Lynn and I spent the afternoon yesterday mushroom hunting, a favorite passtime at this time of year, especially after a good couple of rains two weeks ago. Here in the Vale Argentina, everyone has their favorite secret place to go. I prefer a place frequented by the proprietress of the restaurant Santo Spirito in Molini di Triora. I came across her there one day. We found quite a few chantrelles, but now as autumn approaches the porcini are comming into season. Porcini are more difficult to spot that Chantrelles, so I was kind of proud to have found thwse two. Lynn seemed kind of excited , too... 

A few more pictures of the new room....
 

somewhere over the rainbow...










Rufino's continued attempts to cuddle with Winston...

 

We have a new upstairs room.
Still haven't picked up the stove pipe for the old parlor stove, but the chimney was installed yesterday by Augusto. You can just make out the piece sticking out of the ceiling to the right. can hardly wait for winter.... 

Last night I made focaccia with olives, onions, and oregano, and as luck would have it, Agusto, Franco and Gianni came by one by one, and all of them had a piece of hot focaccia and a glass of wine. Lynn had found some sangria at the store and it was a big hit. Agusto was beside himself that I was the one who made it, and not Lynn. --not considered one of the "manly arts" around these parts. They all left more or less together, and Lynn and I were alone to watch the moonrise over Castellaro and the sea beyond. 

Agusto and his son Andrea are finishing up their third day of work on the bedroom, and the work is stunning. Andrea feeds him bucket after bucket of intonaco (Previously I used the word plaster, but in fact intonaco is a mixture of cement, lime, and sand) and he flicks it on the wall, constantly checking that the surface is plumb and smooth.

Agusto was born in Calabria, though when he was a child his mother moved to Nice, and he grew up speaking Calabrese dialect at home and French outside the home. Italian is his third language. When he was a young man he worked in the Nice fish market, though fell in love with Lina here in Taggia. They married thirty years ago when Lina was 16, and he in his late twenties. Lina, also of Calabrian heritage, told Lynn once that part of the attraction of marrying Agusto was so she could go to the movies without her parents or brothers as chaperone. They are among the happiest couples I’ve ever met.

Back then in Taggia, Calabrese had fairly recently immigrated to Liguria to work in construction and in the flower industry. The new imigrants from the South were looked down upon, and largely segregated into derelict areas of the town, typically in ancient apartments without electricity or running water. Industrious ones saved to buy pieces of land in campagnia to have their own small farms and maintain a way of life they left in the south, raising their own livestock and growing their own vegetables, producing ”roba genuina,” real stuff.

Around the same time many Ligure became more interested in urban life, and thus over the years many areas of the countryside, especially outside of towns and villages, has developed into a mixture of Calabrese and Ligure culture. There still exists some tension between the two cultures, but at a much lower level than previously.


Though he doesn’t say so I can see that Agusto’s shoulder is bothering him. He has had at least three shoulder operations to repair tendons, as the work of a muratore is brutally physical. Yesterday afternoon after the work was completed for the day Lynn, Agusto, Andrea and I were sitting on the front terrazza having a beer in the shade of the house, and a fresh breeze was blowing in from up the valley to the sea. It happens every day around five oclock, the breese shifts directions, the warm breeze stops, and the cool breeze begins. “Que bella aria,” Agusto said, as he settled into his chair. “Do you two have a difficult time sleeping in this heat?” I said no, except for maybe the last two weeks of August, things are pretty bearable. He said that at this time me needs to sleep in campagna because the heat is so stifling in Taggia. He remarked, “This breeze is a little to strong for me, though. It kind of pushes me too much.” I laughed and said sometimes when we have Italian friend for dinner in summer, the coolness is too much for them and they want to eat inside, He said, “So just have to eat diner by yourselves!”

Perhaps in my next entry I will reflect a bit on the Italian sensibilities relating to breezes, water, and other miscellaneous items that I as an American seem to be immune to….

Augusto has come, with his son Andrea to work on plastering our bedroom. Aside from being the most conscientious and skilled muratore I’ve seen or heard of, he‘s such a decent man and dear friend. After starting yesterday, having put up the scaffolding and laying the first coat of plaster, with his face and hair splattered with cement bits, I told him he probably needs a beer as the work day ended. I was blown away by how far they had gotten. He replied, with a certain aggravation in his voice, ”We didn’t do belin (Ligurian dialect for a certain male appendage). Tomorrow, though, things will start to take shape.”

