April 2020 – JenandAlsbigItalianadventure

April 24, 2020

Liberation Day (Festa della Liberazione)

An annual public holiday also known as Anniversary of Italy’s Liberation (Anniversario della liberazione d’Italia) or Anniversary of the resistance (Anniversario della Resistenza) or sometimes just as 25^th April (25 Aprile). It celebrates the liberation of Italy from Nazi occupation during World War 2 and the victory of the resistance in Italy[1].

Bologna liberated itself on 21^st April 1945 and by the 1^st May most of northern Italy was liberated. The national date of 25^th April was decided in 1949. In a previous post I made a joke about reclaiming “Liberation Day” from Farage et al who had attempted to use it as a phrase for the day when Britain left the EU. I wanted to use it instead for the day when we are all free to leave our homes and see our friends etc. without worrying about spreading the virus. I had forgotten that Liberation day already existed in Italy and, more importantly in these days, that it is a national day of celebrating the fight against fascism.

The history bit

As usual I offer the caveat that all the information presented here has been researched (badly) by me, mostly from Wikipedia, and therefore any inaccuracies or misunderstandings are the result of my poor workmanship.

The Italian resistance[2] is a term used to cover all the many Italian different resistance groups who were fighting against 20 years of fascist rule in Italy and 5 years of war. They gained more prominence after the occupation by the Nazis. It is also an important date in Italian history because it led to Italy abolishing the monarchy and establishing itself formally as a republic. If you read my post about Italians and food you will know that this was not long into the existence of Italy as a unified country. The republic was declared to be founded on the struggle of the resistance (La Resistenza). The members of the resistance were also known as partisans (I partigiani) and many people see this conflict to liberate Italy as the Italian civil war.

While many of us have holidays and festive days dedicated to various battles and liberations, I don’t think there is anything quite like this Italian Liberation Day. Its connection to the resistance is a key part of the day, at least it is in Bologna. It is not a celebration of long past historic events; it is a living reminder of the continuing fight against fascism.

I have always had a soft spot for resistance fighters and partisans. I see them as the ultimate form of DIY; ordinary people organising themselves to fight against something, using whatever means they have at their disposal. I have read several books by and about resistance groups in the 2^nd World War and their invaluable contribution to the Allied victory. These people were willing to sacrifice their lives. They often lived in terrible conditions, supplied by supportive locals, having to remain mobile to avoid detection and capture. The casualty rate was high and Nazis were known to execute 10 civilians for every soldier killed, usually taken from nearby villages or POW camps. However, this move which was intended to discourage local support for resistance groups backfired as the resistance fighters were usually from the community and shared in their deprivations and hardships so it ended up reinforcing support against the common enemy. I think it’s great that this day is specifically remembered as both the liberation of Italy from Nazi occupation and the victory of the resistance against fascism. It reminds us that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. It reminds us of the power people have when working together towards a common goal. It reminds us we are strong enough and brave enough.

How soon is now

We were lucky enough to be in Bologna for Liberation Day last year. We had not been in Italy for long and had never heard of it. In the centre of the Bologna there is a formal wreath laying at the memorial plaque, however from my perspective the action is in Via Del Pratello and the surrounding streets. We have heard great reviews of the bars here but we tend to feel a teensy bit older than their usual customers. Sadly, Al was working, but we decided to go in his break to check out what was going on.

In Via Del Pratello Liberation day events are a cross between a street party, a political rally and a DIY festival. There is very much an anarchic homemade approach to banners and flags and stalls. Representatives from all manner of political and social groups are nestled alongside food drink and general market stalls. There are also impromptu looking stages that barely rise above the pavement where many bands seemed to play a punk polka. Last year it was really busy even though the weather was not great. There was one part of the street that we could not pass at all because it was so rammed with people. That’s hard to imagine at the moment, but at the time we were forced to divert into a couple of other streets to avoid the blockage.

It was a lot of fun and we were able to find a bar (there are formal and informal bars) with a shortish queue and get drinks in plastic cups so we could drink while walking along. I have been told that Liberation Day in Via Del Pratello can get very messy, but I haven’t heard anything about problems with drunkenness and violence. We were there between 3 and 5 so it was quite chilled and only just getting started.

