I’d like for this blog to be all intellect and poetry… but what comes out these days is logistics, simple observation and, sometimes, complaint. I’m in this temporary apartment. It’s in a gated community called Parco Maraini. It’s part vacation condo, part apartments, part rehab and assisted living… all with tropical hiking paths and an unbelievable view of the lake.
I haven’t received any mail in weeks, but this apartment gets CNN and the BBC, so I am watching footage from New Orleans and feeling so far away from it all. What can be done?
Instead, my days are now filled with cultural adventures in grocery and furniture shopping. I got these gnocchi at a department/ grocery store in downtown Lugano. It’s called Manor and is huge and fabulous… cheese, chocolate, bread, alarm clock, computer, souvenirs, clothes — all can be had under one roof accessed via cobblestone square. Anyway, there’s nothing in these gnocchi except potato, water and salt and they are the lightest, fluffiest, tastiest little balls of goodness I’ve ever had. I’ve actually been snacking on them (raw) instead of chocolate. If you know me, you get how good these little gems really are. Few things in life trump chocolate.
School is chaos, but fun. I’m going to take pictures of my students this week. Classes are great — students are from 55 countries all over the world, so we get a Jordanian perspective on ethics in the ethics class, and a German student explained to the Americans the other day that there’s public discourse in her culture about the exportation of Hollywood films as a form of imperialism. One young kid went to a Quaker high school and shares how disagreements were handled there, and an African-American woman from Washington, D.C. was laughing with a young Saudi Arabian woman about how differently they’d get treated if their families didn’t approve of their dating behavior.
On the other hand, logistics are a problem. I was just informed that the ethics textbook isn’t going to arrive for a month and another textbook arrived with a 100% markup over US prices, making it virtually impossible for the students to buy. Now I have to figure out what to do without my texts and we’re starting the second week of school tomorro
One day this week we didn’t have power. No book, no computer, no lights… the cute Italian guy who helped me translate at my rental agreement signing said, “Wanna come play cards in my office?” If you know how tricky joking is with people who don’t speak the same native language, you get what a breakthrough this was. He and I had been joking for a while, but we’d have to explain the joke, sometimes repeatedly. This one I got right away. “How are we supposed to work like this?” he was saying, with that sweet Italian grin that hides the notorious Latin lover thing lurking underneath.
I keep reminding myself to use my training, to not engage in the culture of complaint here. I haven’t succeeded very well at that — but tomorrow is another day. Adventures abound!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The “woefully out of touch” goes for me, too! Have been following faithfully your transition since my own return home a month ago now (and I haven’t written you since then?!) from a 7,000-mile summer road trip on the heels of hosting Leif’s family at our home over the 4th of July…I housed and fed 13 for a week! Sooooo much else I want to ask you & tell you. I can only imagine the challenges and discoveries that have filled you life in these past few months. I would expect that logistics would trump poetry and intellectual exchange for now, but eventually you will get those details ironed out and can indulge in the others in the fertile context of your new culture. I hope that despite the travails you will want to stay in this new post long enough for me to see you when I come to Italy & Switzerland in June of 2007! For a longer personal e-mail to you, should I still use the hotmail address? I will write more soon, especially about the Katrina debacle. It has so colonized my mind and emotions this past week and a half that I feel like only now am I returning to a semblance of my normal self, able at last to compartmentalize it a bit. How bizarre and interesting it must be, as a media analyst, to learn of it and see it through news accounts in another country. Imagine it must be similar to when a friend of mine learned of 9-11 on CNN in a hotel in Singapore — the images felt surreal. On a happier note, I’m so glad that Mufasa is with you. How’s his nose? You’ll love this latest, but given our fortunes with dogs, our newest malamute, Chilkoot, who just turned 13 mos. and 100 lbs. and is an absolute sweetheart, broke his leg (!!) after our neighbor’s Australian shepherd provoked a fight with him. I am not meant to have dogs, I think. But I can’t imagine my life w/o them, so I shall continue to keep large vet bills as a standard part of our spending plan (as if we have a plan, ha!)
So glad you are doing this blog–keep it up, it’s like getting regular letters from you when I am far less reliable in return!
Ciao,
Wendy
Did my reply show up? It said “0 comments” when I returned to your original post. Hmmmmmm. Let’s see if it will appear now.
W.