conversation with a Senegalian

While I'm writing about the subject, I recently had a bit of a conversation with a fellow immigrant in Via Dante. He was one of the Senegalian booksellers who pound the pavement in the wealthier areas of Milan selling books about African culture. I've always wondered how this works, where the books come from and where the money goes. I've never bought one of the books, but the sellers are always so cheerful that I frequently end up talking to them.

Last Thursday I had sat on a bench in Via Dante to listen to some street musicians, and I knew in sitting down I would attract the booksellers, if I was lucky also a couple of rose vendors and the guys that want to tie bracelets to your wrists. After a few minutes a bookseller approached me, said hi, and asked if I had ever been to Africa.

"Yes," I said.
He looked up, surprised, "Where?"
"Kenya, a long time ago."
"Ah, I'm from the other part."
"Senegal?"
"How did you know?"
I wanted to say something like everyone who has ever tried to sell me a book has been from Senegal but then I thought that was inappropriate, so I said, "I guessed!"

He tried for a bit to sell me a book but I told him I didn't want one. He tried to sell me a children's book, but I told him the children in my family didn't speak Italian. Then he got interested and asked me where I was from. He started trying to speak a little English, and I listened and helped him (I am a professional, after all).

He said he had been in Milan for a year. I asked him if he wanted to stay and he said that if he makes enough money he'll go back to Senegal and if not he'll remain in Milan. He said he missed Senegal, its ocean and la gente allegra. In Milan everything was different. I agreed with him there, the people here are grumpy and rushed, and that day I had been feeling a bit down about the milanese atmosphere.

He said he was trying to learn English. I asked him what languages he knew, and he said French ("Because they were our colonizers, but here no one speaks it"), Wolof, Italian, and a little bit of English. He introduced himself then, but I, being forgetful, let his name slip out my other ear. He told me he was always in Via Dante, so I should come back. I said, Maybe. He said, "Thank you," and I asked him how to say your welcome in French, and he said "De rien." Then he said, "If you come back to Via Dante, I will teach you French and you can teach me English." This set my imagination whirling with all sorts of fantastic scenarios, but I said, "Alright, we'll see."

So that's my story, two extracomunitari having a conversation. I'd like to know more about what he thinks of Italy and its gente, who he knows here, where his family is, where he plans to go if Italy doesn't work. I'd like to know what drove him to come here, to this place that puts up posters saying that he's a thief and a criminal. Mainly I'd just like to talk, because I think it's the best defense against prejudice, especially my own.

Italians and prejudice

We've just had elections here in Milan, and it looks like the center-left candidate, Pisapia, might have pulled off a victory against the ubiquitous Letizia Moratti, the candidate for Berlusconi's Popolo della Libertà party. Which is a poke in the eye for Silvio, as he had declared the elections to be a test of the people's will. Apparently, the people want to poke him in the eye.

("Houses and jobs for residents first" and "Stop Immigrants")

For the months leading up to the elections, there have been posters slapped all over town, new ones posted over the old ones every day until there were layers and layers of them, so thick that they started to peel off their base. The ones I found the most repugnant were the Lega Nord posters, and not just because I find their political ideology to be xenophobic, homophobic, and racist, though that was a big part of it. The main reason why I found the posters themselves creepy was that they never displayed the name of a candidate in the city, they always said either VOTE or some polemical statement like STOP IMMIGRANTS. At most, they said the name of Lega Nord's leader and backbone, Umberto Bossi.

Why, I wonder, don't they put up the name of their candidates? Every single other party does it, from right to left. The fact that the Lega doesn't makes them seem both completely tied to their leader, Bossi, and incredibly secretive, a society that wants to be known and unknown. They play on old fears of the Other and on campanilismo in a boldface manner that has to be seen to be believed. One poster literally says that what happened to the Native Americans will soon happen to Italians, and another says that keeping Italy unified is the equivalent of Apartheid. And they are arguably the most powerful political party in Italy.

