Get Thee to a Nunnery

Trains, trains, and automobiles




View from the convent








Our suite










Cloisters. I love cloisters.










St. George frescoes









Ladies of the convent at the fountain with 99 spouts




After taking various trains and buses from Rome, I had a very picturesque drive through several increasingly small hill villages. Then the bus driver dropped me on the side of a road between open fields, and pointed up the hill. That’s where the convent is.

I hauled my suitcase up the longest hill in the world, and “hello’d” a bit until I found some people inside. Lunch was happily ready, so took my case up to the bunk-bedded room, and went straight down to meet the participants in this week’s instalment.

There’s an older Italian man, Nanni, MariaAngela (also Italian), her boyfriend/husband Andrea (French), and their three-month old baby, Nina. They and two dogs are the permanent residents. There are Andrea’s aunt and mother, who are just here for a long weekend. There’s a Korean girl, Chin Hee (sp) who is 10 years younger than I, and lost no time in pointing that out. Cheers.

Lunch was lovely; pasta with rabbit ragout, potato salad, cheese, crusty peasant bread, and red wine for everyone but me and the baby. All served in brown pottery bowls.

The convent’s beautiful. It’s set on a hill between snowy mountains, and you trip over Roman remains every time you step outside (not the least of which include a Bacchalian temple). There are frescoes, cloisters, long corridors that glow from the wall sconces in the evenings. We eat in the refectory on long wooden tables, and the only heating comes from a stove in the tiny, cosy, TV room.

I unpacked, went for a walk around the hill, and sat in a meadow for a while. After Rome, the peace is wonderful. I wonder if I’ll be stir crazy after a week.

***

I was a scullery maid today. It was my turn to help inside the house, so I was in the kitchen at 7, setting the table for breakfast, and washing dishes. I feel like I’ve been washing dishes ALL DAY, in-between mopping and sweeping. However, there are moments that make it special. Opening a door looking for a staircase to sweep, and finding the 400 year old church, complete with carved altarpiece and frescoes; seeing the dawn sunshine on the mountains; having the mostly silent Nanni push pits of cheese and yummy fried vegetable snacks at me to try while chopping vegetables for tonight’s minestrone.

***

Our cast has expanded. We have two French girls, Daphne and Sophie, an Englishman, John (the oldest, at about 60), another Korean (Jun), two Finns, (Johanni and Johanna - but they’re not twins, they don’t even know each other). Johanna is five months pregnant, closer to my age, and I think we’ll be convent friends. Apparently there are to be two Mexicans in addition– I’m not sure if the Noah’s ark pairing of nationalities was intentional, but I’m once again glad that English is the world’s common language.

***

Today I am farm girl. Well, I started out as farm girl, and ended up as engraver. I t was my turn to feed the animals, so I got up early to make some chickens and sheep very happy (I don’t love goats, so don’t care if they’re happy or not). Then we breakfasted (and joy, it was no longer my turn to wash dishes), and went out to pull weeds. After a couple of hours of that, I was about ready to go back to the dishes, so I was quite happy to switch with Daphne and spend the rest of the day using a hot iron to burn a map into wood for a big trail sign. D. was getting very bored. I have a feeling D. is going to get bored a lot here.

***

Our Mexicans have arrived. We were outside in our rather sedate group, and we saw Andrea meeting someone at the gate, who grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks. “She must already know him,” said Johanna. “Or she’s just very friendly,” said I.

Nadia is very friendly. I think she’ll bring some life to our group. Alejandro too, who arrived during dinner, and who I think may be potential crush material for the French girls.

***

Unexpectedly fabulous dish of the day.

Peas cooked for an hour in garlic (I usually hate mushy peas), then drained, and served with some eggs broken on top to sort of poach. Seriously, it’s delicious. I’ll try it at home, but fear that there is a little Italian convent magic that goes into it that I will not be able to recreate. Nanni crushes garlic cloves with one blow of the side of his hand, by the way. I love garlic, but I fear that I will be smelling of it for years to come. It’s getting into my bones.

Exchange of the day.

Nadia: Oh, I need a cigarette. I am so glad Andrea has a lighter, I need a cigarette so bad [lighting up and turning to me]. Now what do you do for a living?
Me: I help people stop smoking.
Nadia: High five!

Nightlife in Goriano Valli

The convent is just outside the little village (120 people, including just one baby boy (we all hope Nina and he like each other)) of Goriano Valli. There is one shop; a pizzeria/bar (which incidentally sells Hall’s cough sweets, polenta, a really cute bunny-shaped Easter cake, Ghanaian chocolate, postcards, but sadly no toothpaste, and I am almost out). The women of the village go there in the afternoons. The men go in the evenings. Pizza is only on Saturday nights, and I’m pretty sure they don’t deliver – in fact we put our Saturday night order in yesterday (Wednesday) as we ran into Luca, the owner, who kindly opened up for us so I could feed my chocolate addiction. So Saturday night we are hitting the town, and I really hope the pizza doesn’t come in a box with DiGiorno written on it.

