The Giubiana 2009

...E sicome la stabilìss la legg quaranta dal voccént-sesantòtt
che dopo 'l procèss gh'è la lugànega e 'l risòtt,
la sentenza a la fin la pö vess pronunziada:
la Giubiana, stasira, ca la sia brusada!

...And since law 49 of year 1868 decretes
that after the process there is the sausage and the risotto,
the sentence at the end can be pronounced:
let the Giubiana, tonite, be burnt!

(From the Sentence of the Process to Giubiana)

The Giubiana and the executioner

Also this year, as in the last, we went to the folk event of the Giubiana of Canzo, that happens every year on the last Thursday of January.

They stage a process for an old witch (the Giubiana) who symbolizes the evils of the past year. But there won't be any surprise in the sentence: at the end the Giubiana will be judged guilty and so condemned to the stake.
The ceremony opens with the parade of some characters of popular alpine tradition that in procession, brings the old woman to the main square. Once there, the process is celebrated in strict local dialect (so strict that, although a Lombard since several generations, I have a hard time understanding).

Mr. Bentley

Particularly worth mentioning are the words of the first witness for the defense. She asserts that the charges (year by year the bad news: this year the economy, the high rated loans, the increase of unemployment, the wars in the Middle East...) are not, strictly speaking, to be imputed to the Giubiana like a scapegoat, but to ourselves, as constituted matter of this society in which all those evils generated.
The spirit of the event is to accept the past and restart with optimism. The stake of the Giubiana is in fact a propitiatory rite for the year just begun, in the awareness that we are the authors of our own destiny.

The words of the final wills, written by the Giubiana, and read by a loyal friend, the gossip lady of the village, threaten evils also for the next year, and represent the consciousness that it won't be for the propitiatory rite that our future will ever change. So, the stake is the symbol of our acceptance of destiny, but also the commitment to improve. The Giubiana in fact promises to rise just after the stake, to reappear, in one year, as the renewed sacrificial lamb.

After the process, Maddie was excited, but Mr. Bentley (much more shy) was frightened for the confusion and noise. "Fajah, let's go home please" he tells me with that baritone voice (Mister Bentley speaks in American English, often mixed with some Hawaiian Pidgin expressions).
So we preferred to forgo the burning at the stake and the typical risotto with sausage and vin brülé (hot spicey wine) and we went back home.

Chagrin d'école

Who would ever believe? Daniel Pennac, the teacher, when he was a boy he was a dunce.

But not a dunce-genius, like Einstein, who was bad at school because he had in mind something more important and creative. A dunce because he was not capable of understanding.
The self-analysis a posteriori of this experience helps the teacher Pennac to find out the dunce-saver teaching method. That, in fact, doesn't look like a great revelation. One needs only to identify in the dunce and find a stimulus for him, since he, alone, obviously cannot find any.
The problem is that as one understands less, the more he keeps on not understanding. He is not helped by school to comprehend subjects, but instead accused of not committing himself, or even to do it on purpose.

Daniel Pennac

The student for sure doesn't do it on purpose (he's no fool!). Instead he tries to find the way to understand, but, if not well driven, his path will be crowned with such failures to make him believe to be too stupid to do this. And this presumed stupidity discourages him to the point to give up trying to learn.
For the teacher, the epitome of the student is the intelligent young man that grasps subjects all of the sudden, asks interesting questions, and, enthused by the lesson, studies and prepares for the next one. The real function of school, instead, shouldn't be applied only to that student, but most of all to the dunce. The one that doesn't study because he didn't even understand how to study. In a school where the teacher feels rewarded by the easy success with the intelligent student, there is no space for the dunce, who will then feel excluded. He, himself, should instead be the one that needs school more!
The process of intellectual growth consists (also) in accepting the rules. But passively accepting the rules doesn't mean growing at all! So, an educative method based on the imposition of rules is doomed to fail. And for this, Pennac says, we need a thing that sounds almost like a blasphemy, in pedagogical environment: love.

