Offanengo

As expected, this past week has seemed much less thrilling than usual following my incredible weekend in the Tuscan countryside. None the less, it was perhaps the most relaxing week I’ve had thus far. I had an older group of kids (12 year old) who were very well behaved, which makes a huge difference. And I was also with a host family that was very low-key and not so active.

I lived with a single mother and her son (who was hardly ever there because he stayed with his dad a lot). They lived in a small apartment flat in a neighborhood surrounded by cornfields. I think there must have also been some kind of horse or pig pasture nearby, because the air constantly smelled of manure. The first night I was there, we ate raw meat for dinner… not just raw prosciutto (which I’m used to by now), but thick slices of RAW meat. As my father can attest to, I have trouble eating meat even if there is the slightest trace of it being under-cooked. But not wanting to be rude (and not wanting to starve), I ate it all. Luckily, I had a pounding headache that night, so I just focused on the pain and I was almost able to forget what I wa eating.

In reality, the mother wasn’t a very good host: didn’t take much of an interest in conversing with me, didn’t offer me food or drink other than at mealtimes, and didn’t get off work until late at night. However, it was a welcome change to have two hours in a flat each day without anyone else there. I didn’t feel obligated to play with the son or really to come out of my room at all. They also had internet, so I can’t really complain too much.

On Thursday evening, we went into Cremona to see the shops and walk around. Cremona is most famous for building violins. In a lot of the shops they sold violin-shaped candy and postcards and the like. My host mom also mentioned that Giuseppe Verdi’s childhood home is nearby, but it was too late to go see it. Many cities in Italy have one night each week (in the summer) when the shops stay opened really late at night, and there are street vendors and live music… one can just feel the culture permeating through one’s skin. This particular night, there was a street performer who was blowing fire and walking on broken glass, with a fireworks show beaming in the background.

Oddly, seeing fireworks reminded me of home more than anything else ever has. Perhaps because it seems like such an American tradition—tied to celebrations of Independence Day and usually accompanied by dads grilling hotdogs and hamburgers, paper plates with pictures of watermelon and American flags, and children chasing each other around the neighborhood with sparklers. Whatever it was about the fireworks that reminded me of home, I was grateful. It gave me a greater sense of connection to Italy.

The camp itself wasn’t so great this week. Nothing was bad about it… just kinda blah. The kids were good, but not very enthusiastic. The camp director was nice, but not very helpful (and horrible at English!). The plus side is that the final show was really low-stress for me. My show was “The Offanengo Animal Documentary” and it went really well. The show was divided in three segments: South America, Australia, and Africa; with a reporter, cameraperson, and two animals in each segment. It was also low-stress because my many weeks of experience are starting to provide me with some wisdom about these final shows. Most notably is the fact that if you just ask the kids to provide their own costumes (instead of me trying to make them all myself), their mothers and nonnas (grandmothers) will stay up all night if they have to in order to ensure that their child has an exceptional hand-made costume. My kangaroo in this week’s show, came to class on Friday with a hand-sewn costume that looked like it had been made for a Broadway show. There were stuffed ears attached to a headband, and then a kangaroo-looking jumpsuit complete with a stuffed tail, a pouch, and even a hand-made plush baby kangaroo (aren’t those called joeys?) poking out of it. I couldn’t believe it! I just wish I had learned this trick earlier in the summer!!

Next week will be my final week working with ACLE this summer. I will be at a camp in Malo (a far suburb of Vicenza) in the north-east of Italy, not far from Venice or Verona. It is the largest camp I’ve ever heard of with ACLE, including 12 tutors and 120 kids in total. Since I’m a bit burnt out with this job, I’m hoping that such a large camp will serve as a bit of a refreshing change.


Topsy-Turvy Itlaian Tid-Bits

(Nothing notably awkward or funny happened this week (sorry!), so I’ll just focus on food this time.)

1.) There are a few foods in Italy that just aren’t as good as in America. One of them is salad. It’s not uncommon for a ‘salad’ in Italy to consist of nothing but lettuce tossed with salt and olive oil. I miss those huge American salads that include at least a few ingredients from each major food group on them! They also don’t really have a variety of salad dressings like in America. It’s always olive oil, and then (if you’re lucky) the choice of vinegar. The beverage I miss the most is freshly brewed iced tea. Iced tea is common here, but only the flavored bottled varieties. Even if you order iced tea in a fancy restaurant, you will probably be asked if you prefer the lemon or the peach Nestea.

2.) One night, all the tutors went to a big family dinner with one of the host families and the mother explained that she had prepared a special pasta dish, called tortelli, that you can only find in the tiny region around Crema. It’s a stuffed pasta (like tortellini), but the filling isn’t the typical meat or cheese. Instead, it is filled with a pasty mixture of cheese, chocolate, almond, mint, grapefruit, and citron. It was obviously sweet and rich… and delicious, but it was also incredible knowing that I was eating something that probably only a handful of Americans ever had!

3.) There are a two food items that Italians are completely obsessed with… as in, no matter where you are, you will always find these items in every home: apricots and Nutella. I’ve eaten so much of each in the last few months that I can’t even begin to estimate an amount. Not only are these things wildly popular, but every single snack is available in these flavors. Apricot jam, apricot tarts, apricot juice, apricot cake, apricot cookies—I’ve had them all! And thanks to the Nutella craze, there are countless types of chocolate and hazelnut flavored cereal, granola bars, gelato, biscotti, etc.

4.) For a country where everyone separates their trash into the different recycling categories, the massive amounts of plastic bottles and cups that Italians use comes as a huge surprise to me. At many camps, each child is given a bottle of water plus a plastic cup for lunch (because Italians don’t drink out of bottles). I also don’t think I’ve seen a single Nalgene or reusable water bottle since I’ve been here. One would think that if the people care enough to recycle, they would care enough to limit their plastic usage as well. I suppose I have WashU to thank for this environmental awareness!