While we enjoyed our brief glimpse into Liberation day we felt like voyeurs, tourists snapping a local festival, which we were. We wondered what it would be like to be in Via Del Pratello for the day, meeting up with friends and being part of the community. We had hoped that this year we would be able to take a more active role in festivities as we have now lived here for over a year. Sadly, the Corona Virus restrictions mean that there aren’t going to be any events this year. It’s still a National holiday so those businesses that were open will be closed, or on reduced hours, but there won’t be bands and stalls and bars in Via Del Pratello. However, we can take the means at our disposal and celebrate at home, making sure we still remember those who sacrificed their lives to free this country and to remember our role in maintaining our vigilance and standing up to fascism whenever we can.

[1] ‘Liberation Day (Italy)’ (En.wikipedia.org, 2020) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Day_(Italy)> accessed 23 April 2020

[2] ‘Italian Resistance Movement’ (En.wikipedia.org, 2020) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_resistance_movement> accessed 23 April 2020

April 17, 2020

People called romani they go the house

If you don’t recognise the above as a quote from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, then that’s a film that you need to add to your watch list.

Learning the Lingo

When I was trying to learn other languages at school the teachers would say “what’s the past participle” or “conjugate the verb to go” or talk about the position of the “subject” and the “object” of a sentence. I didn’t know what those things were in English never mind in whatever language I was struggling to learn. Education might not have been the same everywhere but I maintain that British students of the 70’s and 80’s are more likely to recognise “Kumbaya” from the opening strums on an acoustic guitar than they are to have been taught what a participle was in English.

Grammar is useful to help you understand how the new language structure is different, but this does necessitate knowing what it is in your language first. In many ways this remains the biggest struggle I have learning Italian. I sit there and have to try to summon the Italian grammar rules. Is this a passive sentence? Am I giving my opinion? These require the use of different tenses or rules. If I am in a real life situation this is compounded because I need to answer quickly.

On top of the grammar and structural issues there is also problems of vocabulary. There are some words which look and sound similar to English words but which have completely different uses and/ or meanings. These are called “false friends”. Then there are verbs that can be translated as roughly the same meaning but are used in different ways. For example, Italians use their verb to make (fare) for things where we use to do or to go. When you want to translate some things from “do” or “go”, you need to use “make” e.g. I make food shopping, not I do the food shopping etc. You need to bear in mind these differences when answering simple questions like “What are you doing this weekend?”

I know that I just need to remember that learning a language is hard and the results are not instantaneous, but patience is not one of my virtues. I have so much more respect now for anyone who has managed to become proficient in a language that is not their mother tongue.

“He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.”
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Teaching the lingo

On the flip side of learning a language I am teaching my language to others. This is a newly acquired skill and still involves quite a lot of learning itself. It means looking at English, a subject I had thought I knew well, from the perspective of the learner. I think my teaching is enhanced by the fact that I have current experience of the trials and tribulations of language learning. One benefit I have is that my students are nearly all Italian and they often make similar errors which I can backwards navigate to understand what the Italian structure or vocabulary is, which helps my Italian too!

I live in fear of my students asking me questions like “in what circumstances do I use the past perfect after the past continuous?”. First, I need to remember which they are (past tense of have, verb+ed) after (past tense of be, verb +ing) and then deduce the rule around when you might use that form. There is also the pretty tricky fact that we have so many exceptions. I don’t want to give an answer that covers the example I just thought of (I went jogging after I had studied) but not the situation the student was asking about.

However, this is nothing when compared to the student who said “Oh, I’ve forgotten, what’s the English order of adjectives again, it’s age, colour and material isn’t it?” I looked at her blankly. “You know the order you need to put the adjectives in, I can’t remember if it’s colour before material?” I was about to say that there wasn’t an order, but it immediately became apparent to me that there was and my mind was blown.

I have asked a number of people about this and not one mother tongue English speaker ever remembers being taught the order of adjectives, but we all use it without thinking. If I said to you leather, brown, old sofa you would understand what I was referring to. However, you would usually say old brown leather sofa. Don’t believe me? I dare you to consider anything in front of you now and let me know if you don’t use a specific order to describe all items e.g. blue suede shoes.

As a writer I have found both the learning and teaching experiences enlightening. They focus your mind on the way we use language, how and why we select certain words for particular sentences or specific uses. There are so many things about our language and the way we use it that I had never given a second thought to. Nothing makes you think twice about an expression you’re about to use like imagining how you will explain it to someone for whom English is not their first language.

So, what else is new?

