final day in cagli...

I went to the piazza this morning and had a cappuccino with a friend and waited for Father Bruno ....he is painting this morning...and I am anticipating some of his fluid style rubbing off on me. I will post some of his work at a later time...Father Bruno is easy to spot in his loose shorts and pale yellow t-shirt and sunglasses with a black rubber holder around his neck. This morning he arrived with his backpack and a styro plate; on it are three blobs of acrylics: umber, Prussian blue, and a ..maybe ..vermillion (I say ARE because Bruno left before me and told me to just leave his paints there and he would get them later...in Cagli, I am sure they would be there tomorrow...an honest population) My friend left and the Father and I walked to the concrete benches in front of the City Hall. He reached in his backpack and handed me some heavy stock paper and a sharpie...I did not know he was wanting me to work alongside him....We sat sketching/painting for several minutes and Bruno del Medico joined us ( this is the Bruno I profiled in Cagli the past two weeks...more later)...I handed him some of the paper and a brush and marker...and we all painted/sketched for about an hour there on the piazza...drawing the curiosity of the townspeople...fun...memorable.

change...what was wrong with the old one?

Culture is environmental.  It is soaked into every tiny level and interaction possible in a society. As we students are told frequently, it is everything learned.  When we encounter a new culture, some of the things we find different can be so surprising because they were under our radar.  We assumed there was only one way to do them because they were so small we had never thought about it a bit.  This ethnocentrism goes down to the cellular level of life.  It’s invisible; it’s the water we swim in.  I have found a tiny but significant aspect of interaction in Italy that jangles with my American desire to be direct.

In Italy, the custom is to give customers their change from a purchase by placing it on the counter or on a dish designated specially for this purpose—not into the customers’ hand. I realized this after my first couple purchases in Florence, and noted that many merchants will bypass your hand completely and even look distressed if you put your hand out.

To try to alleviate the discomfort of this dissonance, I have tried to adapt by not putting my hand out after purchases, but it seems to have a life of its own. Try as I might, it has been next to impossible for me to adapt to this.

Part of the reason it’s hard is that I don’t understand it.  Then also, I’m a pretty straightforward person, even within the cultural environment of the US.  Plus, it seems like such a small interaction; and it’s so totally automatic for me to put my hand out for my change.  I have now been in Italy for 10 days, and finally I have gotten to the point where I can remember most of the time.  I practically have to strap my hand down.  You know when you’re used to driving stick and you drive an automatic and that left foot starts moving in on the break as if it were a clutch and you have to jam it between the seat and the door to teach it to behave?  Just like that. It’s Pavlovian!

I have heard different theories about the reason for this interesting cultural iota of change presentation: it’s a trust thing; they don’t want to touch you (long history of plagues and iffy personal hygiene opportunities); just because.  In the end, it doesn’t matter what the reason is.  It’s how it is, and how the Italians think it should be.  When in Rome and all that.  So, I just keep slapping my encroaching hand away during transactions, and hope not to offend anyone.  What was wrong with my old way of receiving change?  Nothing, in its context.  But here, it’s getting in the way of smooth interaction with the people, so it needs to be changed.

I should be good and trained just about the time I get back to the States.....

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bruno del medico: holding the gift

 A long, stiff bamboo broom, a slender knife with a red plastic handle, and a blue dust pan are the simple tools Bruno Del Medico uses to groom the walls lining the Via Flaminia around Cagli, Italy. He regularly removes tenacious plant sprouts from the walls to maintain their beauty and prevent deeper fractures. The speeding cars and trucks are no small threat as Bruno works in the narrow margins of the road.

Bruno’s job is a quid-pro-quo arrangement with the city of Cagli for his living space—a small room on Via Lapis.  His colorful journey includes adventures both delightful and devastating, embracing his love of drawing and painting, and the town of Cagli.

Sitting at the caffe with several of his art pieces stacked near his feet, Bruno points to one of the drawings—a female nude with her back to the viewer. The piece is rendered in charcoal on a soft pink paper. He explains the challenge of producing realistic drawings and asserts that “art is painstaking and my work is so real that you might think you could eat a piece of fruit from a still life I paint.” The difficulty of the process is exacerbated by limitations on his time; creating requires focus and making a living encroaches on creative space in his day. Bruno says the nude is one of 15 pieces remaining after an art dealer took his body of work to sell and was not seen again. Bruno’s discouragement over this loss diminished his drive to continue with his art.

