet Tomasso had requested. Being from Puglia, he likes his wine, dark and strong. He had given them 10 euro, and with all of Eleonora's babble about the prestige of Sicilian wine earlier (how she filled the silence in the olive grove), he had assumed he could trust her choice. What she brought back sent Chris into wild laughter, though it was not from the product itself: it was from the look of sheer disgust and astonishment on Tomasso's face when he saw it.

Boxed wine, the lowest of the low.

"Never," Tomasso whispered, holding the box out away from his body like a rat, "would I purchase vino like that. Never. And to drink! No. Never."

For the first time all day he looked at us like perhaps he understood why we were all in cahoots.

Chris came and sat on the bed in Marianne's and my room, and let out a sign.

"We're leaving," Marianne told him, "tomorrow".

His face lit up. "Can I come too?"

And then we were three.

We had all been waiting around for dinner, not sure if we were supposed to cook ourselves or wait for the family. They finally came in from the other house, Laura not looking anyone in the eye, and seemed genuinely disappointed that we hadn't already eaten. Pork and roasted potatoes was made, and it was pretty good- I think they were trying to impress Eleonora's friend. It was an awkward dinner to say the least. The family talked amongst themselves, and the WWOOFers were silent, except for David who made a puppy-like jovial attempt at conversation.

At one point, Eleonora lifted some sort of wicker basket from the cabinet behind her and held it up to us. "This was my great grandmother's," she said, "it is very important to our family."

"Ah," said good ol' David, "it's wicker. We won't be breaking that!"

I don't think she was amused.

The odd thing was that even after everything, throughout dinner I felt nervous, guilty even. I knew things were bad, but I didn't want to leave the family with so much work. Without us, they would be totally lost, they would never get the harvest done on their own. I couldn't decide whether things were really so bad as to just walk out, or if we should wait it out another day.

Eleonora answered this question after supper, as all of us WWOOFers were cleaning up. She had boiled water for tea, and, in an effort to be helpful, I poured the water into the mugs that were sitting on the wooden table. She picked them up after a moment and scolded me calmly, pointing out the white rings that had appeared in the wood from the heat of the ceramic. I felt awful, mumbled an apology, and made myself scarce to the other side of the table, reading my book. She took a bottle of olive oil and poured some on a rag. Wiping the table down, she explained to all of us around the table in her bizarrely monotone voice-of-calm the benefits of olive oil on wood, how this was her grandmother's table. I already knew this, so i nodded and kept reading.

"Are you laughing at me?"

I looked up after a second of silence and saw that she was staring at me.

"um, no," I said.

"Well," she said sweetly, almost syrupy, quiet enough so I could just catch it, "maybe in your life you don't care about important old things, maybe you just buy everything brand new, but here we take family things seriously".

She turned immediately and left the room, leaving all of us, once again, agape.

"Wait, what?!" I cried.

"Well," Marianne said calmly, "I guess that settles it".

Certainly did.

Zoe returned from the oleificio late that night, almost midnight. We let her tell us all about it, and show us her photos and eat some cookies, and then we filled her in. The night was recounted, rehashed, constructed, theories devised and odd happenings pointed out in retrospect.

"We're leaving," Marianne said, when it was all out there.

Zoe swallowed her cookie and smiled.

"Can I come, too?"

