The expat ritual

There’s a ritual developing here in our little corner of rural Marche. It’s amongst many of the foreigners, the majority of whom are English.

It’s the monthly trip to Ikea.

I’d never had any real exposure to the Swedish furniture giant before, save for a puzzling encounter with a Swede in Washington DC, whose fervent – even over-zealous, I thought – enthusiasm for a new Ikea opening in the area made me look at her with no small degree of incredulity. I took it for a sense of national pride, or homesickness. I didn’t understand.

Now I do. It’s the consummate shopping experience, and I’m succumbed to the ritual, willingly and wittingly, even as I recognize what they’re doing to me.

They’ve thought of everything, and more, to make your trip convenient, efficient, and economic. Most people leave with more than they came for.

Now even in a consumer-oriented society such as the US, such a shopping experience would be unique, and way above the norm. But out here in Italy, where customer service – or client sensitivity as I prefer to think of it – is non-existent, a day at Ikea is positively exhilarating.

Since most people are likely familiar with the Ikea concept, there’s no point in waxing lyrical about things that everyone already knows – the handy and appealing layouts, the channeled routes through the store, the specials, the ability to mix-n-match, the self-service section, the ease of returns (generally a foreign concept to Europeans), and so on.

But since I’ve become a convert, it’s the little things that I notice every time I go there – the organic milk used in the coffee, the healthy and diverse and tasty options at the in-house restaurant, the clocks dotted throughout all set to the same time – 10 past 10. I’m not even sure why they do some of these things (e.g. the clocks), but the fact that they went to such lengths makes it impressive.

The fact that it’s staffed by Italians adds an extra flavour too. Many of these concepts are beyond their natural tendencies – this is not a criticism, it’s just how it is, take it or leave it – and so the way they perform these foreign tasks is, I’m sure, a little different from the way the Swedes would, for instance. I can’t quite put my finger on it, perhaps it’s that ever-so-slight marginal degree of imprecision in the way things are laid out, or the shirt tail hanging out just slightly, the odd price tag missing, the package that doesn’t contain everything it should. (This last misfortune happened to me on our last trip there. It was the result of a product being returned without everything inside the box, and the staff simply sticking it back on the shelves without checking. Not one of the more endearing departures from the standard Ikea behaviour, I must declare.)

These positive Ikea feelings were no more evident when, on our last trip, we also went to the furniture store next door. First, it took about half-an-hour to get someone to help us. Next, when we went back to place the order, we found out that they had made a mistake in the pricing, by some 20%! And that’s without mentioning how uninviting the layout was.

So do Italians go to Ikea? Yes indeed, by their thousands. The fact that they’re cheaper, have a greater selection, and greater diversity in how your selections can be put together, all have something to do with it. It would hardly be a reasonable business proposition to make that size investment simply for the foreigner market.

But for those foreigners (me included), it’s a getaway, a reminder of what it used to be like, a sort of trip home, as it were. Here we are, making our commitment to this country and this culture which is foreign to us, and will probably always be that way, no matter how hard we try to integrate. Somewhere inside, at varying depths for each of us, we know this, and so we need our periodic home fix as a reward for the constant effort we’re putting into our new lives.

Or maybe I'm reading way too much into it (as I am occasionally wont to do). Maybe it's simply because we're all building new homes, are busy furnishing them, and it's the most convenient shop around ...

Internet and telephone update

There are aspects of living out here in the Italian countryside that remind one daily of that very fact – that we’re living out in the countryside. It’s been 17 months since I arrived here. We still don’t have a fixed-line phone at home, let alone a snail’s-paced internet connection. Here’s a microcosm of how it affects our lives on a regular basis.

In my daily trip to the internet point (which is open daily from 9:30-1, and 3:30-8, closed Thurs afternoon), I made an attempt to buy an air ticket to South Africa for mid-March. Halfway through, I was asked for my passport number, which, of course, was at home. So instead of simply walking over to my filing cabinet to get it and continue (if I had the internet at home), I had to wait until the next day. I got all the way through the reservation the next day, only to find that my US credit card rejected the transaction, requiring me to call my bank and ask them what the problem was. But instead of reaching for the phone next to my desk, I had to go into Tolentino – 20km in the opposite direction from the internet point – to make the call, since the charges to do so from a cell phone would be prohibitive.

I duly go and do so, clear up the matter, and call back the airline to complete the reservation i.e. process the payment on my now-cleared credit card. Sorry, they can’t do it – the reason wasn’t clear, but, given my experience of how quickly and easily things get bunged up here, I accept it rather than push them to do something destructive, and ask what I need to do. Make another reservation, they say. Can I do such a thing over the phone? No, I need to do it online. So now instead of walking over to my desk and the computer, I have to drive 20km back to the internet point to make a new reservation. Only now it’s closed, and so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

The measure of the temperature in my writing doesn’t begin to reflect the rapidly rising heat that all of this ignited. But that’s all past now. I have my ticket, 2 days later instead of 2 hours. I’m just thankful that I was able to get the ticket at the same bargain price. So I suppose I shouldn’t complain – with each trip I was driving through the beautiful Italian countryside, notwithstanding the fact that I was doing so past homes with telephones and internet connections.

We’re now on our 4^th or 5^th application for a telephone with TelecommItalia (TI). The penultimate one was simply cancelled by TI after they were not able to determine where the telephone line on our property came from (yes, this is the very telephone institution that installed it). And then when we reapplied, they connected us with a year-old application for the house we were renting back then. Every time we speak with them, they ask why we’re changing the address of our application. They even called us twice to ask why we want the telephone at 31 Regnano instead of 27 Regnano.

They’ve told us a technician will be calling us soon. I’m not holding my breath.

The simplest solution to an internet connection is, of course, through TI’s ADSL service. A friend down the road set it up himself and it’s working wonderfully for him. But having to work through TI every time there’s an issue seems to me to be a brazen request for high blood pressure, and so I’m looking for alternatives. They’re not encouraging.

Our closest town, Colmurano, have – unlike all their surrounding villages – opted not to lay in TI’s optic fibre lines so that everyone can get broadband internet. They’ve even snubbed the approach of the local computer outfit (where I go for my daily internet fix) to erect a tower so that everyone can get wireless access. That’s because the mayor – a not insignificant position in these reaches – has struck a sweetheart deal with a company some 40km distant to upgrade the town’s computer setup for free if he goes with their broadband offering.