In the evenings, Bruno descends the steep cobblestone street stretching from the cathedral to Via Flaminia—his tools in tow. With his knife, he slices the fledgling shoots emerging from the wall’s crevices. The clippings land among the rocks, empty bottles, and crumpled papers. With wide, strong strokes, he aims the sturdy broom at the debris, frequently working within the driving lane, dodging the fast moving traffic.  He moves the growing pile to the end of the wall; the air fills with fine dust. Using the dustpan as a scoop, he transfers the pile into a large plastic bag, moves down the street and repeats the process.

These streets are familiar to Bruno; he says he first came to Cagli in 1972 at 14.  He began life in the southern town of Forga. When he was three, his mother died, and for the next 11 years he lived in a government orphanage. He says of his passion for art, “I was born with a pencil in my hand.” Wanting to develop his drawing and painting skills, he came to Cagli and enrolled in the Iistituto Stata de Artes. After two months, he left, discouraged by the school’s emphasis on sculpture.

At 18, he says, when government assistance ceased, he left Cagli and moved to Rome. There, he painted portraits as a street vendor; he moved on to Genoa and managed a hotel, partnering with a woman from Algeria. The two had a daughter, Monica.  Bruno says he woke one day to find his partner gone; she took all his money and left the child in his care. Penniless, Bruno returned to Cagli to raise Monica. “Coming back to Cagli”, he says, “was like breathing again—especially with the little girl—it was a respite.”

Some mornings Bruno arrives at the piazza carrying an empty wicker basket; it’s a day to pick mushrooms. “Sometimes I get 30 Euros a pound for good mushrooms, but lately it’s been too hot and too dry.” Later in the day he sits at Caffe de Commercio smoking a cigar and drinking an espresso with a basket half full of the delicate funghi. If he finds a buyer, he will sell them fresh; the rest he will freeze.

Reflecting on his life and his place in the community of Cagli, Bruno calls himself “an outsider…most people don’t understand me; I speak my mind.” He stresses that the work he does to sustain his life is “not my work…not my work!” While the boy, Bruno, was born with a pencil in his hand, the man, Bruno, holds the gift inside after so many things got in his way.

paying the bill

Cultural dissonance is often subtle, and our Cagliese hosts are ever gracious with my redundant ignorance.  The purchasing protocol at Starbucks in America is significantly dissonant with the caffes in Italia. A transaction at Mimi’s Caffe on the piazza in Cagli illustrates this sufficiently.  Standing at the chest-high bar, I waited briefly for my turn; when she turned her focus on me, I ordered,  “vorrei expresso, perfavore;” I held out my five euro as a clear intent to pay immediately. In the States, I don’t know that this offering would be refused for a moment, but Mimi went about her preparations, ignoring my obvious faux pas. She set the saucer on the bar with a sugar packet and a napkin followed by the lilliputian cup half-filled with the dark coffee drink. I downed it and the time now seemed right. Again, I held out the euro bill. This time she took it; I opened my hand to receive the change and that dissonance descended on the transaction again as she set the change on the counter, bypassing my hand.

Creativity flourishes under the ideal psychological conditions that result from a self engaged in expanding ever more enriching modes of experience. New forms of experience present new meanings, some offering new values. Values that promote greater harmony between the individual and the environment provide avenues for growth, which fortify the self and foster the unfolding of further potential. This is valuable not only to the growing individual but also to society” (Uffelman, 2011p. 329)

Dewey extols experience as the place of learning—a pedagogy of infinite possibility.  My Cagli experience jump-started early in the morning on the first day of class. I took a hike with a friend on a ridge a mile outside the city walls. He knew the ridge and scaled it goat-like; he did not know about my acrophobia. After 50 feet, he asked if I had problem with heights but by then retreating was a paralyzing option. In the 45 minute 35ish degree assent I was clinging to roots and rocks and mostly crawling, nauseous, dizzy and unconcerned about bleeding, torn clothes, and bruised legs…my guide oblivious to the internal agony, continually urging me upward, cautioning me not to look back or down and deaf to my cursing and claims that I could not go on…”forward facing…always forward facing!” Arriving at the top, I stood with my hands raised in victory…fortified and bursting with metaphor.