Still, I can badmouth the Lega all I want, but I don't feel that this is just another instance of those racist Italians shunning political correctness. I see it happening from a distance also in the United States and in northern Europe, where racism seems to be creeping into even the most unlikely places. No one is immune.

I've had two conversations on the subject recently too, one with a barista at one of my favorite cafès and the other by chance with my students.

I was drinking a coffee a week ago when this chatty barista came over to talk to me. He likes me because I'm American and I speak English (even though we speak Italian, I think people like to know that if they felt brave enough they could switch to English to practice, if only they felt like it), and now he can't let me leave without starting up a conversation. This time he asked me if I were staying in Italy forevermore. I don't think so, I said. For many reasons, but also because I don't think I can find a job that will get me a work visa. He looked at me, shocked, and said, "You need a visa? But you're American?" I said, well yes, but I'm not a European citizen, so I don't get a free pass. I am extracomunitaria. He said, "Well there should be some sort of deal between the United States and Italy. You came here to work, not like a Moroccan who comes here to steal!" With that I snapped my mouth shut and stared at him, but I didn't have the courage to reply. Of course in the next five minutes my mind was flooded with things I could have said and should have said, like the fact that the average Moroccan immigrant probably works three times as much and as hard as I do, that the fact that I was white and from a rich country didn't mean I should be treated differently. But of course I didn't say these things, instead I left the cafè and haven't gone back.

Then today in my first year class, I asked the students to practice the conditional by saying what they would do if they ruled the world. For example, one boy said, if I were president, I would fight corruption. Another boy asked me to come to his desk to help him. He asked, "Come si dice mandar via la gente?"
"Send away. But send away who?"
"Lampedusa!" he replied, referring to the Italian island between Sicily and Tunisia that has been inundated with immigrants and refugees from the fighting in northern Africa.
"You can't send away a place," I said.
"Gli extracomunitari! The immigrants!"
I pulled a face of shock and offense. "Me?! You want to send away me?!"
The kids all erupted in laughter, and the boy's deskmate said, in Italian, "Don't listen to him prof! He's a racist! He's a racist!"
I stormed away in mock disgust, listening to them recounting the story to their companions, still laughing. "The prof is extracomunitaria too! He wants to send her away!"

Italians never think of me as an immigrant because I am white and blonde, and for sure I don't suffer the way other immigrants do. But I try to remind them that I am an immigrant, that immigrants come from all over and for all sorts of reasons, often just for work and money, which is what one needs nowadays for a better life. We're not some sort of mass invasion, ready to steal your jobs, rape your women, and murder your children. We're all human beings navigating a new and strange situation together, and it's not going to just evaporate.

Sorry for the seriousness. I'll get off the pedestal tomorrow.

Il processo Ruby

So Berlusconi's trial begins today, the one in which he is accused of paying for sex with a minor, Karima El Mahroug/Ruby Rubacuori, misusing his power to get her out of prison, and just being a pig in general. The trial is at risk of suspension, Berlusconi is waging a campaign to discredit the judges as corrupt communists, the nation is holding its breath. And the folks that brought you Berlusconi Inception-style bring you another awesome trailer. Enjoy:

I hear Italy singing

I haven't written anything about the political situation in Italy--that of bunga bunga fame-- and I don't have much excuse for avoiding it. The events of the past months, with Berlusconi at their center, are scandalous, outrageous, and at times incredibly depressing. Rather than get into it now, though, I thought I would share some of my students' (indirect) words about it.

