Family.

Off to visit family in Bratislava! In the meantime here is a great article a friend wrote for the Smith newspaper about i Rom, enjoy and wish me luck!

A taste of home

Life has been busy and I don't really know where to start. I guess with the fact that Marisa and I finally united in Europe, something we have been talking about since AP Modern Euro senior year of high school, if not before. It was great to be together again, and our time together was almost surreal as we wandered the streets of Venice on Valentine's Day, ate gelato, and had our normal conversations while over looking the duomo of Florence from San Miniato, a spot that has come to be one of my favorites this year. It was really refreshing to be with someone who I know well, and who knows me, because it was almost like going home for a weekend.

However we weren't in Northampton anymore, and I'm still not, I'm living in Italy and it's amazing. Today I woke up, hopped on a bus, then a train and arrived in Pistoia for my second day of work at Marino Marini, a Montessori style pre-school 30 minutes outside of Florence, in the community of Pistoia, that focuses on teaching its students about the environment and science. I am working with three year olds that have already collected olives from the school's oliveti (olive orchards) to make olive oil, gathered herbs from nature walks to make pizza, and started a greenhouse. When I arrived it was tea and biscotti time, followed by story telling and an adventure to find the bunnies that we read about and their burrows. In the search we found a donkey, sheep, seed pods, rocks, stones and even a burrow, but no bunnies.

After work I meandered home through the city center to go for a run and then stretch on my rooftop terrace, before grocery shopping and errands. It was pretty great. Tomorrow I return to the neuroscience lab where I have been working for the last few weeks as a special studies to continue our research on the effects of binge drinking on the brain. We have also been looking into possible preventative treatments against the neuro-inflammation we have seen as a result of the binge drinking that closely resembles the neuro-inflammatinon that occurs in many neuro-degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Not only do I love the research of this lab but they are also sending me to London in a month to work with their collaborators and see all aspects of the project that we are currently working on.

Needless to say my semester looks as though it is going to be great. I'm really just living in Italy, working with kids, doing my science thing, and enjoying the city, my host family, and my friends. The experience is constantly changing and getting better. I think that to be here for anything less then a year would have been difficult, despite the fact that I often miss Northampton, because I still haven't fully adjusted to the language or the culture here in Italy, but I am as time goes on, and everyday it feels more like just another home.

Wind Chime

Sitting on the bus during our week long journey through Sicily Christine turned to me and told me a story about her mom searching for the perfect wind chime. This perfect wind chime would make the sounds of grazing sheep in a meadow followed by their shepherd. Until Sicily I wouldn't have understood this request, but somewhere between the ocean and the roman temples we found these sheep grazing in the fields with the sound of their bells creating a hypnotic and beautiful noise. It really was the perfect wind chime.

In general the whole trip was amazing. But I believe pictures can tell it better then I can, so if you are interested take a look...

A New Year.

"And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been"
— Rainer Maria Rilke

As I welcome the new year in Italy I am excited by all of the possibilities that lie ahead of me this year, and in my life. For me it feels as if the new year is just about to start. Finals are ending, the sun has been out for the last week bringing with it warm weather and birds, and in one week I leave for Sicily with Smith for a break in between our two semesters.

I feel very fortunate, and am particularly excited for my new semester. I will be starting an internship at Marino Marini, an elementary school in Pistoia focused on nature, where I will be working with three year olds. As well as taking on a research assistant position in a Neuroscience lab at the University of Florence Medical school, in addition to one or two other courses. I hope to fill my weekends with travel, hiking, and work at an organic farm that I spent a beautiful day at last week. I am thankful for all that I have and I will work hard in making the most out of these amazing opportunities that are ahead of me.

What a year this will be.

La Befana

The Holidays were great. I got to share them not only with Smith friends, but also with mom, dad, Riley and Kate (and for one wonderful evening her whole family!) They were full of food, lights, and celebration!

With my beautiful mother and brother in Siena

With my favorite boys, on the old streets in front of the sede

One of the most unique parts of le feste in Italia (unique enough as they were) was the epiphany, when many florentines dressed in medieval garments paraded through the streets with drums, flags, cannons, oxen, bunnies, goats, donkeys, owls, hawks and more! Ending at a live nativity scene at the duomo where they gave presents to children and released balloons over the cathedral.

