bilingual activism

I've been trying to get involved with Greenpeace in Rome since I came back in September and decided my Italian was at a reasonable social level. Everyone there is really friendly and they meet near my house (bonuses) but unfortunately they meet on monday nights and since the beginning of October I've always had to work then. Anyway, on saturday there was an action day to keep up the pressure on the Copenhagen meetings and I finally managed to force myself to volunteer to go and help out. (I haven't before because generally I'm working (most of the others are students) and because I'm quite shy in Italian and not very sure of myself with regards to speaking to the public!

Anyway, Saturday was the day of my debut performance as a Rome Greenpeace activist. There was a kind of small festival in Piazza Farnese - the title of the day was "100 piazzas for the climate" - with a stage for speakers, games for children and a range of stalls from organisations ranging from Greenpeace to organic food to Christians for the planet or some such. It was a nice sunny day but VERY cold - my outfit choice of tights and miniskirt quickly revealed itself to be a poor one and I shivered in my Greenpeace t-shirt until a fellow helper convinced me to tie my coat round my legs to warm them up a bit.

We were giving out leaflets and information about the anti-nuclear campaign (Italy wants to start investing in nuclear power stations, Greenpeace don't want that to happen), selling merchandise to fundraise and also taking photos of people wearing masks representing the different G8 leaders standing in front of an "Historic Agreement Now" poster. As for this last activity, I wasn't entirely sure WHY we were doing it - this is one of the things about doing things in a second language, alot of general facts that in your native language you would pick up as you go along you miss out on. Not wanting to seem ignorant, I failed to ask anyone what the purpose was as I posed for a series of photos - the guy who was volunteering with me on the stall decided to use me as part of his sales pitch: "come and have your photo taken with the lovely Mary". Bemused passers-by must have assumed I was a)famous or b)a prostitute.

Another thing about comprehension of a language in which you're not completely fluent is that it's very closely linked to context. If you're expecting to hear something, frequently you can understand it. If someone makes a comment or asks a question that is unexpected or surprising, you'll generally respond with "huh? what?" This wouldn't be such a problem if people just repeated their comment, but all too often on saturday people would look at me more closely, and realise "ah! sei straniera!" [you're foreign] and then either give up, or attempt to explain in English. I was expecting questions like "what is greenpeace?" or "what size T-shirt is this?" but I wasn't expecting "where's via del Corso?", "where can I get something to eat?" or "can you hold this bag open for me while I transfer into it the contents of my other bag which is broken?"

I spent alot of time hiding behind other volunteers, letting them do the talking and dealing with people part, and feeling useless and unhelpful. My proudest moment was when a man asked "what does this mean?" of the title of the Greenpeace calendar, which is in English: "Standing up for the Earth."

Not so great was when a drunken old man, stinking of alcohol, came up and looked at some baby t-shirts. I asked if I could help him and he replied, with a horrible lear, in English, "Do you have something in my size?!" Then he marched off, cackling.

Probably the worst part though was when I was ambushed by a couple of girls who asked if they could ask me a question. Given that I was standing at a greenpeace stall wearing a greenpeace t-shirt, I really didn't feel I could say no, despite fears that they would reveal the gaping holes in my political knowledge, so I tried to summon my powers of articulacy and said "yes." They asked "what are your hopes for Copenhagen?" While struggling to frame a decent response, in Italian, I was most deterred to see them whip out a video camera and start filming me! I was stammering about agreements and they said "oh, you can answer in English if you prefer." I did, obviously, and gave a response to the effect that I hoped to see a strong agreement, the richer countries leading by example and setting a good precedent for the developing world. At that moment a campaigner, ie someone who is actually employed by Greenpeace and alot more knowledgeable than me, came up, just in time to see them walking off with their footage. He pointed out to me, very nicely, that any interviews and filming are usually left to the campaigners and not the volunteers...of course! I felt utterly humiliated as it looked like I just wanted to hog the limelight and as I risked embarrassing the entire organisation...I had nightmare images of me, saying something inappropriate in bad italian, being broadcast on international TV as "a Greenpeace spokesperson"...I apologised and assured him that I'd said "personally" (I had).

He said it was fine, and, of course, the footage hasn't surfaced anywhere (that I know of) - I mean, they were hardly from BBC News 24: they were both pretty young and to be honest I'd assumed they were probably doing a school project or something!