It’s tomorrow, now, and things have indeed begun to take shape. While they worked, I took Rufino to the river, stopping in Badalucco to buy a couple lemons for him, and to say hi to Madelin, who was having a coffee outside of Colombo and Mandy’s bar. She was waiting for her husband Mimo to load their truck to do a plumbing job in Castellaro. Madelin is Swedish, from Gothenberg, and several years ago settled down with Mimmo, Ligure Ligure, who studied electrical engineering in University and, aside from being a trustworthy plumber, is an expert on solar energy. Also plays a mean guitar. The other night they were up at our house for dinner, and, afterwards, we played and sung for three or four more hours—me in English and the occasional song in Spanish, him in English, Spanish, Italian, Ligurian , Calabrian, and Sicilian dialect. At four in the morning they thought it time to head home. Madelin was charmed by Rufino’s lemon tricks, so today she laughed when I told her I needed to stop at the store before heading up to our spot on the river.

Rufino loves lemons. He chases them, plays catch with them, by himself and with others, and generally walks around with one in his mouth most of the time, like a pacifier. Today at the river, after an hour of swimming and exploring, he discovered that if he climbed up the steep rock slope he could roll it down to me, and also roll it down into the water, whereupon he dives in for it. He’s sleeping right now, at my feet, after the big workout, with a lemon an inch from his mouth.

Back to Augusto. He and his wife, Lina were the first to greet me some four years ago when I first began coming down on weekends from Piedmont. He invited me to their campagnia for a beer, and I paused for a half-second, and he said, ”You have to like beer, being German and all, right?” I told him that actually I prefer wine and have never been confused for being German before. Lina quickly went into their little shed and pulled out a botiglione of Augosto’s hand-made wine. We immediately became friends, and they invited me to have dinner with them the following day, at their house in Taggia. I had felt a bit nervous about the dinner the following day, especially since I had some troubles with my car. I had decided to explore some extremely narrow roads, one of which had no outlet to turn around, so I had to back up the car several hundred yards, being careful that on the right side the car didn’t scrape the stone terrace walls, and on the left side the wheels didn’t slip of the road. It was slow going, and after an hour or so I had almost made it off the narrow stretch, when part of the road gave way, causing one wheel to drop, and the axle to rest on the part of the road that remained. I crawled out of the car window on the opposite side, so as not to have the whole thing tumble down the mountainside, and, while grateful that I was still alive, was pretty much in a panic about how I was going to get the car back onto the road.

A Romanian laborer was harvesting pitosforino branches, and although he did is best to ignore me and pretend he wasn’t aware of my predicament, I finally cajoled him into trying to lend me a hand. Really, the car was pretty badly stuck, and due to the steep dropoff where the road had broken away, there wasn’t much chance of gaining leverage to lift the car back up, assuming the two of us had superhuman strength, which sadly we didn’t. After an hour or so, a group of cingiale hunters came down the road in two stout 4X4’s, and with the help of a rope tied to one, and the rest of us grunting, pushing and pulling, we managed to get the car back on four wheels.

After the ordeal, I was pretty shaken, humbled, and embarrassed, thinking maybe I had no business in this foreign land, and wasn’t at all in the mood to have to go over the whole thing with my new neighbors. However, when Augusto called me to confirm, and I tried to beg off, claiming car troubles, he wouldn’t hear of it, and wanted to know if the vehicle was still roadworthy, as he would come and pick me up if need be. So, I made my way down to the old part of Taggia, to have dinner and share my stupidity. Upon entering their house, the perfume of one of Augusto’s goats simmering in a tomato sauce greeted me, along with the hospitality of Augusto and Lina.

They were, to my amazement, graciously understanding of my mishap, and in fact I forgot all about my earthly troubles, being transported by their graciousness, as well as their food and wine, every item made by them, from the pasta and goat cheese to the picante peperette, which Augusto was highly amused that I liked a lot. After dinner, Augusto asked me how we were planning on using the house—as a summer place? I said no, we were planning on living there once we restored it some and sold our house in Piemonte. He asked what I planned to do for work, and I said I wasn’t sure, maybe teach English or something. He replied, very seriously, “the way I see it, you have two problems.” The way I saw it I had many more than just two, but I asked him to tell me what these two ones are. “Your first problem is you don’t speak Italian.” I thought that was a little unfair as we had been speaking Italian the whole evening, but I took his point that I was no where near fluent, even though I could understand and be understood most of the time. I nodded hesitantly, and asked what my second problem was. “Your second problem is that you don’t speak English.” I said, Augusto, I can understand your point about the first item. But regarding the second one, what do you mean I can’t speak English? It’s my mother language.” He remained adamant and said, “That’s where you’re wrong. English is not your mother language. American is.” I said, Augusto, OK, there are a few differences between the way Americans speak English and the way the British speak English, but I have to tell you, having lived a couple years in England, the languages are pretty much identical.” He wouldn’t budge. “If they are so identical, as you say they are, then tell me this. How do you greet someone in America?” I said, “Maybe ‘hi.’?” “Exactly”, he said. “And how do you greet someone in England?” “Maybe, ‘hello’?” “I think I’ve made my point, right? As I said, two problems.”