Year

It's been a year since we came to Ponte San Pietro. This means that I've spent quite a big part of my life here, and Irene has spent, well, all her life here. In fact, for her the world begins and ends right here in our little town. Actually I can't remember at all that I've lived somewhere else, and few weeks ago when I went with mum and Irene to Pavia and mum kept saying, once we lived in this street; this is your old kindergarten; you used to play here, I thought she was just joking -I can't remember anything about Pavia (although it did look slightly familiar), or my memories are buried so deep in my brain that I had a hard time pulling them out there and then.

We like Ponte San Pietro. It is a small town, and we live in the town's center. Every day we walk through the center to go to kindergarten. We cross the river Brembo, we pass 6 cafès and meet a lot of people going to work or bringing their children to school or kindergarten, or just heading off for their favourite coffee-bar for breakfast. We exchange words with some of them, greet some, nod our head to many and then there are some that are so lost in their own thoughts that still after a year they can't remember ever having seen us. There are the shop-owners and bartenders that stand outside their shops and exchange a few words. There is the group of men that no matter the weather, time of day, or whether the cafè is open or not, will be found smoking outside one of the bars we pass. They are far to busy analysing Atalanta's last match and wont move when a mum with two babies has to pass on the tiny sidewalk of the narrow road, but will keep their breath and their beer-bellies "in" when the bus passes, -if not the bus won't make it around the corner where the cafè stands. A lot of old ladies stop to tell us how cute me and Irene are, and many old gentlemen pat me on my head (I actually hate it) and giggle to Irene and so a micro-friendship evolve and more and more people move from the greeting-category to the chat-category and sometimes it can take ages just to walk to kindergarten. We've started to form friendships as well, mainly with people in nearby towns, but I have the feeling that mum knows all parents of young children in Ponte and everyone seems to know my name!

Ponte is quite a pretty town, or let's say that it has it's pretty sides. Here is one -these two pictures show the view from the old bridge over Brembo (the one we pass many times a day on the way to and from kindergarten), and the view towards that bridge. The bridge is maybe the most important structure of the town, for it was THE bridge over Brembo in the old days, and because of it Ponte developed as a commercial town and became what it is today.

And here is another one that shows and old courtyard where the outdoor theater is held in summer (you can see the stage if you look well).

And here is an archway that we pass every day, and through it you can see the old church and the bell tower of the new church.
Every town in Italy is crammed with history, and so is Ponte. Unfortunately much of the town was ruined during the WW (being a strategic point) but if one looks closely there are interesting historical points hidden here and there. Here are two examples that mum has come across, one is an old austrian cannon-ball from italy's second war of independence 1859, buried into the wall of a house by the river. The other one is a sign on first floor (above the street) on one of the houses that stand by the bridge over Brembo and it says that during floodings in the year 1646, the level of the river arrived just there - quite incredible if you ask me!
But although we appreciate many things about our little town, there are many things that could be better. E.g. the walk by the river could be made attractive (note that I didn't write MORE attractive, for it isn't attractive at all today -actually it is dirty and attracts only drunk people and people that contribute to making the place more dirty), the beauty of the houses by the river could be used more in favour of the city. There are spots like this one, in front of one of the 6 bars that we pass every day -full of pigeon-poop, that hasn't been cleaned so much as ONCE in this year that we've been here -maybe they are waiting for the piegeons to clean it by themselves, or for it to reach an acceptable level so that they can plant roses directly in the dirt. And there is this house, that is on the street that crosses the center and is just about to fall a part. It is owned by 2 or 3 cousins that can't agree about what to do with it, except to let it rotten and become an ugly landpost.
What is so contrasting to the degrading state of the town is the price of the items you can find in the shops here. I find it really strange that in a small town like this there can be 4-5 fashion-shops with prices so high that a pair of trouses cost more than a monthly salary of an operaio.
There are many initiatives in Ponte, weekends of market, street fairs, an amusement park on the square in front of the town hall (for 2 weeks in june), chocholate-feast, christmas market, the presepe by the river, a spring-party and you just name it. Most of them are sponsored by the shop-owners, but sometimes I wonder if they really attract people to come to shop in Ponte, for if the people only find shops here that are far too exclusive for any normal person (I doubt that those who can afford a 450 € T-shirt come for a street-fair) and if the town has nothing else that can attract (such as a well kept and interesting walking path or a park by the river-side, or nice cafè by the river, or some origina, interesting and affordable shops) then those who come from other towns to these intiatives won't be back to spend some money!
Sometimes mum wonders if she should start a group of people that wants to make Ponte more beautiful, a few simple things could make such a change...

Shocked!