***

I am an old, old lady. Seriously – it’s 9 p.m. and I’m walking around in pjs (actually workout clothes because my clothes are drying out by the donkeys), with white socks and orange clogs, getting ready for bed. Very attractive. Johanna just laughed at me. (To add to the sex appeal, I haven’t showered since yesterday, because we all keep missing the hot water hours -there’s hot water twice a day, and after a stone-cold shower the first morning, I decided hygiene was overrated). J’s going to bed too, but has more of an excuse. However, I am quite happy to be going to bed at the same time as the pregnant girl and the shy (we think homesick) Korean girl. However, I don’t have that “but if I go to bed now I will miss out on the fun” feeling of my youth – at least, only a twinge. Mostly I’m happy to be getting into my warm sleeping bag. The convent is a little frio at night. In addition, D. is in open warfare with A. over some bruschetta (long story involving shouting in French), and I keep thinking “I would have felt like that at her age,” and being glad I’m not that age any longer. Yes, I am old, and it’s rather pleasant.

We’ve settled into a routine. Early morning breakfast, work (J. and I fortunately get paired off a lot in the easy jobs –she being preggers and me either being company for her or looking frail or something). Lunch at one, where we gorge like starving animals, finish work at 4, after which J and I usually walk to the village, I yoga, we watch a bad Italian game show, dine, wash up, and go to bed while the kids watch movies in the boys’ room, John being too nice to kick them out. It’s concurrently relaxing and pleasantly tiring.


Bright Lights Big City

L’Aquila, here we are! Show us your gelato, your junk food, your markets, and your toothpaste! It’s Saturday and we all took the bus into the big city (which looked rather small on my arrival here earlier in the week). It all seems very crowded and bustling. We visited the castle, the basilica, and the Fountain of the 99 Spouts.

***

Happy moments.

Sunday afternoon.

After a long group hike on Sunday, taking a book, the Ensign, my blue shawl, and some chocolate into the cloisters, and spending an hour in the hammock chair listening to Johanni play guitar downstairs, and the bees humming. And the birds going nuts every so often.

The lichen forest.

Our hike took us through the woods in several places, and in one area, there was silver-green lichen everywhere – on the ground, in the trees like foliage; it gave the whole place a mystical, enchanted forest feel.

***

The chosen few

As we were waiting by the landrover this morning, Johanna said “we are the chosen ones.” As the day progressed, I started to agree more and more.
Last night there was more shouting in French across the dinner table. It had actually been a lovely peaceful Sunday, and then A. gave us our work assignments for the next day. John, Alejandro, Sophie, Johanna and I were to go with him and plant signs in the countryside. Everyone else was to weed, except CH and Daphne, who were to go back to etching. D. threw a French fit, and A. threw one right back at her.

Johanna’s theory is that A. simply picked the five people he liked best. We had a lovely day – a bit of path clearing, a picnic, some hiking around the endless castles and convents that dot the area (apparently the 99 Fountains represent the number of castles in the Abruzzo area), and we planted a few signs. The boys did the actual sign planting – our job was more or less to say “left a bit, right a bit”, so if you’re in Italy and see wonky path signs, I take full responsibility. We saw some absolutely stunning views, which I would share if I’d taken my camera with me. We climbed up to the Castello d’Ocre, which gave us a 360 view of the area, including a huge crater, which is believed to be the only meteorite site in Italy.

My Birthday.

After dinner, I was serenaded by Nadia singing Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” accompanied by Johanni in a different key. Nadia has a nice voice, but a very strong Mexican accent. At the end, John said, “did you make up some of the words yourself?”
Nadia: “Que?”
Me, hastily “Oh no, I think that was all Clapton.”
John: Some of the words were in Spanish, weren’t they? Did you make them up?

Then we all sang “Let it be” (they’d sung Happy B’day to me over breakfast), and John gave me some chocolate from Luca’s bar, and the convent choir adjourned.

In farming news, we have three little Capri (capretti?) Three little goats from the same mother, born yesterday. I realise this isn’t, you know, Rodin and Palaces, but it’s still rather fun.

***

Oh dear, more shouting over dinner, this time in Italian. I’m sure this can’t be good for the digestion. Nanni put the pasta and salad on the table, and reminded us not to mix them in our bowls (the Italian way is to eat the hot stuff first, so it doesn’t get cold). Well, either not understanding, or not caring, several people mixed their carbonara and salad. Oh, the humanity. Nanni came back from the kitchen, and saw. He slammed down the plate he was carrying, and yelled “I said NOT to mix the pasta!!” Then went off about how hard it was to make food for people who don’t appreciate it. I am learning some very bad words in Italian.