A few weeks ago, I tortured my 5th year kids by making them write (gasp) poetry! We had just read Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing," the full-throated song to the joy of hardworking former-colonists, and so I assigned them an Italian version for homework, "I Hear Italy Singing." There was a delightful chorus of groans and moans. I told them to be as playful or sarcastic or patriotic as they wanted to be, and a few of them did a really nice job. Many were very pessimistic, a majority of the poems mentioned corrupt politicians and the mafia. A few stuck to the classics, citing Italian food and beautiful monuments and singing gondoliers. Many brought up football in some way, and playing children. Here are two of my favorites by two students N and A:

"I Hear Italy Singing"
I hear Italy singing, his mediterranean vibes I hear
The vibes of the greengrocer yelling through his loudspeaker,
How red his tomatoes are and how mellow the grape
I hear the jangle of the steel rails, crossed by their streetcars.
The gondolier singing, about Santa Lucia,
The businessman singing, the joy of the contract,
Just signed with the mobster, more joyful than him.
The streetwalker singing, what's on her own menu,
Thinking about the time when Italy's song was her only hope
I hear Italy singing, his melancholic vibes I hear.

"I Hear Italy Singing"
I hear people singing only when the national football team wins
I hear the corruptors and the corrupted singing together
I hear the pope and the priests singing about morality
I hear the politicians singing about nothing while talking too much
I hear the premier singing about the importance of family while paying for sex
I hear the Mafia's criminals singing while they get richer making business with mayors
But then I hear other songs
Those of my friends and my family who don't accept Italy as it is
Those of the honest workers
Those of all the Italians that believe in good before anything else
I hear Italy singing while I'm quiet.

la festa di piadena

This weekend we went to the annual cultural festival in Piadena, a small town in southern Lombardy. At a big house in the countryside, choral groups, bands, and merrymaking leftists gather for three days of wine-drenched folk music.

This year we stayed mostly outside nel bosco and watched the groups rehearsing for their performances. My favorite group was the Suonatori Terra Terra, the same Tuscan group I saw play in la piazza della Signoria in Florence all those years ago that made me fall in love with folk music. I took some video of their prove, or rehearsal. This is one song that unfortunately is split into two parts because I ran out of space on my little point-and-shoot.

The structure of the song is a fixed chorus, written by Giuseppe Miriello and made famous by the great folk artist Giovanna Marini, followed by "improvised" verses, or stornelli. When the song was first written in the 1960s, it was directed against the Christian Democrat minister, Emilio Colombo. I Suonatori Terra Terra have updated the song by writing verses for today's Italian ministers.

The chorus of the song is:
Statevi attenti, voi della popolazione/Imparatevi a leggere e scrivere/Per difendervi dal padrone.

Which means: Pay attention, you the people, learn how to read and write to defend yourself from the boss (in the leftist sense). What the people need to defend themselves from changes depending on the verse they sing.

One of my favorite verses is the second in the first video. First the woman singing announces, "Arrivano le femminucce, here come the ladies!" Then she sings,
Ehi Ministra Gelmini, fa tagli sulla scuola
Li mette quarant'alunni con una maestra sola.
Hey Minister Gelmini, who makes cuts on education
She puts forty students in one class with just one teacher.

Another verse, and the most cutting, comes at the end of the second video and the song. The woman announces, "Who will there be for the finale?" and begins to sing,
Ehi primo ministro, si fa le leggi su misura
Difende i suoi privelegi, pare una dittatura (pare!).
Hey Prime Minister, who makes laws to measure
He defends his privileges, it seems like a dictatorship (it seems!).

The verses are teasing and comic, but when the singers arrive at the chorus, the joke evaporates into the urgency and seriousness of their call.

The day was full of choral groups and protest songs, but those of the Suonatori were my favorite. Maybe it's because they are mostly women singing and playing typically masculine instruments like the bass drum and the trombone. Maybe it's because they smile and raise an eyebrow, twisting the sadness or anger of their songs into something playful and subversive. Or maybe it's the music rising together with their human, wonderful voices. What I know is that it is a vital form of protest, both ancient and relevant, a rebel yawp accompanied by accordian.