In my school career i was very good in some subjects. I could say that on my behalf, the epitome mentioned above could be applied. But in other subjects i was terrible, and the reasons were exactly the ones described by Pennac in his book. If i had some teachers that showed me the way for History and Literature i could have an easier school-life. Nowadays i like those subjects. I can understand them! But at those times i didn't know i could. And i didn't know because nobody ever told me.
I can remember now the Italian and Latin teacher, and the English one (i was very good in Latin language and i had a good property og language in English, but Italian, Latin or English Literature!!!). I remember also the teacher of History and Philosophy. What a pain!
This last, in particular, was completely hopeless in teaching (upon Pennac's measure), but her enthusiasm for the subjects she taught could almost be touched in any of her lessons.
I couldn't understand, neither History nor Philosophy. Then, on a good day, i had a test about the philosopher Pascal (of which now i've completely forgotten). I remember that that day, instead of trying to repeat the lesson like a parrot, i decided to strongly support my own point of view (i always had a silent one), unfortunately it was never the orthodox one). Even though i would have a bad valuation, it was worth making use of my pride. I remember the surprised and incredulous expression of the teacher discovering my critical mind. In the beginning she looked almost condemning of my "arrogance", but then with the test going on, her belief that i was dumb begun to disintegrate. I remember that she asked The Nerd of the class to participate, and then it came out a discussion between me and him, under the disbelieving eyes of the rest of my classmates. It was the first good valuation in Philosophy. The first of a long list.
This episode for sure helped me in the average valuation for Philosophy, but it didn't modify anything in my results on Italian, Latin and English Literature or History. In those subjects i continued to be the usual dunce. It helped me, instead, to grow my self-esteem. I understood that if i wanted, i could make it.
But the English teacher, the Italian and Latin one, and even the the History and Philosophy teacher were so obtuse! My success in Philosophy clearly showed, in their mind, that i was a dunce because i didn't study enough. I did it on purpose! Not worthy enough for them to consider the idea of helping me!

It would have been nice to have a teacher like Pennac.

"Diario di scuola" ["Chagrin d'école"] is essentially the description of the educational method, applicable to the role of a teacher, but in my opinion also to the one of a parent. Sometimes the flow of the book becomes too much simplified: i don't believe that the teaching world could clearly be divided in goods and bads, and i don't even believe that "dunceness" is so easily definable. School and, in general, the young world is more complex than how Pennac shows. Anyway, in my opinion it's a book that is worth reading. The former dunces can stop to feel alone in their dunceness and discover that it is an experience common also to other people. Parents and teachers can be driven in the difficult task to help the dunce. Everybody else can see that they have been only a little bit more lucky not to suffer such a condition.

And what about you? Were you dunces or nerds? Or, like me, "so and so"?

By Pennac i've already read (twice!) the whole hexalogy (in the original language it was an eptalogy) of di Benjamin Malaussène: "Il paradiso degli orchi" ["Au bonheur des ogres"], "La fata Carabina" ["La fée carabine"], "La Prosivendola" ["La petite marchande de prose"], "Signor Malaussène" ["Monsieur Malaussène"], "Ultime notizie dalla famiglia" ["Monsieur Malaussène au théâtre" and "Des Chretiens et des maures"], "La passione secondo Thérèse" ["Aux fruits de la passion"].
Moreover i read also "Signori Bambini" ["Messieurs les enfants"], and the comics "Gli Esuberati" ["La débauche"].

I liked everything that i've read by this author.

Where to go?

View of Costa Smeralda, Sardinia

Everybody i meet in the blog universe, that is not from Italy or doesn't know very well this country, asks me for suggestions about where to travel, if one comes here for tourism.
That, to me, is a difficult question, first of all because i am not a tourist, so i see this country with different eyes. I have all the time to spend over here so i don't have necessarily to choose the very best all of the sudden as it happens to tourists (unless they're so rich to be able to spend ages over here). Moreover, being that i am an Italian in Italy, i have more chance to appreciate the very deep inside it, because i don't have the barreer of language and cultural difference.

Autumn in Monferrato, Piedmont
by Mario Spalla

An american tourist in Italy would probably end up to eat at the touristic expensive restaurant in the center town, with the menu translated in English (where "Prosciutto di Parma D.O.P." is "ham"), which, undoubtedly, may serve good food. But Italy is also made of the little winebar in that hole of a wall, in an unknown village where they serve a good wine with a plate of salumi e formaggi locali (local cured meat and cheeses), where the owner will spend some time chatting with you (a good example of it is Il Covo).

Secondly the answer of such a question strictly depends upon what one is interested to. To make some exapmples, if somebody is interested in art i would suggest Florence and Rome. Who wants to have fun till early morning spending time (and money) in the discos, they should go to Riviera Romagnola. If you are interested in nice tans, sandy beaches next to a beautiful sea, Sardinia is your final destination.

Greve in Chianti centre village, Tuscany

But you may also be interested in skiing and in mountain landscapes. In these cases i would suggest the Alps...
About food... uhm... I think wherever you can find excellent McDonald's.
Ahaha... ehm... just joking!

So, not being able to be objective enough, i'll try an answer according to my tastes.

As a first suggestion i would say that, for who can choose, it's not a wonderful idea to travel in August. One problem is that it can be really very hot. Especially in the south, the termometer can easily reach 40 Celsius (104 F). I have been in Palermo with 50 C (122 F) and it was terrible. That problem is, obviously, less felt in the north and up in the mountains, where temperatures are more human-bearable.

