I'll drink to that

The Italian post system is a glimpse of what the United States Postal Service will operate like in a few years, assuming that budget cuts and facility closings continue.  Poste Italiane is unapologetically slow and erratic.

Anticipating that we would miss our favorite magazine during our year abroad, for our anniversary last year I gave Michael an international subscription to the weekly New Yorker magazine to be sent to us in  Mantova.  We do get the magazine: it is just that we get it in packs of threes. In fact, when we get mail it is an exciting event, as all the mail we should have gotten over days or weeks is brought to us, [sort of] monthly, on one day. Where all our mail is kept in the interim for [give-or-take] three weeks, in transit from the U.S. to here, is hard to fathom.  We like to think that some over-worked and under-paid Italian postal worker peruses our magazine, enjoying the cartoons and Hendrik Hertzberg commentary.
"Where does the BRAUN mail go, Lorenzo?"
"Oh, just put it over there, next to my coffee. I will get it to them soon enough."

The better way for us to get news is, of course, the internet. Every morning I log on and read the first pages of The Mantova Gazette [translated], The New York Times, and The Missoulian, our local paper in Missoula.  The Missoulian is fun because sometimes you get headlines like, "The Squirrels are BACK!" [Where did they go?] Mostly, though, the news in the Missoulian is somber and sad.  Recently the paper is full of tales of rapes, closing businesses, a teacher's abduction, and drunk drivers.  Today I realized that any Mantovanian looking at my hometown paper would be fearful of our small community and wonder if the West wasn't still very, very wild.

Not that the drunk driving reports are much of a surprise. Montana has always had a drink-and-drive culture, and a top or near-to-the-top spot on highway fatalities per capita as well. Drinking and driving was even called [in a positive way] a "way of life that has been in Montana for years and years," by one of our State Senators [Rep. Alan Hail, R - Basin]. While laws have recently become stricter, Montana is still far behind Italy, which has a recent zero-tolerance policy for drunk driving. One infraction, and in some cases, you can lose your car and license permanently. Fines and a confinement of vehicles start at a lower blood-alcohol level, too: .005 compared to Montana's .008.  Not surprisingly, per capita,  Italy has fewer road fatalities due to driving under the influence than Montana.

I still can't figure out what about Italy's culture makes the relationship with alcohol so much saner here than back home. At 16, kids can drink wine and beer, and while it is not unusual to see a kid or two with a smoke and beer on our morning walk to the girls' school, it is not common, either. I have seen people under the influence on a weekend night, but frankly they seemed more drugged-out than drunk, and were clearly in the "I have a problem" section of life. Elderly people are also seen at all hours, sitting down with their friends, from morning to later afternoon, clearly drinking something alcoholic. The bar where we often pass is so filled with elderly people drinking that I cannot discern if I feel fearful of old age or eager to reach it. Does a small glass of bubbly at 9:00 am smell like a bright day or a long day ahead? These men seem happy enough, so I like to think the former.

Wine is, of course, served with everything and all celebratory meals, and hailed as a cure-all.  Red wine should be drunk if you have a stomach ache, an iron problem, a sleep disorder, and more. Michelangelo, I have read, was given wine as a baby, and up until recently wine was used as a soother for babies suffering from teething pain. Besides that, you can get a truly fabulous bottle of wine for under 10 Euros: a bottle that would cost four times that back home. More importantly, at those prices, everyone can afford delicious and special wine. I like to think that even the youngest wine drinker in Italy appreciates the quality, and savors the glass.

All of this was swirling in my mind as I walked back to our apartment after dropping off the girls at school. Covering my mouth with my scarf to filter the lingering cigarette smoke, car fumes, and smoggy air on today's cold and bright winter morning, I reminded myself: every culture has its habits and follies, its way of life. Lots of times here, it sure feels like Missoula and Mantova could learn a lot from each other.
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"No one can sing who has smog in his throat" [The Lorax]

"It snowed!" Throwing open our deck window, Maddy shouted back to us, with a big smile on her face. We all went to the window, and, indeed, a white dust covered our bike and apartment building. Later, as we walked downtown, we found the sight of Mantova's historic buildings to be at once magical and planned. The white dust covered everything so perfectly, a skilled painter could not have made a winter scape more beautiful or serene.