sicilia pt. 3

That Wednesday was spent doing odds and ends around the yard. The ground was too wet to pick the olives, so we were each assigned tasks to help further the cause of the damned unfinished house. I began to repaint doors to give final touches, head phones on, as happy as could be under the circumstances. After a while, Eleonora and the rest of the family graced us with their presence. For some reason, it was important to her that the shed beside the house, which was basically cement walls and dirt floors filled with rusty tools, paint cans and stacks of dirty ceramic tiles, be cleaned out. Swept even. I went along with it, taking arm loads of sharp tiles from one pile in the corner over to Christopher, who was stacking them again pointlessly in another corner. After a bit Zoë came in, and asked with a hand in folding one of the giant olive nets. Christopher had delegated this thankless job to her this morning, and she had been in the back yard for hours, tranquil and committed to her task. Eleonora snapped at her immediately.
“The net can wait. Do something. Sweep.”
Christopher went off to find her another broom to use in the idiotic task of sweeping a dirt floor, but Eleonora didn’t even give poor Zoe time to get started.
“Look, you are not doing anything. You want to be here, you have to work. You are not doing a good job, like her.”
She pointed to me, and my mouth dropped in confusion.
“If you want to leave, leave, but you cannot stay here and sleep!”
There was a totally awkward silence that followed. I think both Zoe and I were in shock, and Christopher (douche bag, clearly), knowing full well that Zoe had been off doing the job that he had prescribed for her, said nothing.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” Zoe said, completely composed and stoic. I think I might have been in tears, if not enraged. Day in and day out of these bullshit tasks, and for nothing but cold showers, skimpy pastas, and no thanks what so ever.
Eleonora just sort of shook her head, and we all started sweeping.
“That was bullshit!” I told Zoe when Eleonora left the room. Like a champ, though, Zoe just shrugged it off.
Finally, on Thursday, the ground was deemed dry enough to begin. Happily, we woke at dawn, crammed our sleepy mouths with cookies and jam, and sipped our respective hot morning beverages. The air was frigid at 7:30am, but I think it energized us all. Starting together on one of the biggest, oldest trees on the farm, Laura and Christopher vaguely explained and demonstrated what went in to harvesting the olives.
It was easy: you took the preferred olive branch and pulled down in a sweeping motion, popping off all the olives one by one. They fell to the ground, heavy as pebbles, and landed on the net, which was wrapped in a wide circle around the base of the tree. The larger trees could take hours, even with 6 people working on them. Someone had to climb way up high in the braches to reach the top, bending the longer, suppler limbs over to the ground for someone else to work on.
Olive trees are amazing. The colors are iridescent and shimmery, green gliding into silver and purple and back to green. They were happy trees that seemed to hug you when you climbed up into them, and helped you out when you needed to bend their branches to find the fruit. They were incredibly limber and light. The olives surprised me with their firmness; they were as big and as heavy as grapes, and as hard as nuts. Ranging from bright green to almost pitch black depending on their ripeness, some were spotted, some striped, some almost tie-dyed with green and purple. The work was constant but went fast- before long the day was done, and though we were all famished (lunch had been, unnervingly, more pasta- the provisions in the house were dangerously low; we didn’t even have garlic!) no one seemed to mind the work. With such an incredible view over the mountains, the fresh air and these kind trees, I think we were all thrilled to finally have true work to do, and it felt so rewarding to see the bins full of olives at the end of the day.
At the end of our Intro to Olive Harvesting day, Marianna arrived. All four of her grandparents had come from Italy, and she looked the part: wild black curls, olive skin, dark eyes. Her age was indeterminate- a youthful face and energy had me at first placing her in her 20’s; her life stories, openness and insightfulness, however, pointed to years’ worth of experience and adventures already under her belt.
Marianna camped out in the bedroom with me and Zoë; we were crowded, but the body heat added warmth to the freezing nights. At dinner that night, which was, I believe, an amazing frittata made by Chris (who was a culinary school graduate and a genius with compiling the sparse ingredients at our fingertips to make something really spectacular), we spottily filled Marianne in on the weirdness at hand. The family had not returned and Laura was there to help harvest olives almost begrudgingly; the food situation had left us naively hoping that the family would return the next day with groceries, and the hot water heater was a lie.
This conversation led to the discussion of WWOOF in general, as an organization. All of us were here under different pretexts and for different lengths of time, but we were after the same thing: hard work and enthusiasm in exchange for kindness and experience.
Zoe was in Italy all fall as a break from school, which was private and intellectually severe and demanded a work load that she needed a moment of peace from. Though she spoke what must have been fluent Spanish (thus making her comprehension of Italian absolutely phenomenal), she chose Italy instead; she had family members from Sicily, and had traveled here before with her family, so it seemed a natural, safe bet. Well-organized before hand, she had delegated three weeks of her travels to Sicily, enough time to harvest olives and travel a bit before heading back up north. The farm that she had stayed at in Tuscany for the five weeks prior to her arrival in Sicily had been wonderful. A beautiful place, fantastic people, it seemed to be the essence of what one longs for in a WWOOFing experience: somewhere you are sad to leave and can always return to.
David had no real plans. That was part of his larger life goal at this point, to get lost and be well doing it. He hoped to stay a year in Italy WWOOFing around, and would go, he figured, where the wind took him. No Italian language skills to speak of, no clear knowledge even of the country itself, he had chosen Italy randomly off a map of the globe, and booked a flight.
