Cock and hen

I had an unexpected visit today from 2 Albanian brothers who have worked for us (separately) in the past. They wanted to see how we were getting on and – probably – check whether anyone else has worked for us recently.

The older of the brothers helped us with the construction of a retaining wall next to the house, for which Clive directed the coping and I had the task of explaining that it was called ‘cock and hen’.

Part of the wall with its cock and hen coping

The idea of this traditional technique was, originally, that any over-large or awkwardly-shaped stones that couldn’t be fitted into the lines of the body of the wall would find a home on top. A stone that stood up and a stone that lay down were alternated, hence the name.

The wall was made 4 years ago but the name had stuck in its builder’s memory – ‘gallo e gallina’ in Italian!

The lost dog

Damaris came back from her eye appointment (she has Glaucoma) and, as she turned off the main road onto the steep narrow local road that leads to our hamlet, she had to brake suddenly because there was a dog flopped out in the middle of the road. This was not a case of some creature choosing an inappropriate place to sun itself (for starters, there was no sunshine to be enjoyed). The animal looked very sick and ill-at-ease and Damaris even wondered if it was rabid – a disease which we have never heard of anyone contracting anywhere even vaguely near us.

The dog was a huge Italian sheepdog and it turned out to belong to the goatkeeper who lives at the bottom of our hill. We knew he had a big female one – she is kept chained up outside the whole year long and even in the middle of summer (35C or above) and winter (-12C and below) she has no shelter or respite. Apparently she gave birth to three pups – one he kept, one he killed and this one which he allows to roam the countryside looking for food (as he refuses to feed it).

Damaris called the local Vigili (police) on their mobile (the guy is going to regret giving her that!) and he sent two dog-catchers around to collect the mutt from the road. How they ever catch a dog must remain a mystery because no matter how old and decrepit it might be, it would still move faster than them. Anyway, they arrived just in time for it to scarper off across the fields.

From the dog’s point of view this is just as well. Capture by the dog-catchers effectively means life (as in until death) in a tiny cage with very limited human contact. Damaris had offered to take the dog (although what we would have done with it, goodness knows). At one year old, it was far too badly set in its anti-social ways to fit in with our plans and, in any case, there is no room left in the back of our Nissan Pathfinder after our three dogs are in it.

This is how locals view animals. If they don’t work or don’t feed you, then they are useless. This is not just the English sense of ‘fair play’ nor our obsession with pets and their rights, this goes deeper. There is something very lacking in the education of the people here. Did you read my post on the hunter who shot a thrush? It was ‘OK’ because it was a migrant bird and not a native one. What has that spurious bit of logic to do with anything?

I don’t think that a single person we know has any idea of environmental changes, disappearing species, overcrowding, pollution or any of the long list of modern ailments. Is this just a lack of interest, an in-built arrogance or the product of a catholic education? For a people who are normally more caring to strangers than many places one could name their attitude seems incongruous and incomprehensible.

Is bene well?

Just because I don’t speak much Italian (there’s no point when nobody makes the effort to understand you), it doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. What gets me is that most dialogues are so cliched.

If you went to school in the seventies or before then you probably remember the old language-teaching text books we used to have. The content was so heavily-structured that it was almost impossible to read with a straight face, never mind believe in or learn from. For example, our old French book began with:

“Bonjour, Pierre”, dit Adolphe.

“Bonjour, Adolphe”, dit Pierre.

“Bonjour Pierre et Adolphe”, dit Claude.

“Bonjour Claude”, dit Adolphe.

“Bonjour Claude”, dit Pierre.

But no-one really talks like that, or do they? Well, they do here although it’s more like:

“Ciao, va bene?”

“Ciao, si, va bene. E tu?”

But who the hell is Bennie?

Everything is ‘va bene’. The guy we bought our first Italian house through is a ‘va bene’ addict. I’m not going to say his name but if you know this part of the world, think ‘Shakin’ Stevens’. Anyway, he (not Shakey, that is) can’t say a sentence without ‘Va bene’ in it.

I don’t care what people may say, the reality of it is that the Italian language is impoverished the way it is spoken. On a more serious note, we had terrible problems specifying the concrete for our swimming pool. We needed it to be a particular grade – ie over 300kg of cement per cubic metre of concrete but how can you do that when the word for both concrete and cement is ‘cemento’? What does it mean when you say you want 300kg of cemento per cubic metre of cemento? Absolutely nothing!

… and then we wanted it laid on mesh. Mesh is ‘rete’ but then so again is ‘fence’ and ‘grid’ and probably a dozen other things, too.

The most commonly used word for ‘to paint’ in the house sense is ‘imbiancare’ which literally means to whitewash. Hmmm.

Prunes, plums, greengages etc are all called ‘prugni’. ‘Cetrioli’ (cucumbers, which manage to be both floppy and woody here)  are ’cetriolini’ when they adopt the totally different identity of gherkins.

I can’t stand the way every phone call begins with ‘Pronto?’ meaning ‘Ready?’. I can’t help hearing the English, “Oy, you. Are you listening to me?” instead. No-one says ‘Ciao’ – just ‘Pronto’. Ciao itself means ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, by the way.

But what gets me most of all is that there must be a dozen or more words for pasta when it’s all the same thing, anyway!

Our life in Italy

The house ‘immersed in greenery’ as they say here

Italy has been our home for 8 years now, and this house for half of that time. This blog, which I hope will be a daily one, is intended to document the joys, difficulties and irritations of daily existence as they occur.

We have our own intrinsic difficulties. My husband, Clive, is disabled and I am partly so through a scoliosis.

We have no family but are great dog-lovers, although things aren’t easy in that department either. Our thirteen-and-a-half-year-old dog was recently put to sleep having become incontinent and semi-paralysed. Our six-year-old dog has just been treated for cancer. Our four-year-old dog plays ’chicken’ with the post van but in spite of this is in good health. We’ve just adopted a puppy who needs to urinate about every fifteen minutes.

I love living here. Clive is more circumspect. The earlier entries in this blog are by him and reveal a different attitude.

Maybe, by keeping abreast of our daily life, you will be able to tell whose view is the more accurate. Does the pain outweigh the pleasure? Will my writing betray a less rose-tinted reality?

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