We're All Mad Here

The sidewalks are coated in ash and lined with garbage sacks.  Rain has been falling heavily, but every so often the clouds part, revealing a smoking Mount Etna.  The rain collects and flows through the streets in rivers because there are no drainage routes.  Sicily seems to be brooding, and so am I.

I left Salento on Monday evening, after a series of heartfelt goodbyes and many earnest promises to write and return.  Even as I was packing up my room, I was already beginning to miss waking at dawn to milk the sheep, seeing the Salento sunrise, going to pasture with Domenico and making ricotta in the echoing, music-hall dairy where we would sing opera at the top of our lungs and press curds into hard rounds.  I was already missing Mari and the way she would make sarcastic jokes and laugh with her whole body.  I was already missing Antonio’s jazz playlists and kitchen-dancing and the eternal flow of friends who would gather at the house every night.  I miss helping with the lamb birthings (I pulled an amniotic sack off of a suffocating lamb the other day!) and I miss the tranquility of the Salento region.  

But sometimes, when travelling, we must leave places that make us very happy, risking comfort for the potential of encountering something equally as essential.  And so, I took a night bus to Messina, and then south to Pisano at the foot of Mount Etna to start anew at Sotto I Pini, a small farm and Bed and Breakfast within view of the Ionian Sea.

I am unenthusiastic because there is very little work here, and the family who I am living with seems to be scrounging for things for me to do.  It does not help that the rain has prevented me from working in the small vegetable garden, where at least I know I can be useful.  I think what gets to me is that I feel as though I am wasting my precious time and theirs—that a true exchange of ideas, knowledge, and culture is not something I can expect at this farm.  Naturally, I plan on moving along quite soon. I am in touch with several other WWOOFing farms in the area and I believe I can relocate within the next few days.  

There are two small children that live here, however, whom I know I will miss.  Okay—miss may be too strong of a word.  This afternoon alone I have been socked, bit, licked, impaled by an umbrella, tackled and screamed at, mostly by the two-and-a-half year old Giuseppe. The six year old Teresa is a tomboy and very sweet (and seems to like me an awful lot).  The other WWOOFer here seems easily stressed by the children and their bipolar tendencies (gleefully entertained by a coloring book one minute, angrily brandishing an umbrella the next), but I actually don’t mind the chaos.  The trick to remaining calm is two-fold: a) don’t take the temper tantrum personally and b) remind yourself and be thankful that you are not their mother. 

To be continued...