I sloped off at 6 o'clock, thoroughly chilled and needing to warm-up and de-stress...working for causes you belive in is all well and good but really takes it out of you.

Napoli

I LOVE the December 8th bank holiday weekend in Italy. Working 6 days a week REALLY makes you appreciate a proper weekend...and this year as the 8th is a tuesday my school (and alot of other businesses) decided to make the "ponte" by closing on monday as well. Good times...so I headed to Naples with my friend Emily. We'd been planning to do this for ages but as the time drew near we realised that, as often for english language teachers, our plans could be hindered by the universal problem of "not having enough money"; luckily we managed to organise the Napoli trip on an incredibly tight budget. It's only 12 euros from Rome if you take the 3-hour regional train, and we found a hotel room for 20 euros each a night (the bathroom was in the corridor, but hey, we didn't need luxury). So it was an excellent low-cost break.

We arrived on saturday evening having both worked in the daytime, and were both pretty shattered. We were also somewhat terrified. EVERYONE in Rome who heard I was going to Napoli reacted with a raised eyebrow and a "be careful!" Everyone gave extensive advice about not going into dark alleys, not going out alone, not carrying too much cash, not putting valuables in a handbag, not wearing jewellery...it was crazy. Obviously Napoli is a seat of the mafia and has huge poverty and social problems. That's evident...plus I've read "Gomorra", Roberto Saviano's book about the mafia and gangs in Naples and around the region...BUT still, I think people in Rome were overreacting to the danger I, a foreign tourist, would be exposed to. I suppose there's probably some inter-city rivalry going on (quite alot of people did react, when I said I was going to Napoli for the weekend, with "why??").

Anyway, we got off the train clutching our bags, having shuffled our money and passports around so that there was nothing valuable in our handbags (certain they'd be snatched by the first moped-rider who past) and removed our earrings (ridiculous! As you may recall, while I often wear conspicuous jewellery, it's strictly costume). We traversed the piazza outside the station nervously, looking round constantly, watching for thieves on mopeds etc...but in the event there seemed to be more danger from the traffic (something else I'd been warned about). It's true, drivers in Naples are REALLY crazy and don't seem to be constrained by any kind of traffic laws. Red lights are there to ignore, scooters are there for 3 or 4 people to be crammed onto, a couple of metres of space is licence to accelerate furiously...it was terrifying! Anyway, we made it to our hotel in one piece, established that it was ok and that the slightly dodgy-sounding name (Hotel Casanova) did not seem to have any implications beyond the fact that it was situated on Via Casanova...and headed out for pizza.

Many people had also spent time expounding the differences between Napolitan-style pizza and Roman-style pizza to me before this trip, and I'd kind of assumed it was all in their heads - you know, like different wines actually having different qualities, or separating eggs making any difference to the eventual cake. But the pizza was perceptably different - thicker dough - and really, really great. We tried to eat at Da Michele, a very famous pizzeria not too far from our hotel, but the crowd looked a bit mental, so we headed to an also quite famous pizzeria round the corner and got involved. Drinking excessively certainly does NOT seem to be a Napolitan vice: everyone else in the pizzeria was drinking coke, and the waiter raised his eyebrows when we ordered a beer EACH: "Two, are you sure?" The menu was spartan: marinara (tomato sauce and herbs), margherita (+ mozzerella) or about six variations on the margherita, adding just one topping each time. Whilst I do theoretically appreciate the italian focus on good quality, fresh, simple food, I also constantly bitch that they take it TOO FAR with the simplicity!!! Is it really a crime to put more than three ingredients on a pizza?? guess what, onions MAKE THINGS BETTER!! I also frequently sneer at people who order a margherita pizza in a restaurant: oh yeah, don't try anything new, it might threaten your world order. However, on this occasion Emily and I said alright, "when in Naples [oh hang on, that joke doesn't work outside Rome, does it? well anyway]...let's go for the margherita". And it was completely delicious.