Mum is so speachless that she has to try and put it in words! The reason is that she just found out that one cannot bring a home-made cake to the kindergarten!!!
Today is Iceland's national day, and since we didn't celebrate my birthday in kindergarten, and since I've been asking when it's my turn to have a tanti auguri day there, mum asked the kindergarten-teachers if she could bring cakes for Iceland's national day so that I could have my party! Not a problem, they said. Bring a cake! So mum prepared a cake for me. Actually she prepared two, for there are many babies at the kindergarten. She made a nutritious carrot cake, with no white sugar and no butter and then she decorated it with a car and train-theme! By pure coincidence she mentioned it to a friend yesterday that she had been preparing the cakes
Oh, are you allowed to bring home-made cakes to the kindergarten? said her friend
Why not, said mum and was honestly a bit puzzled.
A call to the kindergarten this morning confirmed the fact. I'm sorry, didn't we tell you, no you cannot bring home made cakes to the kindergarten, did you already make them? said the teacher. Of course she already made them, why else would she call to ask 10 minutes before I was to leave for kindergarten? And just as good that mum found out BEFORE she actually brought them to the kindergarten!!! As mum had already mentioned to me that I would have a cake at kindergarten she couldn't just skip the whole thing as she was tempted to do, and was forced to go to the bakery to buy a cake. Maybe if mum had known before, she could have chosen a bakery or ordered a cake that was suitable for kindergarten, but instead we had to buy a cake selecting from those on display. So, rather than a nutritious carrot cake I brought two uninspiring pasta frolla and crostata with jam on top.... loads and loads of butter and white sugar and nothing at all to indulge the babies' fantasy. But the cakes are GUARANTEED, they are of KNOWN ORIGIN and so the director of the kindergarten can safely feed the kids with it.

My mum was a bit shocked, a bit sad and very very sorry, and she can't help but asking herself WHY it is not allowed to bring home-made cakes to the kindergarten!

Have there been many cases where babies have got food-poison from eating home-made cakes?
I can't remember hearing about it -and that kind of thing is bound to make the headlines!

Is it so that the parents cannot deliberately add poison to the food (as if the couldn't add it to a bought cake if they wanted!). I can't remember hearing about that kind of thing either, but we have become so terrified of just about anything that it wouldn't surprise mum if there was a mention of cakes and kindergarten in the anti-terrorist laws!

Searching for the answer on internet, mum found two contrasting information, both from ASL (the local sanitary agency), one that says that cakes brought to kindergarten have to be preconfectioned or made by bakeries that follow the hygenie-standards and the receipt has to be shown to proof their origin (my ass!). The other encourages parents to give babies home-made cakes rather than commercial ones. So parents are encouraged to risk to poison only their own kids but contibute to fattening and making the life of other kids if not slightly poorer -at least from the fantasy point of view! No wonder that many italian kids seem to grow up with commercial merendina and snacks, that birthday-parties are thrown in pizzerias or at MacDonalds (would parents have forbidden their kids to come to my birthday-party if mum made a cake for it -I wonder). Mum always thought she could blame all this on too little time, too busy parents...but now she has to rethink it all!
As you might guess, mum is eating the cake right now (the one that she didn't freeze for later use) -can I please ask you to check on her soon to see if she is still OK!

The "NO" epidemy

First there was the bird-flu and half the human population went ga-ga. Tv and newspapers were full of stories of dead birds (suspected to have died from the flu) and of the few people who actually did have problem with it. Whoever dared sneezing in public was looked upon with suspect and the prize of chicken-meat was so low that it was basically irresponsible for any economically-minded family not to cook chicken for every meal. Then the epidemy "evaporated", we stopped hearing about it and we have no idea if birds are still dying from it or if humans have suffered it in the past couple of years. Recently we got the swine-flu, which got much less publicity, nobody cancelled their trip to Mexico and pork did not get cheap enough to be chewed on every-day. The media didn't talk enough about it for the stock value of the farmaceutical industry to pick up and in the end it sort of evaporated as the bird-flu. I don't know if the media has just been saturated with flu-news, but no one seems to have gone into panick with the "NO"-epidemy, even if it seems to be so contagious that all my family is severely affected!
First there is Oscar who has basically got a no written on his forehead. His day can go like this:
Oscar shall we go and have breakfast? NO
Oscar, let's go and get dressed! No
Oscar, it's time to go to kindergarten! NO
Oscar, lets go back home from kindergarten! NO
Shall we go to the park. No
Shall we go back home from the park. NO
Oscar, it's dinner time. NOm I said NO!
Oscar, do you want icecream for desert? YESSSS
Oscar, come and brush your teeth. NO
Let's go to bed. NO
Goodnight Oscar. NO....eh, notte notte

Then it's me. I've learn't to say neineinei and shake my head and it's really amusing doing that during meals. First mum gives me my pappa. I eat a few teaspoons and then I start shaking my head and say neineinei. Mum can get quite desperate trying to get me to finish my food or trying to find out what I can eat if the baby-pappa is no longer wanted by me. I make sure that whatveer she comes up with will only work for a very short while! What a fun.

Finally there is mum and dad who recently have been attacked by the NO-bacillus. Before the were smitten, I only got applause and praise for whatever I did. Now it's just the opposite: No Irene, don't play with the toilet-water. No irene, don't chew on the electricity-cables. No Irene, don't eat dad's shoes. No Irene, don't touch the disaster zone while I'm changing the diaper. No Irene, don't wake up at 5 o'clock every morning! No Irene, no no no!

So no doubt, we are all affected by this flu. But the question is, who got it first and who contaged whom! Did I get smitten from Oscar's NONONO, or did he get it from mum and dad, or mum and dad from me? And has anyone else got it from us? There are many unanswered questions!