On paper, not bad. Only the company wants a minimum number of subscribers in order to do it, and, needless to say, the potential subscribers – being tech-novice, skeptical rural Italians – want to see evidence of a working service before they’ll subscribe. The fact that over 130 locals signed the initial petition asking for the service seems now to be irrelevant – they want ink-dried signatures.

So it’s a stalemate. I should have known not to get all hopeful when I attended the late-night meeting some 3 months ago, where, after 2-plus hours of wanton waffling, I discovered that they would start the process within the next ten months … once they had the minimum number of subscribers. Ten months???? What are they going to do, mine the ore and turn it into steel themselves? Even in this neck of the woods, that timeframe astounded me. And I know it was an optimistic estimate, as all such things around here are.

So – back to the internet point I go on a daily basis. I ask them what I can do. They say I need to be able to see one of their towers, and since I’m in a dip on the side of a hill, Colmurano is the only direct option for me. However, someway up my driveway, it is possible to see San Ginesio and its towers. What of that? It turns out that there are 2 more-expensive-than-normal options. (1) Put the receiver on a pole up the driveway, and run a network cable from the receiver to the house. Only problem is, the network cables don’t work beyond around 100m. How far would the receiver be from the house? You guessed it – 100m, or just a smidgen over that. (2) Install a set of 3 antennae – one picking up the signal from San Ginesio, one to take that signal and beam it to the house, and one on the house to pick up the signal. Needless to say, the extra two antennae are not cheap.

So we’ll probably give (1) a try first. Am I hopeful? I know I need to be – these things, like horses and other beasts upon which we are sometimes totally dependent, have an aptitude for sniffing out fear, skeptism, despair, and other negative emotions, and providing their in-built, exacerbating responses. In other words, history has now taught me that any hint in my thinking that it will not go well, and ... well, draw your own conclusions.

The other vital thing, as I’ve also learned, is to figure out all the questions to ask, and ask them. It seems to be a human law here that information is only given when requested. It could be vital, pivotal, fundamental, core – it doesn’t matter, unless you ask, ye shall not receive. It’s not malicious, or premeditated, or negative in any way, it’s just the way it is.

Our challenge, then, is to figure out all the questions that we don’t have the slightest clue we should ask. And on this score I suppose I should express some gratitude – who would have thought that out here in the rolling hills of Italy, wallowing back in the 1950’s, I’d be taken to brainstorming, lateral thinking, and open-minded blue-skying on a routine basis. I guess sooner or later (more than likely later, much later) I’ll finally figure out how to take my flash-point blood temperature and soothe it to the point that I’ll achieve the calmness that I came for in the first place. After all, everyone else around me has managed it …

Going postal

It’s my lucky day, I can’t believe it – today (February 7^th) the fourth and last of my Christmas and Julius-birthday (January 8^th) book purchases arrived. They were mailed from the US and the UK respectively on December 5^th. [English titles at bookstores in our neck of the woods are both scarce and prohibitively expensive.]

Not only was I lucky enough to have this tantalizing and uncertain wait, for 2 of them I had to pay a total of €14 custom’s duties and “postal expenses”. In each case the fee amounted to more than the value of the contents of the packages. But I know after a prior experience, when the postal clerk threatened to return my package to sender if I didn’t pay it, there’s no way around paying these spurious and extortionist “tolls”.

In truth, I’m just thrilled to get everything I ordered. Clearly our multiple begging trips to the post office, along with the considerable time spent waiting on the phone for lethargic and uninterested dispatch clerks – all of which yielded nothing more than indifferent shoulder shrugs – paid off, at least in the sense that we had done our due diligence. I believe that – this time, at least – we appeased the Italian god of the mail sufficiently for him to lift the “hide-it-in-a-dark-corner” spell from our meager packages in one of his random moods.

As for the €14 in tolls, I think I’ve found a way around it – from now on I’ll order my books from the UK (part of the free and easy EU) instead of the states. In fact, I’ve found a bookseller online who delivers FREE from the UK, and whose gross prices are comparable with those in the states. (Their net prices, after taking into account the postal tolls, anguish, enamel loss from frustrated teeth gnashing, and blood pressure medication, are vastly cheaper.) Of course this is all just theory right now, but I’m confident that my latest order of about 10 books is winging its toll-free way to me as I write.

As a result of our regular postal experiences and the effect they have on our mental health, wherever I can these days I pay the extra and ship via UPS, Fedex, or some such trackable means other than USPS (United States Postal Service). Unfortunately these options are not available for online book purchases, and so we’re left to the vagaries of the government postal services.

There’s one anecdote worth mentioning with regard to the one trackable method I won’t use – the USPS. It turns out that the tracking number the USPS uses – and which the customer innocently uses to try and find out where their phantom package is – is changed once it is received by the Italian postal authorities. No one tells you what the new number is. So when you go to the post office or call up the dispatch company, confidently brandishing your USPS tracking number, needless to say they can’t find it, and trump you with a retort that starts something like “without a tracking number …” The defeat is positively humiliating.

Worse still, if and when the package finally turns up and you explain to the postal workers what happened with the number switching, they look at you blankly as if to say, “Yes, and …?”

But I have my books, and if my next batch actually makes it here, I’ll be set with reading material for a while. Ironically, the bulk of the subject matter relates to life in and the culture of this wonderful country I’m living in. At least I’ll be able to verify their tenets and conclusions.

The look

The Italians have a reputation for being xenophobic. Having been exposed to just a small fraction of its landmass and population, I can’t really say one way or another. And I don’t know if the predomination of Fiat and Lancia and Ariston and Vulcan and other locally-made products supports it or not, just as the knee-jerk tendency to blame the Albanians for every theft that happens in this area doesn’t necessarily imply a distrust of things or persons foreign.

What I have noticed, though, is a tendency for the locals – particularly the older ones, the contadini (peasants) – to examine you rather closely when you drive by. They interrupt whatever they’re doing – bending over collecting chicory or fallen chestnuts, or gathering at the local bar for their prolonged daily chin-wag (the men, at any rate) – and stare long and hard, turning their heads to follow you and your smile, wave, serious look, or return stare as you pass them and move off into the distance.

