feb 5

Feb 5

The programme called for us to work in the lab this morning and go out to see in the afternoon. We woke up and ate breakfast (which is really more like drinking breakfast) at 8, then Julia and I had time to go with Andrea to the market. Which really means that we went to several small markets, all totaling a Publix run. The first stop was a general store, filled with an odd assortment of goods that made it hard to distinguish their typical customer. But first we had to get past the woman standing in the doorway, who apparently works there or owns the shop. She was the quintessential model of the modern Italian woman. The first impression of the woman, and the shop, was her boot. She was standing sideways, her weight shifted to her hind foot, looking into the shop. She stood with her hip popped, her upper body twisted so she could scrutinize the activity inside without removing her foot from the step. The camel boots wrapped tightly around her shins, propped up on a four inches of stiletto. Skin-tight, dark denim pants tucked into the boots. Getting dressed must have been quite an accomplishment, and she wanted the world to see what a fine job she had done. It didn’t seem to matter that the jeans (a word I’m sure she would scoff at) were several sizes to small for her body, which shows that she’s accustomed to pasta twice a day for her 50 years. (Again, I’m sure, she would scoff.) A puffy black jacket with faux-fur lining around the next and elastic wrists hugged her where the high-rise jeans left off. A tuff of probably carefully teased and sprayed dark hair with the occasional pearly streak topped off her pose. She was talking to someone inside, gesturing while nimbly balancing a cigarette between her fingers. Something-something ar-Ee. Something-something EppEe. Hands flying around the doorway, ashes crumbling towards her boot during every vowel-filled crescendo.

Andrea approached the door and asked, in Italian, if she could get through. For a moment I thought the woman was just going to use Andrea’s polite greeting as an ashtray and continue on with her conversation. As I watched her, it was her surprise at seeing me, more so than whatever Andrea said, that got her foot to slide to the side. She watched me squeeze through her doorway. An uncomfortable buon giorno and looking away was the best response I could muster.

And after all that, they didn’t have the phone card that Julia was looking for. Andrea told us afterward that she doesn’t like that store very much because the two women – one in the doorway and one behind the counter – speak to each in the Naples dialect when she enters or when she asks about an item. But that is the only place in town this season with the things they have. Here, the customer is not always right. We continued to a lottery shop for the phone card and the fruit store and made a stop at the harbor.

The wind was too strong all day to go out to sea, so we stayed in and worked in the lab. There is a lot of transcribed data that needs to be put into the database, plus photo ID to be done and acoustic recordings to be analyzed. It looks to me like it would take a windy month to get caught up, but they don’t seem all that concerned. Bruno is about to submit his latest paper for publication, so he has already interpreted the data that is most relevant now.

Lunch was, yes, pasta. Pasta con melanzana – eggplant. Since going out to sea was canceled, we had afternoon free time, followed by more lab work. So far we have only done transcription and database entry. I am really excited about the photo and acoustic interpretations. Bruno said that since neither Julia nor I are here to work on our own research, like a masters or PhD, we can get a better sampling of the full procedures. That means that we probably won’t be assigned to as specific thing, but get to work with photo ID, behavior evaluations, acoustics, and whatever else we have the opportunity to do. The lab work only ended for me when I went to cook dinner. The programme directs who will cook what when. Tonight was my night. And I cooked a version of meatballs with tomato sauce on white rice. Apparently it is common in both Spain and Paraguay. It was just meatballs on rice. And bread – always bread and whole parmesan cheese, unless we are eating fish. Only crazy people eat parmesan with fish! I learned that the hard way when it was my turn to set the table and I put the cheese and grater on – that was very funny to Bruno!

For those of you who want me to post more often… Bruno explained the internet situation on Sardinia to me today. Apparently, the island just got DSL last year – so it’s the hot new item. But if you want it, you have to pay for the construction to install the wires underground and down your street. That costs as much as two years of internet access as the institute has now. So instead of DSL, he has a modem wired up to a cell phone/GPS unit. To get online, it costs him about 2 euros and hour – as long as its between 5pm and 9am. So I’m sorry if I don’t post every night. But it will be at least every other night as long as we aren’t doing night observations.

In the meantime, I hope you are all doing well. Keep the emails coming!
I miss you, but still having a great time here!