Ma statevi attenti, voi della popolazione, imaparatevi a leggere e scrivere per difendervi dal padrone.

l'arte di arrangiarsi

The occupation has ended, with a whimper. Classes began again today as everyone had expected, the desks had been put back in their rightful places, the signs removed from the windows. I came into my fifth year class and asked, "Soooo, what have you guys been up to?" The answers included: staying at home to play video games, playing poker, and attending the assemblies organized by the students.

The assemblies included a meeting with some of the immigrants who had been occupying an old factory smokestack near my home to protest the new curfew in their neighborhood, a rapper who found solace in music during his time in prison, and a scholar of the Piazza Fontana bombing. An assortment of political causes, insomma. Then this morning, instead of having classes for the fourth and fifth hour as usual, the students held an assembly for the whole school outside on the basketball court and requested that the teachers join them.

I went with Giovanna, my teacher, and watched as an intrepid group of students with a microphone implored their peers to come up and share their thoughts about the occupation, about the reform, or about politics in general, with no success. The teachers who had braved the cold stood on the edges, a few smoking, while the others watched from inside or waited it out in the teachers' lounge. The kids sat in a big ring around the basketball court, talking to each other in lowered voices, staring back at their friends with the mic, but no one wanted to come and share their views. Those who actually had articulated thoughts maybe were too shy. They are teenagers, after all. Giovanna and I had a giggle, thinking that now these kids were experiencing a little bit of what we deal with every day: the difficulty of making adolescents talk.

As they repeatedly lectured the others about standing up for their rights and how they should be ashamed that they wouldn't speak, Giovanna and I began to talk about Italy in general. She said that the students were protesting (in part at least) the debt owed to the school, but the truth is, there just isn't any money. People do work all the time, she said, that simply isn't paid. There's no money. Berlusconi pushes private schools to funnel money towards the church and private enterprise. Only immigrants are willing to pay taxes. There's corruption everywhere. And people just won't speak up. She said Italy has always possessed l'arte di arrangiarsi, the ability to worm out of even the most dire problems, but maybe it is getting too bad. Maybe Italy is losing its art.

She said that she thought the families would always be what holds Italy together, what gives it the ability to adjust. She looked around at the teenagers before us and said that the situation is bad, people don't have work, so they depend on their parents. And their parents, with their pensions and what little extra money they might have, support them, shelter them.

We spoke about immigrants, the school system, and politics, both in the United States and Italy. Giovanna said that she, ormai, has become a bit of a pessimist about the way the world is going.

We ended up going inside because Giovanna was beginning to feel the cold. I came back down to hear the last bit of the assembly, but it didn't seem like they had made much progress in cajoling their fellows to speak. A pair of my students came up to me to ask me what I thought as a foreigner. I told them that they had great power, being able to shut down a school even for three days is impressive, but they needed to organize and get productive, don't waste those precious days.

But what do I know? My only act of rebellion in high school was dying my hair blue.

volantino dell'occupazione

This is a volantino that I found in the school yesterday that explains some of the reasons for the occupation. It says:

CREMONA OCCUPIED!
As everyone knows the school reform is causing enormous difficulties for Italian schools...
Specifically in our school:
Halving of the funds for projects like theater, photography, dance, and school newspaper that now have to pay for themselves to prevent their extinction
170,000 euros owed by the government to the school Cremona-Zappa
Financial problems that lead to the cancellation of school trips (over 2 days long) and remedial courses
No funds to repair laboratory equipment
No money to buy and maintain photocopiers, to which every student has the right.

These are just some of the problems that our school has and they will continue to grow if we don't make our voices heard...NOW!!

skuola okkupata!

The students have taken over my school!

I received a message from my tutor, Giovanna, yesterday saying oggi i ragazzi sono in autogestione quindi non venire per il first, today the kids are self-teaching so don't come for class. Autogestione, like last year? I thought. Don't you guys plan these things ahead of time?

I came to school anyway because I needed to pick up and photocopy a few things. I left my bike at Cremona, noting the large number of bicycles out front and thinking, Weird, people saw a glimpse of blue sky and decided to ride to school? I went first to Zappa, the school next door, and so didn't notice anything else strange.