I can’t tell if it’s a hostile, unwelcome once-over … a pained, squinting attempt with failing eyes to identify an unknown intruder … or simply an innocuous, innocent gawk of curiosity. Funny though, how it repeats itself – the fellow up the road from Anna’s house, where we stayed for 6 weeks, gave me the same examination every time I went past him on the road, which was almost daily. I always drove the same car, gave him the same smile, occasionally tried a wave, and without fail got the same response – a long, intense stare with mouth agape, as if he had stumbled across a new and virulent germ that threatened to wipe out the human race.

It’s not as if foreigners are new to this place. More recently, the English have been coming (and now settling here) for years, but the trend dates back to years with a “BC” after them – after all, the Italian peninsula has seen the Greeks, Spanish, French, Saracens, Lombards, Barbarians, and Byzantines ebb and flow through the land throughout its colourful and somewhat jerky history. These visitors I’m sure gave the locals far more to stare at and ponder than a harmless, somewhat reticent, admittedly slightly quirky South African and his family.

So why then do I still get “the stare”? Even one of our neighbours in Regnano, who I once stopped and chatted to (with some success I might add), still gives me the glare, even though I know that underneath it all he harbours a disarming smile and a friendly disposition.

I don’t know, perhaps – given their history of a constant stream of strangers treading their paths – they’re simply wondering “Who’s it this time?”, investigating with a prolonged gaze how their lives might be affected by the new aliens.

Who knows, maybe it’s a property of the atmosphere here, the water, the air, the land. But hold that thought for a moment – I just heard a car coming along the road, and I need to check out who on earth might be passing through our little hamlet …

Driver's license - the sequel

So, what happened with the driving license tests? (See here for an intro.)

The written test is taken at the department of motor vehicle offices in Piediripa near our provincial capital, Macerata, a half-hour away. I was picked up by the instructor along with three 18-year-olds, whose peer group made up the majority of exam-sitters – the remainder consisted of (a) older Italian women who’ve decided to finally take the plunge, in most cases out of pure necessity, and (b) non-EU foreigners like me who’ve become resident in Italy.

I was in the first of 4 morning sittings, starting out at the Italian version of 8:30am - 45 minutes late at 9:15am. In a typically drab, paint-peeling, last-cleaned-10-years-ago, ill-furnished government room, we used touch screens to record our answers. The stark contrast – modern technology against dilapidated building – was marked, and yet another of the typically Italian contradictions that one encounters on a daily basis.

Each student gets a different test, so you can’t peep at your neighbour’s answers. I answered with a tentative confidence, knowing full well that there could be logic-defying mines buried in the answer sheet.

When they read out the results, the first candidate of the sheet – a Mr. Ali – got 9 errors, thereby failing with honours and instilling a feeling of trepidation in the rest of us clustered around the examiner, who fumbled at the computer with a complete absence of technological prowess, welcoming every hint of distraction to draw him away from the obvious torture of having to do this.

Luckily, it seems as if I managed to dodge all the mines, and I passed. (You’re not told about the number of errors, but at this point it’s moot.)

I always thought that there was a mandatory 30-day waiting period between the written test and the practical driving test, but Andreas the instructor immediately confirmed a practical exam a week later. I did not ask any questions.

Arrangements for the day of the driving test were curiously vague, but I went along with them in a trusting but confused haze, showing up on time at 3pm at one of the junctions down on the main road near here. No Andreas, just a woman who greeted me as if she knew me.

About 45 minutes after the appointed time, a car I’d never seen with “Scuola Guida” (driving school) on it pulled up and disgorged several young 18-year-olds, including one with whom I’d taken the driving test. The woman who’d greeted me earlier beckoned me to come and get in the car, and so – somewhat bemused by it all but happy that something was at last happening – I did. The driver, who I’d never seen before, and who didn’t even acknowledge my presence, set off, my mind wondering where on earth to.

A minute later I saw Andreas the driving instructor coming in the other direction, sitting in the front passenger seat with a student driving and someone else in the back. We followed. After curving up to San Ginesio, the student got out and switched places with the familiar woman from our car … and finally I got it – the third person in Andreas’ car in front was the examiner. As I found out later, the driving schools make appointments with the department of motor vehicles, and the examiner – who could come from anywhere in the province – shows up at a location that’s convenient for all concerned. This particular woman had driven a good 40 minutes from some way up the coast to be with us.

I was last, coincidentally driving a route through Colmurano and Urbisaglia that’s as familiar to me as any I’ve driven here. I was calm and confident, but had I known what happened to the familiar woman immediately before me I would certainly not have been – she inadvertently crossed into a turning lane slightly too late, going over the solid line instead of the broken line as she did. It was the only mistake she made – failed.

Andreas and the examiner talked through the entire duration of my test, and it seemed as if the examiner wasn’t even paying attention to what I was doing. Whether she was or not ends up being somewhat immaterial, at least now it does, because she passed me, and I can now proclaim with dubious pride something that I never thought I’d say – I’m officially “an Italian driver” …

Sledding Italian style

The weather’s been quite balmy the past few days, but some remnants of snow still cling to the upper reaches of the central Apennines just ¾ of an hour away. And so yesterday, on a glorious sun-drenched morning, off we headed for the slopes to try out Julius’ two new sleds.

We went to one of our favourite spots, summer or winter – Pintura, at close to 2,000 m, just a few km past the most popular skiing destinations in Marche, Sassotetto and Maddalena. After threading our way beyond them through roads narrowed to alleys by the Italians’ proclivity to defy parking logic, we found Pintura pleasantly busy but not overly so. The same was true for the snow on the ground – a reasonable covering with patches of brown soggy earth dotting the slopes (although “pasting” may be more apt than “dotting”).

Julius’ first run was one of discovery … that the sled was rather faster than he anticipated, and that he was unable to deal with said speed, parting company with it in rather spectacular fashion as he stumbled upon a new level of meaning to the term “out of control”. Like Julius, Maria went to the top of the steepest slope with the second sled … and discovered precisely the same thing. With my limited exposure to all sports snow-related, I tried the lower, more gentle slopes, where we remained for the rest of a very enjoyable day, returning home tired, smiling, and bruised.

