Monday, November 1, 2010

Wool for the Skin

Days Thirty-One & Two

Rosa's insanity continued on Saturday as we continued our chestnut picking rituals, but this time it was more progressive. In the morning, she came downstairs and told us that if we were to work all day Saturday & Sunday, we could have Monday & Tuesday off. This was perfect because then, we could just leave two days early as our original exit date was to be Wednesday. We tell her that we will work those days, but would collectively decide if we would like to go to Naples or not. "As you like," she responds, which half the time is genuine and the other half is passive-aggressive nonsense.

We pick chestnuts, as per usual, and fill the bags. Lunch. More picking. Dinner. We then talk to Rosa and tell her that we will leave on Monday as she said, but that we will not return. She is confused- Why is everyone leaving? We explain that we had told her that Wednesday was our last day, and if we were to get Monday and Tuesday off it would make so sense to make the trip just to get our stuff. She seems to get it, but still is overcome with worry because it means that she will lose 4 workers in one day. Even though she had just told us this morning that more were coming, and that the chestnut harvest has ended, suddenly she doesn't know when they will be arriving, or if she will have enough volunteers.

Her crazy was all gone the next morning. We were all tripping out because it had apparently been daylight savings the previous night (and thank God, because we had stayed up till 1am!) and Rosa was already up and assembling lasagna. She told us that we would finally be having it (she had been promising it for a week), and did not begin picking chestnuts until 9:30am. Time dragged on, but we pushed through- knowing it was our last day was both a blessing and a curse. The lasagna was amazing. I was dreading it because she said she put hard boiled eggs in it and I thought that sounded disgusting…but trust an Italian woman….it was amazing. She had a vegetarian lasagna made as well as a meat one, followed by 4 heads of steamed broccoli, a bowl of boiled onions, a pan of chicken breast, and bread. Stuffed to the gills, were then pleasantly surprised to find out that we would not be picking anymore chestnuts! Instead, we would be returning to her sister's restaurant to finish cleaning.

We only stayed for about an hour, pretty much doing nothing, before Rosa drove us to the mountain-top town of Montefusco, about 700 meters higher in elevation than Montefalcione. You could see the lights of every surrounding village. It was pretty beautiful. She walked us around the town, just because she thought we should see it. It was amazing having the old Rosa back, especially for our last day. It would have been so horrible to have ended our stay here on the negative note that was left in the air just two days ago.

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