The next day, when reading our daily paper [I use google translate to translate the paper into English for me: a useful tool when you do not know past-tense Italian] I was shocked to see that the "snow" was not real snow. What had fallen so softly on our little town was "chemical snow," a rare occurrence that happens when the pollutants in the air are so dense that when the temperature drops, the pollution freezes, causing snow-like crystals. While pretty enough, it is toxic chemical particulate, and if you want to build a snowman with it, you best bring your latex gloves.

That Mantova is polluted is not news to us. A month into living here we discovered that the water is not safe to drink: it is filled with arsenic and other nasty compounds.  In fact, the water is so filled with toxins that we have taken to boiling our pasta and making our rice in bottled water, the plastic bottles piling up in our house.  While we recycle the bottles twice a week, it doesn't take much thought to consider that using bottled water compounds the very reason we need bottled water in the first place. Still, I am not going to serve my kids arsenic soup, so we are stuck, and hope that these bottles are indeed being recycled, and not just dumped somewhere to rot. [I have since been told that the water is fine here, and it is below us where the water is very polluted. It goes to show me how hard it is to understand everything in a community when you do not speak the language.]

Mantova lies in the Po Valley, which is the most polluted area in Italy. Due to mountain ranges around it, bad air from all over gets trapped in this corridor, and remains. Mantova compounds the bad air around it by allowing crude oil to be manufactured immediately outside of town:  the crude oil is processed in an old refinery, and smoke billows from the stacks day and night. When the wind is blowing toward Mantova, all the refinery particulate is pushed over the little city, causing a dark cloud of pollution that is so thick it can easily be seen from space.

The extent of the pollution here was a huge surprise to us, since we picked Mantova as our home base for the year in part because in 2005 it won the "most livable city" in Italy award. Among the factors considered for this award were green space, public transportation, walk-ability, water and air quality. Sometimes we laugh about the ridiculousness of that award, other times we are ready to flee to a neighboring town for our remaining five months. Mostly, we are very surprised that the Italians here are not taking to the streets, calling for action and change, After all, childhood cancer rates and breathing-related hospital admissions are five times higher in Mantova than in the surrounding Lombardia region, and it is not a secret.  Even in day-to-day those of us living in Mantova are reminded of the pollution dangers: when we had our chemical snow, it was recommended that children stay inside, or at least severely limit physical excursion outside.  I am now checking air quality before venturing outside with the kids, looking at particulate rates like a day-trader follows the stock exchange.

Living in Missoula, Montana and Amherst, Massachusetts, I have had many years benefiting from my activist friends -- friends whose life work is saving wild animals, cleaning streams and rivers, keeping chemical cleaners out of homes, and more. For me, the presence of environmentalists keeping a check on industry and government was a job as normal and needed in our society and lawyers, doctors, and teachers, and I took them--and their work--for granted. Living here is a stark reminder of what can happen without people who are watching-out for, writing about, and advocating for earth's gifts.  There is a bumper sticker in Missoula I have seen asking, "Have you hugged an environmentalist today?" When I get home to our clean air and water, it will be a love-fest on my part.

There is a new group in town, Mantova Mothers, that is trying to get out the word about the air and water here in Mantova, and to bring change. It is an uphill battle to fight, no doubt, and it is a small group; still, a glimmer of hope. Lovely Mantova, whose long existence as a city has always been about power and wars, may have its hardest fight for survival yet.

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Ed.'s note, Feb. 15: It has since been reported in the local paper that the snow does not carry dangerous amounts of chemicals in the snow, and is not considered "toxic".

Funny Tings

One of the great things about living in Italy for the year is the close proximity to interesting places. If I drive for four hours back home in Montana, I will find myself in more wilderness: I like that, mostly, but there are times at home when I wish that a four hour car trip would take me somewhere other than more pine trees and a Mr. Frostee's Drive-Thru. So, this year we are on the go. Twice of month we have ventured out into vast discovered territories, and we bring home a postcard. Half of our living room cabinetry is now filled with postcards from the places we have been; the other half awaits new voyages.