Like any outing into the outdoors in Italy, it’s about more than the targeted activity … a lot more. That’s because there are Italians there, and they do things in a way that can only be described as, well, Italian. First off, it’s a rare thing to find a single family heading off to the slopes – normally at least 3 combine to bring a veritable team of fun-seekers to the arena. And “fun” is most definitely the word, mixed with a good dose of the obligatory level of extreme parental overprotection, rendering a constant stream of laughter, yelling, song, and squeals.

At the cafe near the car park, there's a constant crowd sitting on deck chairs enjoying the scene, as if they’re reclined on their beach chairs at their favourite lido on the coast – it barely raises a brain-sweat to imagine them in precisely the same pose with precisely the same sunglasses lying on a striped chair beneath a matching striped parasol smoking precisely the same brand of cigarette.

Below them, concerned mothers clamber down the slopes in their high-heeled boots after kids bobbling gently down the hill at a speed all too dramatic for them – “Frena! Frena!” (Brake! Brake!) is the most constant refrain of the day. I actually believe that their child’s speed doesn’t really make a difference at all, they simply have a biological need to call out to their offspring with some sort of concern for their safety – they’d be doing the same even if their child was playing tiddly-winks (“Watch your thumb!”).

One particular scene had me chuckling for a while, and brings a smile to my face even now. “Paolo! Vieni qui! (Come here!) Frena!” yelled mom in her city outfit as she stumbled down the slope, bent forward in her vocal exertion and endeavour not to slip and fall. 5-year-old Paolo continues down the hill, picking up speed as he passes a group of 4 teenagers arm-in-arm, singing loudly as they climb back up for their next ride down on a tarpaulin they’ve brought for the team ride. Flashing past them a few seconds later goes Paolo’s dad, loping past in his city kit in long, ungainly strides, propelled by the same built-in call of nature: “Paolo! Frena! Vieni qui!”

Paolo, who knows full well how to brake the sled, stops and allows dad to catch up. There’s a bent-over, breathless remonstration (I’m sure Paolo had a smile on his face) before the long walk back up the hill, dad pulling the sled. Halfway up they’re joined by mom, who spends the remainder of the climb bent over Paolo sharing her expert and intimate knowledge of the dangers of … what is it today? … sledding, not to mention the perilous consequences of not listening to his parents. I can’t be sure, but I might have heard Paolo humming cheerfully to himself all the way up.

Naturally, exactly the same scene plays itself out once more just 5 minutes later.

The festive season in rural Italy

This past festive season was our first in rural Italy. Instead of going elsewhere, we decided to stay in order to be able to answer the immortal question of Monty Python’s Eric Idle: “What’s it like?”

Well, I really don’t want to disappoint, but aside from the January 6^th festival of Befana (which we missed anyway), we didn’t find anything especially different, exotic, or traditional (other than of course the fact that one is in Italy amongst Italians, a rather distinct fact in and of itself). In fact, even “Babbo Natale” (Father Christmas) is inherited from the commercial English-speaking world.

Unlike some other European cultures (like the Germans) who have their main celebration on the 24^th, Italy celebrates primarily on the 25^th(like us English-speakers). It all starts with a midnight mass, a mercifully (moderately) short one, attended primarily for the post-service social mingling, before the serious eating begins at lunchtime on the 25^thand beyond.

On Christmas Day we had a delicious but non-traditional (i.e. no turkey) lunch with our Irish friends, and Maria cooked the traditional local meal on the 26^th after tapping our dyed-in-the-wool marchigiani carpenter for details of the menu. First comes tortellini in brodo, with the broth that they swim in drawn from the boiling of a capon, which is eaten as a second course. The capon – no easy feat to find one, and a weighty price tag when Maria did – was very tasty in spite of the unappetizing thought of a boiled bird. [The contadini around here routinely boil chicken, a far less appetizing prospect.]

As with my own heritage, out here Christmas is for family, while New Year’s eve is spent with friends. Locals from the area whose roots go back a good way may spend several days wading through meal after meal with various branches of their families, but they approach it uncomplainingly and without question as a duty, one that cements the family ties which penetrate deep, long and supportively throughout their entire lives.

Family ties and bonds notwithstanding, there seemed to be a palpable relief at the arrival of New Year’s eve, requiring just one last eating marathon to cap the season. “Capo anno” they call it – top (or head/source) of the year. We were invited with 3 other local families to the home of Piergiovanni and deputy mayor Ornella, our Italian friends and hiking companions.

The food lasted from about 8:30 until midnight. First came about 4 different antipasti (including a variety of local cold cuts), followed by 3 different primi piatti (pasta), and then the secondo, a traditional dish of lentils, representing money and good fortune for the following year. If there’s any room left after all that, there’s fruit, including grapes which, like the lentils, bring hopes of moolah in the year to come.

Following the countdown to the new year, we stepped outside into the brisk air to watch the fireworks all over the countryside. Being a hilly terrain, there’s no bad vantage point, and dozens of light shows were visible, including a few tame ones of our own bought with the groceries at the local supermarket. Then back we went inside to begin the games, a light-hearted indulgence of silly fun with adults and kids divided into 2 teams. When we left at 2:30 a.m. it was still going strong, and the tombola (bingo) boards – apparently a fixture at many Italian celebrations – had just been brought out.

All thoroughly enjoyable, I must say, not least because it was the kind of occasion where my patchy Italian was passable and intellectual conversation was restricted to the bare minimum (if that).

Maria and Julius left for Germany on the 1^st, and in the absence of a child in the house, Befana came and went without notice. Here, however, is the essence –

La Befana is a folklore character who visits all the children in Italy on the eve of 6 January, filling their socks with candy if they are good or a lump of coal if they are bad. She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl because she enters the children's houses through the chimney.

Her name is derived from a mispronunciation of the word "epiphany" upon which the legend is based. Apparently she turned down the 3 wise men to accompany them on their quest to find Jesus, and when she had a change of heart, she went after them but couldn't find them. And so she's still looking.

So there you have it. No snow, unfortunately, and so no white Christmas - I've never had one before, and so was hoping ... However, aside from a good dump of the stuff at the beginning of December, the snow's been restricted to the mountains. Now that Julius is back home, we shall have to take ourselves up there to enjoy the season's spoils - his Christmas and birthday presents: skiing lessons and a ride on his new sleds...