Serra San Quirico, Marche
from www.comune.serrasanquirico.an.it

Besides the warmth, the main problem of August, anyway, is that Italians have the bad habit to take off for holidays in this month all together. This means that the typical holiday destinations are packed of people, while the non-typical ones are empty. Personally i don't like crowd, so i prefer, atleast in that month, the unusual destinations (there are nice ones too). Plus, if you go to some crowded place, it is also expensive (for an easy supply-demand rule), while if you go to an unusual one, being that there's not a big lot of people, also the shops tend to close for holiday. Last, in August, being that big herds of people moving, if you travel by car you can find a really busy traffic, especially on the main highways from north to south.

If there's no other choice than August, i would suggest the north, which is cooler and better served. But the best period to visit Italy, in my opinion, is the spring, untill the half of july. Infact winter is cold, and daylights are shorter, autumn can really give wonderfully colored days, but sometimes it can be very rainy.

I don't like strict programs that don't allow me to really enjoy one place because there's no time. Instead, i think that the best Italy one can appreciate is the one that is not visible on the surface. To meet people, having dinners in a little informal trattorias, shopping at the local artisan's, learn the local customs... no way you can do it, if you just pass by for a couple of days.
Which means that if you really want to have a wide experience of Italian culture you have to spend ages in this country, because the local cultures are so various that they are really different region by region, or also town by town. So, better to choose one or two areas and deeply explore only them. Just to make a gastronomical example, the typical dish of Piedmont is called bagna caoda.

Assisi, Umbria

It's a kind of big pot with a sauce made out of olive oil, garlic and anchovees, to be eaten hot wih raw vegetables.
In the next region of Lumbardy common people almost do not even know what bagna caoda is. Vice versa, the typical dish of this last region is casseula, stewed pork meat with cabbage. Nobody knows it in Piedmont. Moreover you'll never find casseula or bagna caoda nor in Piedmont nor in Lumbardy if you go to a common tourist restaurant.

Orvieto, Umbria

Those dishes can be found only in the old fashioned country trattorias, and only during winter.

So, planning to stay... let's say... one month in Italy i would choose no more than two places to stay, and rent a car to drive around those two places and visit the typical old little villages.

My favorite area in Italy is the center. In the center I would avoid Tuscany, because it's packed of foreign people, tourists or immigrants, especially from UK and USA. I have nothing racist against British or American people, but for sure, if you want to experience the real Italy, their invadent presence is a big limit. I remember, for example, walking in the center of Greve in Chianti (a little village in the famous wine area), where one can think there's the most authentic and uncontaminated italian culture, the most widely spoken language that i could hear was English.
My favorite regions are infact Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo, considered much less as a target by those "colonizers". That's why those regions are much less expensive although the territory is very similar to the Tuscan one (i hope this won't be considered a suggestion to rich American and British people to colonize also those lands!).

Dolomiti view, Trentino Alto Adige
from www.dolomitinetwork.com

Saint Rhemy en Bosses, Valle d'Aosta
from www.regione.vda.it

Those regions are my favorite for the food, the landscapes made of sweet hills, the wines (although Tuscany is still the best to that respect), the little medioeval villages, the courtesy and hospitality of people, and in general the culture strictly linked to the roots in their territory. The Parco Enogastronomico della Marca Centrale (Oenological and Gastronomical Park of Central Marche) is a good example of research of our root in the territory, through food, and preservation of our culture.

One of my favorite activities is also hiking in the mountains. With that purpose i suggest the spring on the Alps. Hiking paths are well kept and pretty much each one of them has atleast one refuge on the top, which makes the walk even more interesting for the food and the rest that can be enjoyed after the hard ascent.

View from Monte Tesoro, Lumbardy
from Rubber Slippers in Italy

The dolomites in the Alto Adige area are one of the most beautiful scenic view i have ever seen in my entire life, and the variety of mountain landscapes in Valle d'Aosta worth some days spent on hiking. Also the area (Como lake) where I live is enjoyable for hiking, and it offers also dramatic views of the lake.

Coliseum, Rome

Besides my tastes, i think that the ultimate thing that is missing wherever in the westerner world and we have in Italy, is the History, mother of our culture and customs. That's a fact that most of European (and, by extension, also South and North American) cultures were somehow originated in this country, so any foreign tourist coming to Italy can find atleast a little stone of his own History.

If i was a tourist, then, i wouldn't miss to visit Rome for its monuments, buildings and ruins that designed all the westerner cultures of the last three millennia, although nowadays it's a so busy and messy town that can be really tiring.

A good guide for Italian restaurants is Slow Food's Osterie d'Italia.
A good help to choose hiking paths in Lumbardy is Diska's Photos and PassoLento

(click on the photos to enlarge)