Chris had come for 6 weeks, a random, last minute time-killer after his graduation from the Culinary Institute of America. One of his chefs had recommended Sicily as a place to really begin to understand food, and the kid had booked a ticket, reserving a spot on this farm and this farm only. He was easy going to the point of security; he would stay at this one farm for 6 weeks, work and be fed and housed, and take what he could from it, no travel or confusion needed. He spoke no Italian and had in fact never been outside of the US before in his life. A virgin passport. I balked at the thought of this, an unknowing, totally unprepared trip to Sicily. Even I, speaking the language and having time to get my bearings in this country for a while now, was hesitant to come to Sicily. I wasn’t scared, I knew I would be fine, but this wasn’t a place to take lightly.
Marianna’s story for finding herself in this place was by far the most complex of all. Shedding her former life in manner of a phoenix, dwindling her possessions and selling her part ownership in a successful jewelry business, she had allowed herself the confidence to forego all security and permanence in exchange for her freedom, and the pursuit of a new passion. She had enrolled in culinary school, the French Culinary Institute in New York City. Starting next summer, the class was to take the form of the better part of a year spent in New York, with a mandatory (bahh) 4 month period focusing on Italian food working under a chef in some TBD region of Italy. Knowing this was coming, she had decided to achieve a life-long goal: coming to explore the country of her roots, the land of her grandparents and theirs. The plan was to tour Italy to get a grasp, beforehand, of what she needed to take in from her time in school. I found this brave, romantic and commendable, to say the least.
For these reasons we found ourselves all together, at this place that none of us had ever known existed, no internet or nearby town for comfort from the outside world, working and living together on blind trust toward our hosts, whom we could only hope were as nice as their WWOOF profile suggested.
That next morning we set out again to tackle more trees. These were younger, and we could pair off to work on them, two to a tree, our groups weaving in and out as we made our way steadily down the rows. I was paired with Marianne, which was wonderful. We talked all morning long, and I found in her a kindred spirit of sorts, someone I could easily talk to and understand. Chris was paired with Laura, and looked so damned cute in his red hoodie, hood up and headphones in. A veritable migrant worker. Christopher and David set off on their trek through the grove, David talking non-stop in his tranquil British accent, the two of them babbling about the UK and the horrors of cities and the perks of meditation, I imagined. Zoe was a lone wolf; we learned later that she was specifically set apart from the groups by Laura. Apparently as bizarrely obsessed with Zoë’s work ethic as her sister (Zoe’s work ethic, btw, was fantastic. She was never tired, never complained, and just as strong and diligent as anyone else), Laura had snappishly set Zoe the task of picking the tiny baby trees by herself. She did so gracefully and elegantly, a printed silk scarf tied about her head; it was this, as Marianne put it, that may very well be the essence of Zoe.
Lunch came fast once again, and we were thrilled to find Zoe in the kitchen slaving over a hot lunch (pasta) packed with what vegetables she could get her hands on (zucchini). After lunch, during our short hour of rest, with no end to the monotony of our diet in sight, Zoe, Chris and I began rummaging through the cabinets to see what we could scrounge up. There wasn’t much: about 20 cans of tomato sauce, some dried beans and bags of pasta, bottles of what appeared to be vinegar, anchovies, and a small jar of sun dried tomatoes. For the past week that I had been there, and the days that the others had been present as well, we had been given free reign of the meager kitchen. Told to make lunch some days, or asked to help with dinner, Eleonora had upon her first day present shown me the cabinet for such things as oil and olives, and told me to use them when needed. On this day of our last ditch exploration to find sustenance (because, seriously, what were about to have for dinner??), we opened a bottle of what appeared to be vinegar. It was not. It was booze! Fireworks went off in Chris’ eyes, and mine as well. Sampling a tiny nip, we laughingly concluded that it was some sort of dark, licorice infused alcohol, most definitely made in-house. At some point during this procedure, Laura walked in, saw the chaos of all the canned and bottled goods on the floor, heard our hopeful mumblings of, “we’re trying to find something to eat for dinner”, and took a bag of beans over to the stove. She would cook, she said, which ended the fun. We packed up and went back to the fields to finish the rest of the day.
Later that evening we all convened, exhausted from our labors this time, famished for sure. Chris looked in the pot of soup that Laura had put together and winced. “This is not going to be enough,” he whispered. Indeed, the pot was only ½ full, far less than 6 hungry people needed. And the bread? A portion large enough for one was cut into 6, and set on the table next to a cold bowl of potato stew (wonderful, made by Zoë), which was clearly to be a backup when the soup inevitably ran out. We ate guardedly, our spoons hitting the bottom of the bowl before even the third bite. The left over potato stew was divided among the boys.
At the end, a large hunk of cheese appeared mercifully on the table. My eyes lit up with joy, love and relief, cracking everyone up. We were each cut a piece, and we chewed slowly. “I don’t want the cheese to end”, Zoe muttered sweetly.
After dinner, I decided to try a little of the liquor. It was powerful, and Chris, Zoe, Marianne and I sipped a bit before going to bed, as it went well with cookies and did a better job than tea. As it had been out on the counter all day, I assumed it wasn’t anything valuable, and we recapped it and stuck it back in the cabinet only slightly lessened.
Sleep came heavy, warm and fast, thankfully.