Driver's license

One of the unforeseen pleasures as a non-EU citizen residing in this wonderful country is that I have to get an Italian driver’s license. Now, having been a victim for over a year of the frenetic morass that is Italian driving, there are eminently reasonable grounds for thinking that licenses are secondary considerations, or at best “optional.” (See Italian driving for a first-hand account.)

Unfortunately, my thinking is flawed. Turns out the unsmiling carabinieri apparently take these things rather seriously, conducting spot checks on the main roads around here for licenses, registration, and insurance. Being caught without a valid license involves both a hefty fine, and even suspension of one’s license. Now it seems to me suspending a license might prove a little tricky if one doesn’t have one to begin with, but in a country that taxes potential income instead of actual earnings, anything’s possible.

I’m already driving illegally – my international license expired in September and the year’s grace from the issue of my residence was up two months ago – and so to avoid a run-in with the red-and-black caps of the stern and serious lawmen, I have to get my license. And I need to start as if I’ve never had one before, sitting a written test, and taking a practical driving test.

This is not only ignominious for a near-50 year old who’s been driving for 30 years, it’s also an exercise in supreme frustration. That’s because the sample tests that I’m studying suggest – and my driving instructor confirms – that the intent of the written test is to try and fail you.

The written test consists of 10 questions with 3 answers, each with a True-False option. Get more than 4 out of the 30 wrong, and you fail. Practicing with my book of 250 sample tests (each containing questions from the actual official tests), I routinely fail. Here’s why:

- “A holder of sub-category A1 driving license can drive up to 125-cc motorbikes with a maximum power of not more than 11kW.” Here’s the thing: I’m applying for the ‘B’ driving license, and have absolutely no intention of ever applying for an ‘A’ license, never mind sub-category ‘A1’. As for 11kW – you tell me how much power your car generates in kW.

- “Parking of vehicles or motorbikes is prohibited at or close to road signs.” What road signs – no parking? Unfortunately, “it depends” is not a valid answer.

- “When, at a junction in town, the vehicle in front does not set off when the road is clear, it is advisable not to sound your horn in order not to cause intolerance with other motorists.” True or False. Is what true or false? One almost needs a degree in logic just to wade through all the negatives. And if two “not’s” make a logical knot, what do 3 "not's" make?

- “Providing assistance to people injured in road accidents is compulsory because the law punishes hit-and-run drivers.” Huh? Is the ankle bone connected to the shin bone, or the finger? You tell me what the connection is.

- “This sign (a parking area one) indicates a parking area and may have a plate indicating times and charges.” Yes, I can see how knowing this vital bit of information would make me a responsible driver.

I should point out that thankfully the test is offered in English, a fairly recent development. The English employed, however, often requires one to read the Italian to understand it. This strikes me as being rather ironic. Some terms like the car’s “strangler” are clearly obvious (“choke” for those of the newer generation that never had to use one), but others like “having the right occupied” tend to induce something of a hazy fog in the brain, trying to imagine what it might mean. (Explanation: if your “right is occupied” you don’t have the right of way.) There are so many examples of this, the list is endless – “canalization lanes”, “central reservations”, “inverting your direction”, “lacrimation”, headlights aimed “mainly in depth”, and on and on.

I must say, though, that there seems to be a bit of tongue-in-cheek with some of them. For example:

- “Drinking alcohol affects driving because it makes driving more pleasant and less boring.” They say this is False, but I’d wager the local farmer who says Foligno is “18 Camparis from Tolentino” would contest their assertion.

Here’s one of my favourites:

- “When overtaking you must get as close as possible to the vehicle in front.” I hear that 99% of students mark this one “True”, and take it forward as the #1 rule of the road. (Once again, see Italian driving.)

Wry observation aside, however, this little parody is a microcosm of the Italian culture, at two levels.

First – Italians love to flaunt the rules, ignore them, slap them about, distort them, with a flair that is both enviable and irrational. At times they seem to take this deliberately to an absurd level, as in their driving, parking, etc. But I know it’s not deliberate, there’s actually some (questionable) reasoning behind it: if some of the rules don’t make sense, why bother working out which ones do – don’t obey any of them.

The second level of this little insight is best communicated in a simple mantra: It is how it is. Regardless of how inefficient, counterintuitive, or nonsensical “it” is (whatever “it” might be), it isn’t going to change. So shut up and get on with it. This insight is confirmed by my driving instructor: “What are you getting uptight about?” is his unspoken and underlying message when I rant at one of the mystifying translations or rules that could be my undoing in the driving test. “This is just how it is.”

I’m left wondering how, with the anal, impatient, stubborn slices of my character, I’m going to make it here. There’s a part of me that came here to get rid of those undesirable personal traits by immersing myself in a culture that, through its subtle, unmoved, and unflappable ways, will simply not put up with (or even notice) my raving.

As I'm learning, things - longstanding habits and tendencies included - change slowly.

Daily update parte nove

It’s been a while. Seems like ages in fact since I last ventured into blogland. Truth is, it’s been hectic, moving into an incomplete house and all, swamped by boxes, trying to get used to a new way of life in our “back to nature” (ish) abode. There’s no “automatic” central heating or hot water system, see, just a “camino” – a wood-and-other-material-burning stove that circulates hot water to the radiators and to the showers and sinks. Which means having to constantly keep the fires burning (literally), and, in the morning, getting them going again.

It’s been an adjustment, on top of all the other moving in challenges that one meets along the way. Like not having doors on any of the rooms, including the only complete bathroom – the incomplete one at least has a door and a working shower and toilet, just no basin (which we’ve waited for over 6 months for, and the stonemason who’s making it keeps telling us that it’ll be ready “tomorrow”, or perhaps “the day after tomorrow”, perhaps to add some hint of authenticity to his claim. Only trouble is, tomorrow of course simply never comes, let alone the day after tomorrow.)

Back to the camino – first order of business is finding the wood to burn. Like everything else in this part of the world, one gets wood from a guy that somebody knows. We’ve found two and had a delivery from each. Neither load burns spectacularly well, but then I’m apparently a skinflint when it comes to how much wood I put on – the locals pile it up like a bonfire, so to keep some semblance of warmth circulating we need to emulate (somewhat against my grain).