Returning back to Cremona via the basketball courts, I saw a lot of students in giro, heading towards the gym where I could hear whistles and yelling. Weird for them to have a game during school, I thought. I came in the back door and up the steps to find backpacks strewn all over the floor, the stairwell barricaded with desks, and a group of my students from last year milling around. "Grande Rachel! Sei venuta!" said a boy who had wanted me to friend him on Facebook. "Scuola occupata!"

The school is occupied! So no, not autogestione. More like coup d'etat. I went to the teachers' lounge and found all of my colleagues huddled in the overheated room, snarking about the fact that they were there and if the students wanted to have lessons they could. I found Giovanna, surprised that I had come, and she explained the situation a little bit more...

La Signora Chiara (the head custodian) had found many windows open afterschool on Saturday, but she and the other custodians closed them all. Still, apparently the kids arrived super early on Monday morning and, without open windows, convinced the doorman to give them the keys (still not clear on how this worked). They blockaded the school until 8 am, when all the professors showed up, but the vice-principal convinced them to let the professors in. So they entered, lessons were technically held, but no one came. So the profs all crowded into the teachers' lounge to look over their ledgers and grumble.

They are protesting la riforma and its subsequent budget cuts to school programs. Signs up around the school say that politics have become personal vendettas and power plays, and someone had scattered fliers making the students' case.

Giovanna said that the students and the vice principal had decided the occupation would last until Wednesday, but by that time, she said, most of the kids will probably be sleeping in rather than linking arms in front of the doors. She said she hoped they did something productive with their time off, occupations had become fashionable, they just weren't like they used to be. I kept hearing that from the teachers: it wasn't the same as it used to be back in 1968, that's when occupations meant something.

They asked me if these sorts of things happened in the U.S. Maybe in the 1960s, I replied, but nowadays I don't think we realize it's possible.


This morning I overslept my alarm by almost an hour, leapt out of bed, jumped into my clothes, and raced to the school. I was worried that with letting the professors in on Monday and negotiating an end to the occupation for Wednesday I would still be responsible for my 8 am lesson. I was relieved when I saw the huge group of students outside the school. A couple of my 2nd year students from last year were blocking the gate, but I said, "Good morning sunshines!" and passed through them. "Ciao Rachel," they replied, smiling, even as one girl said, "Ma non dobbiamo fare entrare nessuno!" We're not supposed to let anyone in!

Looking up to see the front doors completely blocked by desks and inside no one but students, I realized that maybe things had escalated. Another prof was trying to get past the first guards, so I returned to hear what they were saying. Basically, the girl explained, no teachers were allowed inside, but if we wanted to go around back we probably could get in if we really insisted. The other prof decided no, I decided yes, I was curious. So I locked up my bike and went around back, where I was greeted with more of my second years, including the ringleader, a girl with a partially shaved head named M.

They smiled at me and said "Ciao Rachel!" but M said, "Non puoi entrare." You can't go in. I wasn't going to insist but I asked them how occupations worked, this being my first. M explained in Italian that they had let professors in yesterday and they had held some assemblies but today no, today began the real occupation. They had slept there overnight, I heard one boy say that he had stood guard outside from 11 pm to 5 am. M continued that the principal and the vice principal were going to call the police but what could they do? "Siamo 500 cristiani qui dentro." There are 500 Christians inside. One boy said, "Io non sono cristiano." I'm not Christian! and she replied, "Vabbè, per dire." It's a figure of speech.

So I bid them good luck and turned on my heels, saying hi to the kids that were arriving. I unlocked my bike and went home.

My thoughts later on...I think this entry is long enough.

speaking of machismo...

Berlusconi may really be in trouble this time. His scandals are piling up and (more surprisingly) seeming to stick, his supporters are slipping away from him, and a vote of confidence in December could cause his government to fall (chaos! exciting!). A New York Times article sums it up nicely for Anglophones.