i am going to break here to post some photos. this is the lanscape, both immediately around the farm house, and leading to and from Vallelunga. you can see that i was not exaggerating when i used the word "desolate" and "isolated". Beautiful, though, no?

The next morning I arose bright and early, 9 hours of solid rest leading to abnormal perkiness on my part. Still full from going to bed on a stomach packed with pasta, I skipped breakfast in favor of black espresso, and went to sit in the back yard, watching to see if the gentleness of the morning sun softened the harsh landscape. As the ground was too wet from rain to begin on the olives, the morning was spent, under Christopher’s direction, painting the doors that were to go in the new house. A rather fetching blue- the color of cold, silt-swamped water that reminded me of the creeks on Kennesaw Mountain- had been chosen. In the sunlight, it was beautiful. Hours into the process but still well before lunch time, the other members of this hodgepodge of a family began to arrive. First, the father, who was precious, grinning from ear to ear, hair stark white and thick, his giant sunglasses giving him coolness in manner of a 50’s Hollywood star. He barked greetings robustly and warmly in Siciliano, shaking my one paint-free hand with both of his rough paws.

Emerging from the car after him was the elusive Eleonora, in the flesh. She was a beautiful woman, young, with dark, curly Sicilian hair cropped short on her neck, and blue eyes lined with yellow. She embraced me in a rather familiar hug, which I assumed was warranted due to our both having the same name and months’ worth of email correspondence. She was lovely, and dressed in a cashmere cardigan and tailored pants. Not work clothes, by any means, but she didn’t hesitate to take the brush from my hand and begin filling in missed spots on the doors. I obligingly went and retrieved another paint brush from the shed, and we spent the rest of the morning talking. I really enjoyed talking to her, and our conversations were almost all in Italian, though she spoke great English. We had a lot to discuss concerning Slow Food, organic agriculture, and other things in this category. I asked a lot of questions about the olives; I wanted to get to the bottom of how this would be done, what types of olives they used, when and why they were harvested, and how, and the difference between salt curing and oil curing for table olives.