Speaking of bad words, Nadia’s madre is grateful to me, for I have taught her a new word: damn. Nadia’s previous favourite word was also English, and started with the letter F. After hearing it for the 50th time before breakfst this morning, my ears were starting to bleed, so I gave her a milder alternative, telling her that little old ladies in Wales (where she’s planning another work camp) would not like hearing the other one all day long. She said this evening that she’s been trying hard to use it all day, and she told her mother, who is very, very happy.

Nadia has also stopped smoking. Chiefly because she’s out of cigarettes, I suspect, but she’s very pleased. We’ll see if it lasts, but I got to give a long spiel (sp?) about quitting smoking over dinner (they ASKED me!).

I miracoli di San Giorgio

St. George is patron saint of our convent, and of England, plus he has the additional advantage of being the most glamourous saint – I mean, he killed a dragon! Very dashing. All the other saints were always dying in horrific ways, or having their eyes poked out or something.

Happy St. George’s Day (England’s day, and Shakespeare’s bday) on April 23rd, by the way.

Well, there are frescoes of him all over the place, and as I said, our convent is named for him, so during the last few days, I developed a (probably very annoying) habit of attributing good things to St. George. As in, the fog cleared up as we went outside: “it’s a miracle of St. George!”
Other miracles:
We finished the weeding.
The toilet paper was still in the bathroom where I left it (don’t ask).
There were oranges as well as apples in the larder for our morning snack.
There were more cakes in our junk food stash than the manufacturers claimed.


The circle of life.

No, I haven’t been to see the Lion King – I’m still at the convent. But the “circle of life” was Andrea’s central theme when describing their philosophy.

The project to restore the convent began about 15 years ago – it was pretty much a ruin then (I’ll add pics when I’ve got a faster internet connection). Then Nanni got involved, and it’s now a fairly comfortable, well-maintained building with goats, sheep (one adorable lamb born yesterday!), chickens (including a cockerel that never shuts up) donkeys, and a house all ready for a cow to live in.

They have a fairly extensive garden, keep bees, make their own jam, tomato sauce, either eat their own meat or buy from local farmers, and plan to start producing their own meat and cheese. The goal, besides restoration of the convent, is to be almost completely self sustaining. We’ve finishing a greenhouse so they can lengthen their vegetable season. They also work on path clearinign and maintenance in the surrounding area, so encourage eco-friendly tourism.

I like their setup, and it’s exciting to hear about their plans to expand, including a shop in the tiny village, where they can sell their produce and other fair trade items.

N., M., and A. have basically dedicated their lives the project. I’m dedicating a week and a half, and I feel good about that. Ten days of mopping floors, gardening, and brush clearing is novelty and fun in my current office-based life. And the scenery helps. But I like my usual comfortable bed, dental care, laptop, shoes, and future potential ipod. I like being able to put on makeup and a dress, and aforesaid shoes, and got out to a nice restaurant or concert once in a while.

Being here is great. It lets me put aside all the inessential material things for a while. I’m glad there are people like A, M, and N, who are dedicated to creating and maintaining beauty, our environment, and our place in the circle of life. It’s easy to forget that there is a circle, and to see life as a big pyramid with us and our stuff on top. I want to be sort of inbetween. Can I be an oval of life? A bit more for me, a bit less for the cows. In return, I promise to keep buying organic milk, and not eating veal.
***
Goodbye to silence, and other monastic values

I just realised that I got my itinerary all wrong. Maria went to Salzburg AFTER leaving the convent, not before.

Last night being our last evening, Nanni became expansive over dinner. He talked about the cycle of the garden to the table, to the garden (through compost and animal scraps), about eating food in season, about the importance of a “chromatic presentation,” and how it helps with “the mouth watering and the digestive enzymes.” The convent is part of the slow food movement, emphasising the joy of food, and of savouring it, of using it to energise the body. He said now we have a little more knowledge, and we “have now the responsibility to share the joy of Italian eating.”
He said “why do I not talk like this before tonight? Because I see you, and you, and you [pointing to me, Johanna, and John] have some interest in food. Not YOU!” pointing at Johanni. “I do not bore the others with my words, who mix their pasta, and do not care. It is that after 15 years of cooking for volunteers, it is depressing, to see them eat like that.”

And you can see his point. Food is part of the experience of travel (I'm embarrassed to note that my three chief topics are a)food, b)not showering, and c) chocolate (more food)), and it’s fun to be immersed in it (the experience, not the food), and to eat three meals a day Italian style rather than have a night in an Italian restaurant.

After dinner, Nanni brought out the grappa and glasses, (“it’s the last night, it’s ok to get drunk”), and Johanna and I left the boys to uphold the volunteer drinking honour.