Then there’s the showering. Radiator warmth is one thing, maintainable with a moderately-burning, moderately-hot fire. A shower, however, requires us to crank up the heat and keep it there so that the showerer isn’t left shivering as the temperature plummets after a brief flirting with the high degrees. It’s been a bit of trial and error, but one learns quickly when the lesson comes in the form of a wintry chill while completely starkers.

Overall it’s added a whole new dimension to the list of daily household chores – just cleaning out the fireplace, fetching the day’s first load of wood from outside, and getting the fire going with kindling damp from the incessant rain, consumes a good half-hour each morning. I’m not complaining, mind – I rather enjoy the fact that we’re independent of the exorbitant gas prices that everyone else is paying. We’ll probably end up paying about ¼ of what everyone else does for heat and hot water.

Of course, just as the heating lessons were starting, and the chaos of living in the shambles around us was becoming “evident”, should we say, two things happened: (1) Maria decided she needed a break, and sped off for Germany for 2-½ weeks, leaving me to deal with it all, Julius and his schedule included of course, and (2) I got a writing assignment with a very rapid turnaround, requiring me to more or less drop everything to get it done. Just what I needed.

Of course I got through the trial, as one always does, even managing a couple of trips into the snow-and-wind of the mountains, not to mention a rather scary folly of a foray into the muddy mire of the waterlogged backroads and farmtracks at the goading of my son, miffed at my lack of adventurous spirit. (We made it out of this last sortie OK, but only after a few hair-raising, completely out-of-control sideway-slides down and along “roads” with mud a foot thick.) Under the circumstances I was rather impressed at just being able to maintain the status quo, and even make a little progress on getting things done around the house. Naturally, however, not everyone is as impressed at my effort as I am, and I’m now going through a great learning experience being told about all the mistakes that I made in my blissfully unaware, honest endeavours as a temporary single parent and home-keeper.

Things are moving along, though. We have a nice new shiny fridge, a similarly shiny dishwasher (hallelujah), an equally shiny washing machine, and a beautiful but somewhat ill-fitting granite countertop in the kitchen. We also have Sky TV, affording live viewing of South African rugby, the English Premiership, and the Champion’s League. And we’ve now unpacked enough boxes to know that we have enough storage space for about ¼ of our belongings. So instead of living out of boxes, we’re living directly off the floor …

Finally ...

We're in. Two nights we've slept in the house now, amid a rather large degree of chaos admittedly, but in the house nonetheless. Julius has 3/4 of his bed (bed legs and top layer of the 3-layer mattress missing), while Maria and I are on a makeshift arrangement - comfortable enough - on the floor, waiting for our bedroom floor to be finished and our own bed legs to turn up.

The bathrooms are usable, but lacking final coats of "accent" paint, not to mention a basin in the downstairs bathroom, or places to put "stuff" (toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc). But Maria had a hot bath (that took several hours to drain), and Julius and I have both had showers that crept over the "warm enough" barrier.

The fireplace has blazed on both nights, filling the radiators in their rooms with enough warmth to keeping the frostman out, and depleting our meager wood supply rather alarmingly.

We've retrieved 2/3 of our belongings from our neighbour's house, and are managing to find narrow walkways between the myriad boxes that are adorning the majority of available floorspace.

If it wasn't for the particularly unfinished kitchen, it would feel like we've moved into a finished house. At least we have a fridge and stove, both operating, but we don't have a working sink, cupboards, or a countertop.

But we'll manage until we've found the time, energy, and wherewithal to get that Nordic resin spatchelored on, and found willing helpers to get our marble dining room table carried inside.

Perhaps the best surprise so far is that the ubiquitous rat and/or mice waste matter in our storeroom was limited to the outside of the boxes - no sign of rodent habitation inside anything, just a few nibblings of plastic here and there ... so far.

I wasn't sure this day would ever arrive, but here it is, and if it wasn't for the absence of a kitchen, I'd be waxing right lyrical now, I'm sure. Euphoria aside, it's good to be in. It's going to be a nice home.

So near … and yet seemingly inching away

Amongst the milestones of moving into a new house are: (a) moving in, and (b) finishing the move-in. (b) takes rather longer than (a), as most will attest. If you’re renovating, or building, somewhere in there is “completing the building”, and then “completing the touching-up”. The first of these can be pre- or post-(a), while the latter typically coincides or is subsequent to (b).

To someone who is eagerly working and waiting for any of these activities merely to start, these distinctions and timeframes are purely academic (as is the numbering). And they’re most certainly academic for us right now.

That’s right – we haven’t moved in yet, although it’s hardly for lack of trying. Everything in our lives besides “the house” has disintegrated into the background – the very necessary task of getting my Italian driver’s license (to be covered in a subsequent blog), the very necessary task of finding work and/or a source of income, the very necessary task of learning Italian, catching up with friends, even spending real time with our son.

And with every joule of energy that we contribute, the goal of moving in – based solely on a working bathroom and heating – seems to be two joules further away. Here’s a partial list:

• The special paint which is destined to find its way onto our bath and sinks has not arrived. It was ordered a month ago. We need it to complete the bathrooms. [If you're asking why we needed this particular finish, I'm working on it.]
• In order to move into the house, and move some of our long-stored items in from the mouse-ridden outhouse, we need to clean the rooms we and they (the “things”) are moving into. Our vacuum cleaner is stored in the house we used to rent next door. The house’s key-keeper, a friendly Englishman, cheerfully announced yesterday that he had lost the key to said house. Aside from the vacuum cleaner we need to do the cleaning, much of our warm clothing, bedding, and kitchen appliances and stuff are in said house. In addition, the compressor we’d hoped to use to help with some power-cleaning of our furniture and other things – we’re expecting some powerful dirt after a year in a rickety, dusty, holy (not-spiritual, that is) storehouse – was removed by the builder the day before we asked to use it.
• The wooden floor upstairs – site of the bedrooms and therefore the ultimate destination for the stored beds – is finally installed. They started in July. They (the floor layers) are not experts, as the results attest – a bowing surface that had to be nailed down to keep it level, rendering a row of unsightly holes that now have to be filled in. So do the gaps between the floorboards themselves. Given the proliferation of both nail-holes and gaps, it is no doubt going to be a time-consuming effort. Naturally, it’s ours to do … before we then have to paint it with a finish to protect it, that is. And given Maria’s distaste for the varnish that the carpenter supplied (Julius and I, somewhat irrelevantly, are rather taken by it), there will be a delay while she conducts the search for the “right” finish. It’s odds-on that we’ll end up with what we already have, only a week or two later. This, of course, takes no account of the prerequisite search for the filler for the holes and gaps, which has yet to commence.
• The kitchen “cupboards” – concrete constructions made by the builder – were also selected to receive the aforementioned special paint (see bathrooms above). We started it way after the bathrooms, and we’re now only on the first of the four coats that they will ultimately get. The surface area is much less than the bathrooms, but much harder to do, given that you have to crawl into spaces that weren’t designed for this kind of thing. I hate it, and avoid doing it every chance I get. Along with the inherent slowness of progress, my mindset, which seems unlikely to change in the near future, is equally unlikely to speed up the completion of this rather key location in our new home.