She explained graciously, but highlighted the issue at hand, which was the weather. The olives were ready to be picked, and they needed to be, as soon as possible. The earlier they are picked the more flavor they have. When left on the vine longer, they produced more oil, but the flavor and quality of the oil is lost. Big olive oil producers, therefore, traded the amount of oil that they are able to produce for the quality of the oil, waiting until later in the season to make a higher profit in more kilos of oil. For this family, however, the flavor was key, and what they strove for, producing less oil with higher quality. The olives were ready now, but the mud on the ground, which was ample, as the terrain was all dirt without the aid of grass and brush to help drain, prevented the picking. Mud would tarnish the taste. It was therefore important to not wait only for a clear day, but a day when the land was dry. Also, there was this thing about her jaw…some sort of dental ailment that caused her jaw to move out from her skull, forcing her to wear a retainer and causing her great pain. For this, she had to travel to and from Palermo almost every day for dentists’ appointments. An incredible inconvenience, but one that she hoped to work through this harvest season.

Lunch was ready about one, and we all trudged in and squeezed around the tiny kitchen table. Lunch was pasta with tomatoes and sausage, fresh baked bread, spicy olive oil and a variety of table olives (all made in-house), and a tiny bowl of caponata, a Sicilian antipasto of garlic, eggplant and peppers. I was in love with the olives, some which were giant and black and oozed a heady, spicy oil, big enough to take bites of, while others were smaller and green, salted to the point of puckering the mouth, relieved with a bath of oil and garlic.

It was during this lunch that the next WWOOFer was to arrive. No one could quite remember whether she was British or American (or German, maybe), or whether she was old or young. Such suspense!

And then in walked Zoe: All-American, for sure (Boston), and young enough to make even me, only five years her senior, sigh with envy. 20 years old, bright blue eyes, wispy Indian-blond curls pinned on her head, petite, delicate frame, she came in clearly exhausted from her travels but billowing a breath of warmth and tranquility, none the less. Having traveled since the crack of dawn that morning, flying from Rome to Palermo and wrangling herself as I had done to that desolate train station in the middle of an abandoned part of Sicily, she was tired but kind and made a wonderful effort to speak Italian and smile warmly and humbly at her new hosts.
Eleonora pulled me aside almost immediately after lunch.

“I don’t know if she’s going to work out here,” she told me conspiratorially.

“Why?” I asked. As far as I could tell she seemed sweet and eager enough. I mean, hell, she was 20 and she was here. Clearly, she was here for a reason, probably having something to do with wanting to make olive oil.

“She doesn’t seem to be a hard worker, not like us” she said bizarrely, as we had only just finished eating, and who was ‘us’? “You keep your eye on her; we may have to tell her to go”.

Thinking that this whole assessment of Zoe’s character and her future career at this farm was completely premature and strange, I nodded and mumbled, “um, ok”, and continued with my work. Two minutes later Zoe popped out of the house, ready to help paint, ready to put her exhaustedness aside in order to help us finish the doors. There, I thought, this should abate Eleonora’s paranoia.

Aside from Laura and the mom, the family and other guests left later that afternoon to return to Palermo. I took a long walk, heading for an hour in one direction and reaching absolutely nothing, no semblance of civilization, but watching an amazing sunset over a hillside patch of vineyards, the red grapes still hanging ripe and sundrenched on the vine. Dinner was left over pasta, which began to send distress signals to my already pasta-stuffed body. I tried to eat only a few bites, nibbling instead on delicious, tangy pomegranate seeds and olives. Zoe and I watched the clock strike 8pm, 9pm, 9:30pm, finally giving in before the moon was even high in the sky and hopping into bed.

Our task for the next day, once again organized and delegated by the increasingly odd Christopher, was to pick walnuts from the walnut grove. Laura packed us what I thought was a lunch, and we set off about 9am, bamboo sticks in hand. To reach the walnut grove we had to drive a little ways, around the backside of the mountain. The ground was muddy in a way that I was not familiar with. Partially dry and cracked on top, but deep, it was the kind of mud that one had to stomp through, climb over, my boots becoming heavier with each step. The grove was marvelous, though. Christopher dropped us off, explaining that we were to fill as many crates as we could and return around 4pm. Our lunch was packed as a pic-nic to eat there. Zoe and I were fine with this, finding the work relaxing and enjoyable. I don’t think we spoke for the first 3 hours, each of us wandering our own way, beating the trees madly with our bamboo rods and collecting the gorgeous brown nuts from their sticky green armor. The air was fresh and the wet earth seemed to steam as the heat rose toward noon.