In the meantime, videos on YouTube have popped up calling on Berlusconi to dimettersi or resign. Some have taken it to the movie trailer territory:


We'll have to wait until December to find out what happens. The slippery signore may scivolare his way out of this one too.

machismo and the Italian high school student

Last week, in one of my fifth year classes at the technical institute, I presented an article about machismo in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, and to a lesser extent Portugal) and its ill-effects. The article basically argued that southern Europe's economic woes--such as lagging productivity, enormous debt, an aging population and low birthrate, and a shrinking workforce--could be helped by courting women into the labor market. (In Italy the employment gap between the genders is 22%).

I picked this article because I wanted to start some debate about women's rights and childcare. The article ended up being very difficult for them (gah why you so erudite NYTimes?) and so we didn't get to discuss the issue as much as I had hoped. So I assigned them some homework, a couple of comprehension questions and then an opinion question: What do you think about women working?

Most of the answers were almost identical, little robot responses that said women working is a good thing for the economy. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy the robots are leaning towards feminism. But my favorite response was this one, from a boy R:

"In the workplace I think that women should be treated like men and have the same rights because they work as hard as men.
I'd prefer that my wife, Valentina (his unmarried deskmate), stays at home to look after the children and I would work harder to sustain my family.
Perhaps it is machismo!"

la riforma

The teachers have been a little grumpier this year. Or, at least, the circles under their eyes have deepened. Perhaps the reason is la riforma Gelmini, the reform proposed by education minister Mariastella Gelmini and passed last year by Berlusconi's government. Gelmini began in 2008 to fire teachers, justifying her actions by saying that the school was for instructing, not for insuring jobs. This newest reform has further cut school budgets, reduced hours in certain subjects, cut hours from teacher's pay provided for substituting, and in some cases doubled the size of classes. One of my teachers has told me that this is all an effort to slowly transfer education responsibilities from the public sector to the private one.

For example, four of my third year classes at Cremona have been combined into two mega classes of thirty students. Thirty sixteen-year-olds, corralled together in one room! In my class with Prof. Scafi we divide into two groups as we've always done, but an intimate discussion is a bit daunting even with 15 students.

As a result, strikes have been occurring almost every week. But they're gentle (not in the style of the French, for sure), two times just for the first hour on Friday. Many teachers, confronted with this brevity, come to school anyway even if they agree with the idea of striking. My friend X, a middle school science teacher, told us over dinner that he thought the strikes weren't enough. Non crea abbastanza disagio, it's doesn't cause enough disruption to just skip the first hour. We need to block the schools for a week, keep the kids at home, before the power will feel anything.

Technically, the strikes are for the teachers, not the students, but of course when the kids listen to an announcement that their first hour of lessons can't be guaranteed, they hear, "NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY!" and disappear for the whole day.

The concept of striking in general is new to me. That even the teenagers can skip school for ideological reasons seems a little tricky. It might be too easy to excuse shirking responsibilities with political motives. But still, people taking any action at all when they want to communicate their frustration with the government is già something I appreciate.

In my lesson about the Declaration of Independence in my other 30-student third year class, I began by asking the students if they had any complaints about how teenagers were treated at the school. They mumbled and a few said no. I asked them if that was the case, why did they go on strike on Friday? More mumbling, a few answered that they disagreed with the reforms. Don't forget to be informed, I told them, when you take action. Maybe they were, they just didn't want to risk explaining in English.

I'm the opposite. I think and inform myself and think and end up going about my day lo stesso. Though Fridays I don't have class, so maybe I was striking by default.

Bonus: This is the education minister on the cover of a right wing news magazine, Panaroma. Welcome to Berlusconi's administration.

