After school on Thursday I accompanied a group of students from our high school to a center in the city that works with immigrants, homeless, addicts and other needy peoples in the area.  Students from the school have been volunteering there every Thursday for the past couple of years.  The organization is called Sermig.  Sermig is housed in an old military arsenal that is now called the "Arsenal of Peace".  Cheesy but sincere.  It's a semi religious organization that has branches in Brasil and Jordan.  They have youth programs, a hospital, an immigrant help center, tutoring, homeless beds, battered women's center, name it, they do it.  The people who work there make me feel very inadequate.  They are tireless volunteers or employees making diddily-squat but who are so happy to be doing what they do.  I am a slug.  xxoo

Entrance

clothing distribution

Our kids walking to packaging area

Isn't that HORRIFYING!  Yes folks, that is an eye.  This is what greeted me this morning when I opened the fridge.  Something I do not appreciate about Italians is their complete refusal to deny that packaged meat comes from an animal!  Personally I have been doing it for years and I do not want to come to terms with reality at this late date.  I'm making GP cook the bunny.  I may or may not eat it.  And right before Easter too.  xxoo me

Is it cruel to say speech impediments on little children are the cutest thing!  There is a tiny girl in nursery who speaks with her tongue half way out of her mouth.  It is so damned cute.  Unfortunately I can't understand a word she says and neither can anyone else.  All I hear is "tha tha tha tha tha tha tha".  I do hope the situation improves before it is no longer cute.  So that aside..

A couple times a year GP and I make a pilgrimage to the Langhe, the hilly wine region about 40 minutes from here, to have dinner with a very old friend and about 20 of his buddies.  GP has known Riccardo since school.  Riccardo has "gone native".  He grew up in a grand elegant apartment in the city.  His friends called him "the little lord" because he was the only child of old-monied parents who insisted he study the piano and Latin and such.  They had a country house in Langhe and a boatload of inherited property.  At about 16 Riccardo rebelled, dropped out of school and opened a car radio shop but he refused to work on Saturdays because he wanted to sleep in.  After that it was one thing or another but nothing ever stuck because basically all he wanted to do was play music with his buddies and eat and drink.  About 30 years ago his parents gave up the city place and moved to the country house.  Over the next 10 years he and his mother managed to blow all of their money by buying and mismanaging a hotel, restaurant and wine dealership.  But now finally he's happy.  He lives in a small but nice apartment in a high village with a little terrace over looking the vineyards and the mountains beyond.  He's named his terrace, loosely translated from Piemontese, (the local dialect), "the fat terrace" and many a calorie have been consumed there.  He works for a shipping company 9 - 5 and spends most evenings playing the accordion in someone's wine cellar, drinking and eating salami.  He has a huge network of friends and is happiest when playing host and entertainer which is what he did last night.  Gone are the days of fine dining and intimate dinners that we all used to enjoy.  Now it's an evening in a "joint", last night a sort of local sports club, with tons of traditional country cooking (cheese, cheese and more cheese.  Oh, and sausage) and wine by the barrel and Riccardo and friends singing and playing in a corner.  The music is old folk songs in various dialects that I don't understand.  It's very much like the Arcadian stuff you hear in Quebec and New Orleans.  They undoubtedly all have their roots in Southeastern France as up until recent history, this area was part of Provence.  After a night like that I want nothing more than a week of salad and water.  I just can't do it anymore.  I'll spend most of today shuffling around the house worrying about my cholesterol and hoping my gallbladder doesn't explode.  xxoo me

the entertainment

my downfall

John Oliver just did a piece on Italy's upcoming elections.  In fact the Italian election is all over the news right now.  They're all right.  Most of the politicians running for office are dismal and the system is a hot mess but that's not the complete story.  Oliver emphasized the right wingers who sadly, as right-wing as they seem here, would be pretty mainstream in the US.  Oliver didn't mention the myriad of center left and left-wing parties.  And there are the anarchists and communists and green parties etc.  There have certainly been protests.  The anti-fascists are marching against the fascists and the center-right are marching against the current government.  The biggest issue is that there are 600,000 recent African immigrants in the country and if 10 percent of them have criminal intent, that is a lot.  As the economy is slow Italians resent the fact that millions of euro are going to house, feed, clothe and provide phones for all of these refugees.  And yet, there has been only one major act of violence against them, a shooting in central Italy by a white supremacist nutcase that injured six and killed none.  It shocked the nation.  Unemployment in young people is very high and the national debt is huge.  And why is it huge?  Because in the midst of all this chaos, the country still manages to provide the essentials to it's residents.  Housing, education and healthcare.  Add the fact that food is cheap and what else do you need?  So life goes on.  Gun deaths are very rare and mostly limited to the mafia, both perps and victims.  Were there just ONE school mass killing like the one in Florida here, the entire country would be on the streets.  This place is a political, bureaucratic clusterfuck and that's not going to change.  But sadly, with the state of affairs in the US right now, I have to ask myself what's worse?  I know that I would not want to have a kid in school there, where here they'd be perfectly safe.  I would be terrified of being without health insurance and becoming seriously ill there.  Here, I'm covered.  Gays can marry and adopt,  renewable energy and infrastructure are greatly invested in and there ain't no nukes.  There are no redneck governors making life a nightmare for anyone who isn't a conservative white male.  I bitch and complain simply because I can.  I miss Maine terribly.  But seeing from here what the US is becoming is heartbreaking.  I pray that when the time comes for me to plop my retired backside down in one place that it can be stateside but right now, this place isn't looking too bad.  Just sayin'.  xxoo me