Alot of tourists go to Napoli, and yet we still managed to feel like aliens. We were the only non-italians in the restaurant, and eventually the waiter plucked up the courage to ask us where we were from. "From England, but we live in Rome." "Oh, you have boyfriends in Rome?" "No -" shit, shit, when am I going to remember to lie in answer to that question?? "we work there." Next thing we knew, he'd gone off to tell the kitchen staff and there were pizza chefs peering round the partition at us, seriously, it was ridiculous. We got a bit of attention and harrassment over the weekend but luckily nothing seriously scary or threatening. (I had been considering dying my hair brown before we went, fed up with hassle from strange men and blaming it on being blonde, but then decided I was being hysterical...in the event, I still think it might have helped, but hey, I'd probably look stupid, and maybe that's Letting The Misogynists Win).

After pizza we refused the waiter's kind invitation to go for a giro with him and his friend in his car and escaped to via Tribunali, one of the main streets in the old town. It's gorgeous, I loved it - a really long narrow cobbled street, flanked by washing-strewn alleyways, badly maintained monuments, and churches. Gypsies rummaged through overflowing bins. Teenagers streaked past on scooters, yelling to their friends. We walked for kilometres in search of a bar and had almost given up hope ("people must not drink in this town! they just eat pizza!") when we stumbled across a beautiful little bookshop-bar with a dj pumping out some seriously weird music - Eminem followed by some kind of industrial-noise thing followed by country - crowds of people drinking "cocktails" that consisted of rum mixed with champagne, and others sitting down to games of chess. Fantastic. There were more people outside the bar than inside, as the no-smoking law seemed to be pretty much the only one that people followed, and alot of people smoked.

After a couple of (reasonably-priced) drinks and a bit of small-talk with a weird guy from Milan who'd been teaching italian in Russia, we explored further and found a piazza with several more bars, and stumbled home very happily at about 2am.

Next day, Sunday, we were woken early by church bells and annoying people making noise in the corridor (I remembered that hotels are always obsessed with cleaning the rooms at silly hours of the morning, and this is why I prefer hostels) but, both being knackered from work, managed to grab a few more hours sleep and didn't head out til 11ish. First, coffee - which, yes, is also perceptibly different in Napoli, ridiculously strong! I could barely drink it! - and pastries; I tried the sfogliatelle, which are shell-shaped ricotta-filled pastries and kind of delicious but also a bit confusing - too much crunchy pastry. Then we explored the street market near our hotel before heading back into the centro storico. We did some marvelling inside the duomo and then got bogged down in scary amounts of people in the little streets where there is a market for presepe.

"Presepe" are these kind of very elaborate nativity scenes, as you might find in a church but which here people often have in their homes, with figures about the size of playmobile people (but much more serious and less plastic-y, obviously). Napoli is famous for them, and they come complete with many special features - including streams wiht real running water, little bulbs to make the fires look real, hillsides, shepherds, farm animals, etc. There were streets and streets of shops and stalls in Napoli selling them...some more traditional and some more exotic. (Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds - no one, barring Richard Dawkins, is going to argue they weren't at the nativity; but the napolitan presepe makers are getting creative. A woman, ironing clothes? a baker putting bread in the oven? a pizzaiolo? who knew pizza was a typical dish in Roman-occupied Palestine?? These are mechanical moving figures which are completely enchanting, mind, and I guess they spice things up a bit: who wasn't getting bored with the stable?). There were also christmas ornaments, foods, and lots of little charms involving chilli peppers (I have no idea why. Can someone please explain to me the significance of the chilli pepper in Napolitan Christmas symbolism?) and cards and games...it was fantastic. There were also aLOT of people; the crowds were quite crazy and we soon gave up on trying to plan where to go and just allowed ourselves to be bourne along by the current, endeavouring not to get separated.

Eventually, just when it was all getting a bit too much, the crowd thinned and we managed to duck into a calmer street and found a bar to have lunch in. Lunch was a nicely salty ricotta-filled pastry for me, and a crazy, rather unappetising prosciutto and cheese thing for Emily which was apparently called a panino napolitano. (The barman helpfully tried to translate that into english for us but got a bit stuck: "typical Napolitan...panino". haha. I didn't bother to teach him the word "sandwich", seeing as it was my day off).