Not much really. I couldn’t let you go without some gratuitous food shots, obviously. We are fine. We are both still healthy. We are getting better at cryptic crosswords, but not fast enough given that we are two pretty impatient people. We have been formally extended in lock down until 3^rd May, but our numbers are looking more positive. There were free masks being distributed in our area on Monday so Al went out on Tuesday to get some and they had all gone. It’s not that we have a specific view in the masks vs no masks debate, it’s more that these days everyone out in the shops has a mask and we are worried that when lock down restrictions are lifted they might mandate mask wearing while out and about. Amazon.it mask delivery dates were for June. Amazon UK claims 22^nd April, I’ll keep you posted.

Chargrilled and fresh vegetables on sourdough toast with mozerella

One final thought in the shape of this quote, which I found when looking for one about learning a language. This is so true and useful at this time, all language is thought shaping, especially the language you use most often.

“Change your language and you change your thoughts.”
Karl Albrecht

*feature image courtesy of: Terry Jones, Life Of Brian (1979).

April 10, 2020

Alive and Kicking

One month in…

As you all would expect this week has progressed much like the others in the now established pattern of Lockdown. Good Friday marks one month in and we don’t know when it will end. Technically it could be lifted on 13^th April, but we all expect to see an extension, with some level of restrictions on travel and non-essential services continuing for some time even when lockdown is lifted. The good news is our numbers finally seem to be taking a turn in a more positive direction, no matter which measurements you are using for comparison. To be blunt the daily death count here has started to drop but is still in the hundreds. Italy has lost almost 18,000 people and so far more than 85,000 worldwide have died (source WHO). I know that the UK is about to enter its most difficult period in terms of numbers of infections and deaths and our hearts are with you. I hope our improving numbers offer hope that an end is in sight, but we are by no means out of the woods yet.

It’s impossible to calculate how many impacted families and friends there are with lives completely altered. It is an appropriate time to think of others: those still fighting the virus, those who may continue to have complications long after and those providing medical and other essential services. These are very sobering thoughts and any frustrations I might feel about being cooped up are easily addressed by remembering how, by staying in, we are helping to minimise the number of people who will be affected by this event.

Yada yada

On Tuesday I taught my last class for at least a week. We take it in turns to go to the shops only when we really need to go. We have been eating well as you’d expect from us. If you follow Al’s Instagram you have already seen the chocolate buns, but I’m still going to share them again. They were amazing. Today we had doughnuts but I may have forgotten to take any photos before we ate them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any raspberry jam at the shop, so we had to settle for strawberry, but that’s hardly a complaint.

The temperatures have been building all week with today hitting 22 and 26 expected by Saturday, so we have been spending a lot of time outside. There have been times when we have wondered if we would have been better off if we had tried to return to the UK at the beginning of all this, but its hard to see how that would be an improvement on our current situation. We think the Italian government at a local and national level have been doing a great job. I think we both have a lurking fear about something going wrong and us having to deal with Italian medical or social services and not understanding what we need to do or ask for. However, we have an amazing landlord who is in contact to make sure we are ok and if we need help (with Italian) or if we have any concerns he can help with. Luckily, we don’t, but it is a comfort to know that help is there (albeit in Venice) if we do.

Strengthen our communication

Last Friday we had our first virtual pub experience courtesy of some friends with a zoom account and it was so successful that we will repeat it this Friday. It was great to catch up with people and exchange experiences of this crazy time. There were differences in what would really happen at the pub for example, everyone has to be in the one conversation rather than breaking out into separate ones. You can’t read body language or account for slight delays so you inevitably spend some time interrupting each other. However, it’s a pretty good stand in and the drinks range is perfect.

On Tuesday morning I attended a Pilates class thanks to Chrissy of CMdance . I can’t usually get to it because it’s in Southampton, however it has moved online for the time being, which is lucky for me. It was good to see and talk to people while adding a change to my exercise routine. There seem to be no end of activities you can join in with online now, which I think is fantastic, but I have to be honest and say this is the first one I have done.

It’s great to be able to keep in touch and talk to people face to face, albeit not in person. We are so lucky to have the technology readily available in our homes and we would do well to remember that we have it all the time, not just in the time of a global pandemic.

The Everyman crossword with my ham fisted notes

Cryptology

When the lockdown first began, we printed out the guardian quick crossword and every day would start with coffee and the crossword. It’s not the most difficult crossword though and we started to finish it a bit too quickly. We decided to have another crack at Cryptic crosswords, which we have attempted before but pushed into the too hard pile. We even had a cryptic crossword as a wedding present which we really enjoyed doing, but we just found them difficult to do on an on-going basis. So, now seems like the ideal time to be looking at them again.