For lunch we convened at the base of the grove. Making little benches out of our crates, we examined our lunch. A Tupperware filled with tomatoes, olive oil and canned tuna, a big hunk of bread, two apples. As at least there was a large portion of tomatoes and canned tuna, I consented that I would be well-fed. But poor Zoe: she doesn’t eat fish! In fact, she is a vegetarian.

*I would like to state right now that though one of my most stringent codes for life is to distrust vegetarians on principle- as in, what in the world is wrong with them? What sort of person doesn’t love pork products?- Zoe has abated all fears and proved me wrong. Vegetarians are beautiful, wise, and culinarily extraordinary people, too.*

So, Zoe couldn’t eat our box of tomatoes and tuna, and instead subsisted rather gallantly on bread, olive oil, and her apple.

Lunch was pleasant. We began to get to know each other a little, explaining where we came from and who we are and what we are giving back to the world. I found her almost unbelievably composed, mature and graceful for such a young age. I remembered myself at 20: a cute, hopeful disaster, drunken and in search of something I couldn’t visualize, going through what was both at the time and in retrospect the darkest period of my life, but having the resilience nevertheless to remember to have fun, make friends, and pretend like nothing bad was happening (classic coping mechanism, and I am in favor of it 100% in some cases). At 20 I dreamed still of going to Italy, but couldn’t pull myself together enough to go. Athens held too much allure to take a semester off, and I think I lacked the courage, anyway. 20 was when I painted my bedroom hot pink and listened to Neutral Milk Hotel on vinyl until the needle went dull and tried to go out downtown and create chaos around me in order to forget the real chaos going on back home. It worked. Zoe, refreshingly, seemed free of such chaos, not at all jaded or jet-lagged from teenager-hood. I found her meek (in the true sense of the word, not what people mistakenly substitute for ‘weak’), graceful, intelligent and fun, and I was happy to know her.

4o’clock came faster than one would expect, and we packed up to trudge home. This is when that “inability to judge distance” thing came into play for real. The landscape was so stark, so full of shadow and deep, flat colors, that it was almost impossible to tell which way to go home. The mountains were higher and harder to walk than they seemed, the ravines deeper, the valleys longer. We had to step high to pull our boots out of the mud, and step wide to avoid holes and crazy, evil cactuses’ that swung and spit. It felt like being lost in a time warp, on mars, and I sighed with relief when suddenly the house was upon us.

As this was Sunday, Laura and the mama had gone back to Palermo, leaving Zoe and I with weird-o Christopher. His position within the family had been only slightly cleared up from the weekend of seeing them all interact. He seemed more of a grounds keeper than anything, though I think I forced myself to think about it from this angle, instead of the other, which was that he was, definitely, Laura’s boyfriend. What could have inspired this romance, I could not begin to imagine. Laura was, by all accounts, a beautiful girl. She was a lawyer, 29 years old, seemingly composed, friendly, bubbly even. Christopher was…stinky. Laura would come behind him and nuzzle his neck, and I felt like gagging for her. How could she sleep next to him, I wondered? Christopher also revealed, I believe during the time Zoe arrived and we were all giving our personal introductions, that he was only 24. Some Benjamin Button shit was going on, for real. Christopher looked somewhere, anywhere, between 35 and 80. He had a story similar to mine: travel through Italy without a grasp of the language and a loss of where to begin, and then love comes along and one finds the inspiration to speak. His Italian was not bad, for sure, as I know perfectly well the hardships of learning a language from scratch. I will be eternally kind to foreigners and anyone who even gives uttering a foreign word a try; Christ knows, I survive on the kindness of those whose language I butcher on a daily basis. But that accent! Italian via a British accent is not kind on the ears. It sounded like he was speaking with his mouth full of food, and I found it hard to look at him when he was speaking Italian, as though I would be forced to see something stomach-turning.