The three kings (Magi) in front of the gates to the Smith Center.

Not only was the parade on the epifany great, but we also celebrated the Befana, a witch like woman who missed seeing the baby jesus because she had to finish house chores and is thus left to wander the streets of Italy giving children presents in hopes that one of then may be baby jesus. In other words a female, pagan version of Santa. Needless to say I love her.

Strudel.

It really is only Christmas here. Not the holidays. There is really no getting around the fact that Italy is a pretty Catholic country. However, that being said, it is beautiful here right now. Christmas lights in the shapes of snowflakes, stars and curtains hover above the streets and christmas markets filled with traditional food, like roasted chestnuts, as well as crafts from all over Europe fill many of the piazzas. Today was a national holiday in honor of the immaculate conception, and tomorrow is the christmas party at Smith. This weekend Smith treated us to a show that was half a ballet to the music of Carmen and half opera, and my host mom has brought home a treat from the markets almost every night. Tonight it was apple strudel, warmed up with fresh cream on top. It made me nostalgic for the gatherings of my family and friends and the classic strudel stretching that usually occurs with them around christmas.

On another note, I went to Campo Rom last night, which always leaves me with a lot to think about. Last night, instead of venturing through the camps with Andrea I went off with another doctor, Paolo, and a few other volunteers. I was the only female in the group of five and I felt very aware of my gender throughout the night. The Rom have a more patriarchal culture then what I am used to, not that the US is not patriarchal, but within the camp I am often approached by then men in a way very different then they approach the other male volunteers However that is not the only reason gender was so prominent last night. I had already begun to think of the role of gender amongst the Rom when last week we visited three women whom all claimed to be "incinta" (pregnant) when only one really was, because of the status that pregnancy and maternity bring. In addition I noticed that even when the health issues are affecting the women most of the communicating is done through the men because the women have had no education. I now also want to learn more about how prominent violence against women is in the Rom community because one woman, who we diagnosed with scabies, told us that the reason she smokes is because her husband drinks too much and she is always nervous because of this.

In addition to my observations of gender roles I was asked by a group of Rom about the United States. They told me they wanted to go there to find work and live because there were no poor people there like them, and they would be able to find jobs easily. I corrected them and informed them that poverty is also very prevalent in the United States and that we have a very high un-employment rate, however I was amazed that they had such an optimistic and incorrect impression of the US. This was also asked to me by the only family I have seen that generate electricity just to have a television, thus I think this may have something to do with their ideas. What was interesting on top of the Rom's impression was the fact that one of the other older male volunteers interjected into the conversation that the Rom also wouldn't want to live in the US because we don't have a health care system like Italy. This is true, and Italy has a great health care system, yet I realized that although there does need to be a lost of reform within our country one of the reasons we have so many problems is because the US is huge and full of so many different kinds of people with different ideas. Therefore no solution is every found without a counter argument and there are many different lifestyles and cultures that need to be considered in every decision. This is no excuse for some of our policies, but I have noticed that American seems to have a fire in them that I haven't seen in Italy as much because we have had more to fight for and against.

Cimitero Degli Inglese

After reading the article on the Cimitero degli Inglese that I posted in the Rom entry on the 30th, I was inspired to journey up my street and find it. The cemetery is also known as the Island of the Dead, because it is a raised hill in the middle of a busy roundabout. However when I got there and met my friend Christine the cemetery was closed, disappointed we decided to walk around it and come back another time. However, as we turned to leave Julia, the nun from the article, walked out of her building and opened the large iron gates, letting us in. She was excited about our interest in the cemetery and not only let us in when it was closed, but gave us a tour complete with stories of the people who were buried there and the people who work there.

This is the main path leading up and around the cemetery

The tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in the middle is a broken slave shackle symbolic of her works against slavery

When Christine and I mentioned our work with the Rom and the article we had read she brought us into her library where we saw beautiful books produced by the Rom. One book was a vocabulary book, with terms helpful for doctors and health, that used pictures, Romanian, Italian, and Romany, the Rom's language. However the discussion also lead to the challenges facing the Rom and she told us that because of the animosity towards the Rom when the article we read was published the government stopped her from being able to give the Rom work. It was incredibly upsetting that this article that could have brought positive attention to the Rom and their stories resulted in negative consequences.