After lunch we walked further, checking out a couple of churches and eventually making it to the seafront, where the view of the Castel Nuovo, the Castel dell'Ovo, and the bay really took our breath away. The way Mount Vesuvius towers over the city is really superb...as is the way the city rises so sharply up from the port to the Castel d'Elmo...it was sunset and the sky was streaked with orange, pink and purple. Beautiful. We walked along the seafront for a while and by this time were exhausted. After a quick peak in the domed church which dominates piazza Plebiscito, and which is modelled on the Pantheon so closely as to be slightly disorienting, we managed to locate a bus to take us back up the hill to the hotel.

The bus was ridiculously, horribly crowded, and given that we were in crime-ridden Napoli we were both a bit terrified - especially me, as I had both my and Emily's cash in my jeans' pockets. We clung on as the bus navigated through the crazy traffic, coaches pulling out in front of it, cars not stopping, and then a woman near me asked if I'd seen anyone get off the bus. "erm, no..." her camera had disappeared from the case which she was wearing round her neck. She seemed pretty calm about it but I felt so bad for her but also didn't know what to say!! since I was nearest I was kind of concerned that she might think I'd taken it, but wasn't sure how to proclaim my innocence without seeming paranoid/mental/rude, so I didn't try. Thank goodness I was more lucky and didn't have anything taken.

After a quick power nap we hit the streets in search of more food, and this time, in my quest to eat something a little different and local, I made an ordering error, ending up with a folded pizza full of ricotta, mushrooms AND HORRIBLE HAM STUFF. I'm normally so careful about asking if things contain meat but for some reason I'd got distracted. Having ordered the pizza and then cut it up and started eating it, my Englishness prohibited me from sending it back due to the meat content, so I opted to just suck it up and eat it like the bad vegetarian that I am. (If anyone reading this tries to use this as evidence to make me eat meat in future, just think: I try to stick to my (environmental) principles, but don't you think it's important to be flexible?) It was quite nice anyway, I love ricotta but don't really enjoy that type of tasteless ham-y meat even besides being vegetarian. Moral of this story - just order a margherita!! After limoncello we hit the streets again in search of bars and nightlife and ended up finding a piazza crowded with hip young things. It's all about hanging about outside in Napoli, so just as well we had such fantastic weather - it was positively warm compared to Rome.

On Monday we left the hotel and headed into the centre on the metro this time, not wanting to tire ourselves out with walking before we reached any new sights. The metro station ticket machine was operated by a 9-year old girl who controlled the queue, instructing everyone as to what to do. "What type of ticket do you want? do you have change? No, don't use that machine, it's broken." She was so assertive that it was kind of charming despite obvious concerns like "where do you sleep? where are your parents? should this child really be "working"?" so we gave her some change. We managed to navigate the system and took a funicular railway up the steep hillside above the port to the star-shaped Castel d'Elmo, from which there was a simply fantastic view. Napoli looked quite different to Rome, which must be partly due to the very different histories - Napoli was controlled by the Spanish for years, and they were the ones to build all these castles.

Listening to the dialect was interesting - I couldn't understand a word. It is, apparently, recognised as being a separate language from Italian. Even the local accent confused me and I found it harder to understand what people were saying. I also got into a mild argument with a guy in a bar when I used a slang word that people use in Rome - provolone for a man who tries it on with alot of women, and he told me that word didn't make sense...I stuck to my guns and insisted that this was a word used in Rome! very useful strategy, like how any time I don't understand someone I claim they must be speaking in dialect.

After a lovely lunch in a tiny little trattoria (to take the orders to the kitchen the waitress just turned round and hollered "Mamma!!") it was time to head back to the hotel, check out, remember to collect our passports and sample some Napolitan icecream - yet another food which is allegedly different there; it was nice, but we judged it too sweet - before we got our train. We had a minor incident on the train back because we hadn't stamped our tickets to validate them (we'd tried, but couldn't find the machine) and the ticket inspector tried to get us to pay a 50 euro fine each. As you can imagine, we were upset - this would have royally messed up our cheap-break plan - and helpfully a number of other passengers intervened on our behalf, pointing out that we were foreign and didn't know any better (we strategically kept our mouths shut about living in Italy) and eventually, the inspector let us go with an instruction "Next time you come to Italy - stamp your ticket!" we agreed.

So all in all, a charming weekend away. See, this is why I update my blog so rarely - I can't seem to resist writing a novel every time I sit down to it! If you've made it this far, well done and thank you.