As I said, the family had left, leaving just the three of us. It was at this point that I started to notice that we had been left with basically nothing in the ay of food. bags of pasta, some potatoes, odd unrefrigerated eggs. Tomatoes and a couple zucchini. Dinner was pretty much silent, Zoe and I glancing at each other intermittently to reassure ourselves that the other was still there. 9:30 came around, and we hit the sack. There was nothing else to do.

The next day brought pouring, cold rain. We couldn’t leave the tiny house for fear of being washed away in the storm, so Christopher set us the task of mending nets. The nets for the olive trees are both enormous and tightly woven, leaving tiny slits and holes throughout, tears from past branches and rocky ground. At a certain point one has to wonder, is this just a time-killing task? What is the cost of a new net, truly? Both Zoe and I spent 7 hours that day sewing up holes in the same net, and it was still tattered by the time we just said fuck it and wadded it back up to get it out of our sight. Numerous cups of hot tea were consumed, DVDs were watched, the storm raged on. Christopher told us that since this rain would delay picking olives for another couple of days, we could have the next day as our day off. This was intended as some sort of cruel joke, I now know, because what’s the point of a day off when there is nowhere to go?

Zoe and I were not deterred. We needed to leave our tiny Sicilian island, and we were willing to put on our hiking shoes to get to wherever there was to go. I, personally, was to the point of going into some sort of carnivorous shock: I needed to find MEAT, a salad and a glass of red wine. My system was screaming for help, the withdrawal of iron, fiber and tannins from my body having “sealed my valve”, to put it nicely. The next morning we popped over to the other part of the house, the part that was being remodeled. A small crew of “workers” came every day, an older boss and two younger ones, Michele, who had picked me up at the station, and some other cute boy who was (unfortunately for Zoe) engaged. We asked them as clearly and as pointedly as possible, where could we go? On foot, naturally. They looked at us blankly, blinked, and then the cute one said, “Nowhere”. As though that ended it. But, we asked, if we walked to the nearest town (their eyes widened), how long would that take? An hour, two, three? It was decided that it would take at least 3, and that it was, for all intents and purposes, futile. There was nowhere to go. We thanked them, took a bag of cookies from the cabinet for our provisions, and set out anyway.

An hour into the trip it started to rain, and we had not passed even a house. We walked purposefully and determinedly, Zoe dreaming of adventure and perhaps a romantic, Sicilian café with fresh cannolli, me dreaming of a giant steak, however the Sicilians preferred to prepare it. The panorama was gorgeous, but foreboding. It became apparent after a time that the “next town” was not “just over the hill” as I had hopefully predicted. It was nowhere in sight. Finally, after 2 hours, we reached the train station, still as deserted as ever, and we sat the 40 minutes to await the next train to Vallelunga. It was an easy 5 minute train ride that left us at another deserted train station at the bottom of a valley, still out of sight of any semblance of a town. Some nice old man and his daughter, reading the blinding neon sign on our backs that read “Lost Americans”, offered us a ride. They dropped us at the edge of town, in front of a café. It was begun to sprinkle, and the town looked brown and utterly deserted, so we gave up the idea of a glorious restaurant/bar/theatre offering dinner and a show full of culture and intrigue, and went inside the beaded curtain.
In this weird place we were offered lunch, at least. Bad spaghetti with tomatoes, but at least mine contained pancetta. The seafood salad was good, and the olives were nice and green as well. I was so famished I could not have cared less anymore. Obscene Italian music videos played on the TV, and I called FL rudely from the table and bitched for a moment about the absurdity of my Sicilian diet so far. Bless him; he completely understood, commiserated even. Promised me steak upon my return, gave me the strength, as always, to look on the bright side. Zoe and I ate our lunch nervously, our ears and eyes assaulted by lingerie-clad women in 3D on the television, beginning to wonder how exactly we were going to get back to the farm…

We called Eleonora, who refused to aid us. It was now raining and we were wondering what recourse we had for being rescued. Another WWOOFer, David, was due to arrive at the Villalba train station that afternoon. Surely, we assumed, if we took the train to meet him there, we could catch a ride back with whoever came to retrieve him (surely, we assumed, someone would be retrieving him). This idea was coldly and absurdly ignored, as neither nor Christopher nor Eleonora seemed to be receptive to a plan so simple. We were “on foot”, she said, basically wishing us luck. It made no sense what so ever.