Italian radio is pretty good, so we usually start our trip with some Radio Italia. However, they talk a lot on the radio, and while I start out thinking that listening will be good for my Italian skills, after ten minutes my head is spinning from their quick talking and fake laughing.  Inevitability, I find myself rummaging through our well-worn CD pile.  In any mood, the go-to CD has become the Hot Party 20 Summer Hits:  a knock-off, copyright infringed, CD of popular songs sung in English by Italians.  Italians have a hard time pronouncing the "th" and "h" in English, so it makes for enjoyment on lots of levels. After a long day of struggling through with my baby Italian, it just feels right to sing along with an Italian singer covering Kid Rock's  "All Summer Long."  Nothing says road-trip now than the refrain "And we were trying different t-ings, and we were smoking funny t-ings ... singing sweet -ome Alabama all summer long." 

Travelling with four children around Europe in a small French car is not for the faint-hearted. Jam-packed into our little rented Renault (a.k.a, "the frog") and zooming around Italian highways, our drives are anything but relaxing. Two children require travel-sickness medicine before any trip longer than one hour, and still we still have the occasional need for an "Oh my God Mom, I am going to vomit" bag. Another child--freshly out of diapers-- requires frequent potty stops. Not that the stops are without their own cultural value: on one trip coming out of the German-speaking part of Italy, the gasoline mart where we made a stop to use the restrooms had various Marilyn Monroe pen drawings, I Love Italia trinkets, and bottles of "Porn Wine" on sale. Before we had any time to process the varied offerings, we were stuffed back into the car, mouths filled with Ritz crackers.

Since kids look at driving as something to do only for an end -- much like some think about making laws or I think about step-aerobics class -- every restaurant, must-see museum, and sleeping arrangement needs to be carefully mapped out before our excursion. In Italy, we have taken to staying at agiturismi, little farms or vineyards that have rooms or apartments for rent. They are affordable and [usually] clean, and the owners often provide tours, offer products from their land, and serve breakfast for a modest fee. The Italians who run these agiturismi are often very happy that I speak any Italian, and compliment me on my excellent Italian skills by saying that "I speak wonderfully" [I don't] and that my Italian is "perfect" [it isn't]. Some days, the undeserved compliments are alone worth the price of the room.  It is a far different experience than when I speak in Mantova, where not too long ago the local butcher--in response to my apology for my mangled order-- said, "Yes, your Italian is ugly." 

In planning which agiturismo to stay in, I spend a lot of time looking through listings on the Italian agiturismi site, and on the United Kingdom trip advisor site.  The first ratings all start out as fives -- some are clearly written by the owner in tell-tale an Italian-writing-English English "[first position floor was spacious with view panoramic"]-- and so I discard the first reviews.  The more interesting of the reviews are those with one star, and I go to those first. On the Italian agiturismi site, I have noticed that the Germans often give one star for inadequate breakfasts or, as one put it,  "breakfast[s] that are made with just stuff found in the kitchen" [they want their homemade breakfast pastries, those Germans]; Italians will give one star if the place is hard to find and/or the road to the place "kills the car"; Americans rarely give one star. In fact, Americans are alone in the number of their five-star-giving experiences, suggesting that vacation life is simply better for Americans, or that grade inflation has softened our ability to give a failing grade.  Americans tend to "pass" a place even when it is terrible. One review I read detailed the dirty sheets, noisy bedroom, lack of sleep, and surly owners, and gave the place three stars. I have taken to ignoring most American reviews.

My favorite, though, is when the owner responds to the one-star reviews. The best by far is dear Bobo, the owner of an Italian restaurant in Florence called Antica Trattoria, a well-reviewed restaurant listed on trip advisor, who berates reviewers who give him only one star. To a recent one-star reviewer [a Canadian] Bobo replied, "Some people don't deserve a real place, if not a turist place. And We are proud to be a different place, not turtist,  but where turists "IN THE KNOW" are welcome!! God bless you... We don't need this kind of people like us.With Love, Love, Love BOBO."  I am tempted to go to his place when we visit Florence, to eat his famous Florentine steak, toast to his tenacity, and commiserate about those difficult Canadians.

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