Lazy at best

I've been a bit down on the posting, and this time I can't even blame it on the good weather: it's been raining for about ten days straight.
And I can't blame it on nothing happening in at school. For example: A week ago, I was introducing Joyce to my 5th year class. We had just begun to read "Eveline" when a boy whipped around in his seat and vomited all over the floor. There were screams, half the class escaped to the window, the other half outside of the classroom. Lesson put on hold. The next day I was on the third floor and saw some of my 5th years in giro. They said, "Hi Rachel! We really like Joyce!" Sure.

And it's not that I've been bumming around the house: I went to Florence with F a week ago, which was lovely. We caught La Notte Bianca , where shops stay open into the early hours and there are concerts and hordes of night owls. Then on Saturday we took the train to Sesto Fiorentino to attend Primo Maggio at Istituto di Ernesto de Martino, the place where I interviewed Ivan della Mea and in general fell in love with folk music.
Here is a video of one of the choruses at the festival singing "Stornelli d'Esilio," one of my favorite leftist songs. Chorus is like this:

Nostra patria è il mondo intero
e nostra legge è la libertà
ed un pensiero
ribelle in cor ci sta

Our homeland is the whole world
Our law is liberty
And a rebel thought is in our hearts.

More or less.

There's more, but I am a bum. So I will wait until I am not a bum/not sfasata from a 9-7 workday.

And on the weekend...

After my traveling plans for the weekend of Carnevale fell through, I decided to make the most of my weekend in Milan and take advantage of all the cool events in giro. I also had my camera with me for my adventures. My Saturday consisted of:

-bike ride into centro with F to see the children in their holiday costumes. We found a Trasforma Milano exhibition that turned junk into toys:


(Duomo lookin' imposin')


-Then we swung over to the Samedi Gras Multirazziale, a march against racism in Milan. ("Dove tutti sono milanesi, tranne i razzisti"). We danced with our bikes to reggae, watched the destruction of Lega Nord political posters, and paused in a tunnel to sing and curse at the vice sindaco of Milan.



-After our daily dose of politics, we returned to my neighborhood, Isola, for the Milano Clown Festival. The Festival, which lasted over three days, included street performers, artists, and musicians from all over the world.

The night before, I had watched the Brera Street Band perform al Frida. Saturday, we caught Le Rang du Frond al Teatro Sala Fontana.

They were fun (I especially enjoyed the fishnet-wearing banjo player), but they were playing strange banjo glam punk for a crowd that was half under 10, and I think they were a little confused. Their attempts at Italian were adorable though (Per favore potere lower the volume perchè i bambini sono *puts hands over ears*).

We headed to Piazza Gioia for the clowncerto of Hibiscus Theater from Spain, grabbed a beer at Frida, and then returned to Gioia for the concerto finale.

I never figured out the name of the band, but they were French and played gypsy music that everyone felt in their feet. The PIC Clowns mingled and danced too. At one point one of the singers began talking about a mystical experience (in French. All I know F translated for me). The accordion player began wiggling his fingers at the crowd, and we wiggled back. He climbed down from the stage, we kept wiggling our fingers. As he moved through the crowd, he caught my eye, cocked his eyebrow, grabbed my hands and pulled me to the stage. The singer began chattering in French, asking me my name (Rachel. Vashayl? Ra-chel. Mayshell? Rachele! Machall? Rachel! Ahh, Ray-shell!) Next thing I knew I had an accordion strapped to my back and the accordion player embracing me to play it. We spun around in circles while the crowd cheered and the band played along. Then as a finale, the entire band kissed me four times on the cheek, merci merci merci, bravissima. My head was spinning. F laughed at me and said he could tell I was confused about the kissing the entire band deal. And as we left to go dancing at Circo Bussa, strangers said, "Ciao Ray-shell!"

Then, on Sunday, we took a little trip to Cremona, the birthplace of Stradivarius. We wandered around, saw the Duomo, and visited a little flea market. I bought two records, Johnny Cash and Doc Watson, to play on my new (borrowed) giradischi.


All in all, it was a good weekend.