Trudging back to the Vallelunga train station, we awaited a train that never arrived. Realising that we had two hours before David was scheduled to arrive, we gave up, and began to walk. If we could just get to the Villalba train station, we assured ourselves, whoever came to get David couldn’t refuse to give us passage as well. It began to rain, off and on the whole 2 hour journey. Zoe laughed every now and then and shook her head. “This is so absurd,” she said, “I cannot believe this is what is happenening in my life right now”.

The walk from Vallelunga to the Villalba train station (which was, to clear this up, a courtesy title and nowhere near the town of villalba) was just as long as the one before it, but colder. Our spirits remained high, however. At some point, we knew, we would reach the house. It was just a matter of when, and whether we would be soaking wet on arrival. Several cars stopped, but they were all full of men, and even in our state we knew better than to take rides from strangers. Our parents would never, ever know what happened to us, if something were to, and we couldn’t take that risk.

When the Villalba train station finally loomed up at us, we saw a tall be-backpacked figure standing on the curb, and we knew it must be David. He was talking into the window of a car, with someone who, it turns out, was not only the man who owned another WWOOF farm down the road, but a cousin of the family that we were currently staying with. He has errands to run, he said, but if we were all still standing out here like lost little lambs when he returned, he would give us a ride. He sped off, and David, Zoe and I began to piece together what in the hell was happening in this place. David was older, 39, but apparently a stringent life of meditation, yoga, and a diet void of salt and sugar had either preserved or reinstated his youth; he looked not a day over 28. He was British, he was kind and warm, he was on some sort of life journey to explore his soul and the workings of the cosmos, and had chosen Italy randomly on a map as his place to come WWOOF. Arriving from Catania that morning, he said, he had encountered a number of obstacles and other things that he could now interpret as signs to not go to this strange farm here in the middle of nowhere. But, as signs often are, he deciphered them too late, ignored their message, and now here he was. Zoe and I did our best to fill him in on the situation at the house. We couldn’t even comprehend where he was going to sleep in that tiny house, and were even more confounded when Eleonora’s father, in his tiny two-seater truck, sped by, slowing briefly enough to explain that there was yet another WWOOFer, at the Vallelunga train station, that he was going to go retrieve. We should just start walking.

10 minutes into our treck, the man from the other WWOOF farm drove back by, and helped us cram ourselves into his back seat. He asked a number of suspicious questions about his cousins’ farm, including how many hours a day they had us working, where we were sleeping, and whether Eleonora was at the house, presently. I said no, and he replied, “meno male. We don’t get along too well”.

Hm. Also, told us to keep in mind that he ran both a restaurant and made wine, so if we ever needed a night “out”, to come on over. He used to have the WWOOFers over for parties, he said, but the family didn’t like that very much. So we were just to call and pop by when we were able to get out on our own.

My head spun like a slot machine with these bit of suspicious information, and David added his own two-cents: the man at the farm he had just left had wished him luck with Eleonora and this farm, mentioning that Eleonora was notoriously difficult and flighty.

Things did not bode well.

Just as we arrived and had settled into the kitchen, pots of water on the stove to make us all a well-deserved cup of tea, the father showed up with the other WWOOFer. His name was Chris. American as well, 20 as well, just as blond and blue-eyed and big-grinned and adorable as he could be, he blew into our weird little mix with a breath of down to earth, unassuming, light-hearted and amusing air, one that we greatly needed to take the pressures off of a situation that was beginning to get sort of soggy and sad.

Thinks started to look up.

With this gaggle of WWOOFers I think we all knew that we could at least have fun amongst ourselves, despite whatever weirdness lay in store. Dinner, though sparse and unendingly starchy, was not silent anymore, and there were enough different personalities in the house to drown out Christophers heavy, british boredom, jokes to crack and stories to tell.

I, for one, despite my aching feet, slept a little better that night.