There’s other stuff too, although it doesn’t have an immediate bearing on our ability to move in:

• We (I use the term “we” loosely here, with a focus on family unity rather than culpability) “mislaid” our cell phone. It’s the only way numerous people, upon whom we are relying to get things completed, can get hold of us, and contains the only record of the phone numbers of those who need constant chasing to get the necessary things done.
• The downstairs bathroom sink, which was bought some four months ago, finally had the hole for the plug drilled by the marmista (the marble guy from whom we bought it). Only it was the wrong sink … and he can’t find the one we bought.

I’m left considering the possibility of a conspiracy – what else could it be?

“Why” doesn’t matter, of course, when considered in the same breath as the need for (a). Notwithstanding all my rumblings, believe it or not it may be this week. That depends on whether the idraulico (plumber) arrives to complete the installation of the bathroom radiators, toilets and other fittings. Am I holding my breath? Don’t look for me to be going blue anytime soon.

The only thing I can say is – thank heavens for angels like Anna Finn and her two daughters, Mimi and Cara Bella, who have accommodated us uncomplainingly with warmth and grace and patience for the past 3 weeks. Without them, we’d be even more at our ragged ends than we already are.

House update

Like a tame domestic version of “The Perfect Storm”, there is a convergence of sorts as the triggers for all final tasks on the house start setting themselves off. Upstairs wooden floor, downstairs quartz stone floor, fireplace and heating system, electrical system, doors and windows …

Nothing, of course is straightforward. The guys laying the wooden floor didn’t come when we thought they would, they came a week later, and have yet to finish. Now the quartz stone floor guy has arrived from Germany on a tight schedule, which means that the two floor teams are working at the same time. This is a problem:

• The wood floor guys generate a tremendous amount of dust from their sawing and cutting … an unwelcome embellishment for the drying resin on the floor below
• The quartz stone fellow decided to lay the stairs first … thereby taking away the wooden floor team’s access to their workspace, since the only outside door upstairs can’t open with the new way the floor is being laid

This, naturally, is not all:

• The guy who delivered the quartz stone floor material decided to come down the driveway forwards with his big truck before checking to see if he could get out. Needless to say, he got stuck, and destroyed some newly-laid concrete walkways, a terra cotta brick wall, and the recently-laid pebble garden patch in his failed attempts to leave the premises. Our farmer neighbours had to come with their tractor to pull him out. When I asked him if it was the first time this had happened to him (expecting a “yes” answer from this professional driver), he said that it was the third or fourth.
• The guy installing the camino (wood-burning stove to provide hot water and heating) is a week late, meaning the big, cast-iron brute of a thing still isn’t installed … a necessity before the quartz stone chap can lay the floor in that room.
• The bathroom upstairs still has a big hole in it (not to mention a very shabbily-concreted corner) … presenting something of a minor challenge for the laying of the quartz stone, since it doesn’t naturally sit well on a layer of air.
• The doors leading to the outside open (inwards) away from the wall, into the middle of the room, instead of against the wall … and the door guys say that we’ll just have to adjust the furniture to accommodate it, since changing it to the logical way would require making a new door.
• The mix-up of two very different types of window between the bathroom and the kitchen – making an obvious and ugly mismatch in both places – has been vehemently defended by the carpenters as being “what was decided upon”.
• The people who were meant to order the special resin paint for the bathrooms didn’t order it because “they couldn’t reach us” (but never left a message, an Italian habit, it seems) … and so now the 4-layer, one-layer-per-day process will have to wait until the bathrooms floors are laid and dry (a 4-day process in itself), further extending our move-in date.
• Our decision to back up our water and house heating with a gas solution (primary source is the camino – see above) has not been factored into anyone’s plans … meaning that we’ll have to light a fire every time we want a shower or want to wash the dishes.

I imagine I’ll be able to add to this list in time.

Of course, Maria decided to add to the challenges by not liking the partially exposed walls, and asking for them to be filled in. This has left a noticeable line and bump where the old and new cement meet, requiring a search for a solution, and – needless to say – repainting after the quartz stone floor has been laid, an eventuality I had striven with some effort to avoid.

There is, happily, some good news. The electrician moved the floor lights from their mid-room position to a more “ambient” locale, after some (German) insistence by Maria. I will hold my breath that the electrician (the fellow responsible for the sloppy concrete floor in the bathroom upstairs) did not pierce one of the buried water-carrying heating tubes in his endeavours.

It’s starting to get cold. The farmhouse (our current digs) is not very well insulated, and the other day Maria returned home to find a rat on the kitchen table, merrily helping itself to whatever leftovers and other foodstuffs it could find.

We need to move. Our spirits require it, our tired bodies require it, our family unity requires it. I had targeted October 20^th, but I now think, with all the recent developments, that’s ambitious.

Believe it or not, I’m not despondent – I think we will move in soon. It’s what we’re moving into that I’m now concerned about.

The marchigiani hunter

The other day as we were sitting down to lunch in our farmhouse kitchen, we were disturbed by a high-pitched squealing, clearly from a creature in some distress. Peering out the window to the farmyard below, Mario’s wife held a rabbit by its feet, the last of its lifeblood staining the grass below, a macabre stain on the garden tool with a serrated edge lying culpably next to it.

It was something of a jarring image, one that has stayed with me. This shouldn’t be a surprising sight, they are animal farmers after all, and out here in the Italian countryside one is constantly reminded of seasons and cycles and life and death. But the banality of the death implement, identical to one that we use for pruning bushes and cutting small branches, along with the knowing, terror-induced screams of a normally-silent animal, lent a heavy aspect to the fate of a “commodity” whose fate was predestined anyway.