This week we have printed an old Everyman cryptic from the Observer every day, so that we can also look up the answers when we give up, which we have to do, a lot. We haven’t finished one without assistance yet, but we are enjoying trying to work them out and learning how the clues work. Some are fiendish works of genius; some are tenuous stretches. Today we only had to look up four, which I think is pretty impressive.

The bit at the end

I wanted to ensure I ended this on a positive note as I felt the start was bleak. Possibly this aptly sums up where I am with it all. I start with some hard and disconcerting facts, move onto some life minutia then try to focus on the positive. Something which I have seen emerge as a kind of sign off on messages and emails is “stay safe” or “stay well” or both. I like this as a kind of subtle identifier of a time before as well as a time after. It’s one of many changes in the way we speak and relate to each other. We have a renewed experience of our power as a community and the importance of everyone in it. The world will be different after this and we have the power to make it better, if we want it.

April 3, 2020

And the beat goes on…

What’s new pussycat

It had been hard to think what to write this week. Up until yesterday afternoon essentially everything was the same, I was working 2 jobs part time and learning how to teach online. A small amount of structure for my time and Al was keeping himself busy with cooking. However, the 1^st school called me to confirm it was going into temporary shut down, something that is inexplicably being referred to as “furlough” in the UK. I will get 80% of my contracted hours under the Italian insurance scheme, which is 7 hours a week. The 2^nd job is only for 3 hours on a Tuesday and is due to finish at the end of April. There is no news yet on what is happening with exams so I don’t know if there will be any invigilation work. To be honest I was expecting it, I thought the 1^st school might have been in trouble before the virus and now we aren’t going to be attracting new students. It’s disappointing, but we know we are not alone in facing work uncertainty at the moment.

Al cooked a Lemon drizzle cake to replace the chocolate cake we finished yesterday (see main picture with strawberries and tea). I don’t have any human weighing scales so I can’t confirm how much weight I might be putting on, but I know that I put half an inch back on my waist. We are still watching movies and TV series and although we have not started Tiger King yet, I feel it’s only a matter of time. We are reading books and listening to music. I subscribed to London Review of Books on a half price deal, just before this started and so I am building a mammoth book list for when this is over as well as loading my Kindle. We both have “at home” workout routines. We take it in turns to go to the shop and do bin runs as we’re not supposed to go out together. The weather has been sunny and cold this week. The sun cream turned up yesterday, hopefully the warm weather will follow.

The Future

I think it is probably natural to be looking to the future at the moment. It is difficult when we don’t know when this situation will end or how it will be brought to a conclusion. It’s hard to imagine that there will be a day when we are all let loose to return to our previous patterns of behaviour and scoot gleefully across the world again. Presumably restrictions of some sort or another will still be in place for some time to come and will depend on the downward trajectory of infection rates in various locations. The rate of new cases here has slowed but not yet started to come down. Our initial lockdown end date was today but this was extended to 14^th April, although I can’t see this ending before May.

However, I am entertaining myself by planning for something that I have decided to reclaim from the Brexit mess and that is “Liberation day” – when we are all able to move freely again and the Covid-19 virus is no longer posing an immediate threat to lives. I would contribute to hear some Big Ben bongs on that day, I can tell you. I’m saving up my last hair dye and deciding which of Bologna’s many fabulous restaurants and bars will be graced with my post quarantine presence first. I cordially invite you to join me in this and repurposing Liberation Day into a day of inclusive global celebration!

A little help from my friends

Something that I hope we will take forward once this is all over is this spirit of community and helping each other out. I have witnessed this firsthand here in Italy and I am gratified to see examples from the UK such as the overwhelming response to the UK Government volunteer request. We watched the Frank Turner benefit for The Joiners last night and hope to watch the one for The Railway Inn in Winchester next week. There are so many people performing or working on -line, which is great to see and be part of (even if it’s just in the audience). It had become all to easy to think that we lived in a selfish time when people were only looking out for themselves, but I think the response to this situation demonstrates more what is best about people. There are plenty of us that, when the chips are down, get together (not literally in these circumstances) and work out new solutions and ways of supporting each other and staying positive. My social media might be a bubble but its one filled with beautiful people doing awe inspiring things and helping each other. Many people and businesses are suffering right now, but if we all continue to do what we can and work together as a community we can help ensure as many as possible keep going. We are amazing when we work together.