Somehow the hunter walking through the fields with a wriggling wild hare in his hands (I saw this scene the other day) conjures a different image – the odds were stacked against the hare, true, but at least he had run around outside for a while, and had the possibility of escape (however slim), unlike his sentenced farmstock brethren.

Which brings me to the Italian – or rather, marchigiani – hunter, a constant sight alongside the rural countryside out here. While almost every square inch of land is put to farm use, in between the fields, tucked into the dales and ditches, are thickets of bush and brush in which live the targets of their bloodlust – hare, pheasant, wild geese, fox, and the big prize, cinghiale (wild boar).

He’s invariably in his camouflaged fatigues (the hunter, that is), looking the part as he ambles through the fields in search of prey one-tenth his size whose dearth of knowledge and access to the kind of hardware that will ultimately spell their doom stacks the odds even further against them.

I’ve often wondered why the marchigiani huntsman wears camouflage – it’s not as if he tries to conceal himself, creeping along quietly to sneak up undetected on his quarry. He crunches through the bush, constantly exuding the giveaway odor of cigarette smoke, as subtle and inconspicuous as the bounding, barking dogs that accompany him, bursting with energy out of their caged existence for these moments of freedom.

His auricular and odorous prudence aside, the marchigiani huntsman is equally adept on the visual front. As I drive along the backroads concentrating on my immediate task of avoiding potholes, tractors, and other cars driving towards me on my side, with casual ease I invariably spot him a literal mile away across the fields as he “stalks” his victims, making a wonderful bulls-eye himself should one have a need for a spot of target practice.

Talking of targets, their shots frequently pierce the silence, normally raising an eyebrow and a consideration as to its proximity. This past week the shots were particularly close, so we peered out the farmhouse window and saw one of the camouflage brigade abandoning his cigarette and charging down the hill after his prey. This was not without a wheeze and a wobble, I might add – it seemed as if this level of physical activity presented a rather infrequent demand on his body.

Ahead were his dogs, yapping and tearing into the bush in front, blissfully ignorant of what they were after. A frantic quack-quack disturbed a duck which went frantically flapping off just inches ahead of the dog’s snapping teeth.

And then everything went still. They – hunter and dogs – stood around with attentive anticipation, waiting and listening as if something was imminent. Perhaps it was the duck he was shooting at after all. But if it was injured, or dead, it wasn’t giving itself up easily. We watched for a while, and then, bored with the (lack of) proceedings, went back to our things.

I’m not sure how frequently this scene replays itself across the Marche countryside. And I’m not sure I’d wager too much against the dogs being responsible for a decent percentage of their “successes” – birds, hares, mice, fleas, etc … But then I’m not a hunter, and in my ignorance, who knows – maybe this is the way it’s done.

However, if the above scene is representative after all, I’d say that – all things considered – this is a relatively happy circumstance for the animals that find themselves out there in their milieu … at least in comparison to the lot of the poor rabbits in the barn below us.

The book release

A couple of weeks ago there was a festa in Colmurano celebrating the 140^th anniversary of the local events committee (if I understood Ornella and Maurizio correctly, which is a 50:50 shot). Aside from anything, 140 years for a local organization is quite something, and is starting to approach the nature of “tradition”, at least in the youthful fields of my heritage.

In any event, everyone (apparently) was there, including the bishop that Colmurano’s parish falls under, the president of Macerata province, a 92-year-old from Sicily (who made the trip especially), and an apparently well-known 82-year-old actor from Rome.

It was also the official release date for a book on the life of one Don Quirico, a priest who served Colmurano for some 50 years just over a half-century ago.

This is all significant (in a way) because I was asked to take photos for the book about 2 months ago. They needed one photo of Colmurano, but they were so pleased with my work they selected 4, and asked me back to take more photos inside the local church, 3 of which are also in the book.

And as a result, Ornella (who got me the assignment in the first place) made sure I knew about the ceremony.

Scheduled to start at 4:30, we arrived “early” at 4:45, only to find that we were still 45 minutes premature. Pranzo (lunch), it appears, had “run a little long.” However, this provided an unanticipated opportunity for entertainment, watching the passing parade as we waited outside the church for the proceedings to begin.

First up was a disheveled woman dressed in black and wearing slippers, shuffling up through the piazza. My first thought was that she’d taken herself off the drip at the rehab center and escaped, only to be drawn like a moth to the flame of a human gathering. I feel dreadful saying this, but she had the appearance of an old hag. She sauntered over to the banner-bearers in front of the church, all dressed in black with a grey sash, clearly with some office to perform. They greeted her warmly and gave her a sash to put on. So much for my ability to call it with even the remotest accuracy – such is the Catholic sisterhood.

All around, too, a gaggle of women thronged, many of them capably “filling” their outfits in a way that their designers would have probably deemed “ambitious”. In particular, one might say that the upper realms of their ensembles were distinctly challenged in containing their wearer’s contents. This is by no means intended to imply any degree of unattractiveness – on the contrary, my attention was immediately captured and held a willing prisoner.

What was intriguing, however, is that they then strolled into church. With my colonial upbringing in what I would have deemed an average Presbyterian congregation, I had always associated modesty with churchgoing attire. But not here, apparently. It seems that we’ve got it all wrong – church is just another event of the calendar, like the daily coffee at the bar, or Sunday lunch. And after all, when you’re out and about, why wouldn’t you want to catch the eye?

Anyway, finally things caught up and we ambled in, leaning against the back wall in a standing room only church. Emblazoned front and center was a large picture of Colmurano with said priest superimposed on it – “That’s my picture”, I thought, enlarged rather well. (Strangely enough, that one isn’t in the book – it’s the best of the lot.)

Then came the speeches. We didn’t understand anything. I’m not sure it mattered. People wandered in and out as with any Italian function. Some, dressed to the nines for the occasion, never even made it inside the church, lingering instead in the piazza outside, talking over the drone from inside being piped out to them. By the third speech we were done, and left - the Italian proclivity for one of their passions (talking) on this occasion for us eclipsed another of their famous passions (one that we wholly embrace) that would no doubt have followed ... eating. I wonder what we missed.

The picture that never made it ...