coming home: February 2009

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Escaping groundhog day

Ever had the feeling of being trapped in the morning scene of groundhog day? When the alarm clock rings, and you instantly know that all what will happen in the hours until bedtime, you have already lived through uncountable times?
In general, I would say life in a small village resembles much more ground hog day than life in a city like Kabul, where the frequency of attacks and incidents remains just below the level where it would become routine. The village where I currently live, is full of routines. There is for instance this elderly woman, which always crosses my path when I go to school in the morning at eight (some days I go later, like nine or ten; on those days I don't meet her). There is the postman who brings the paper every day at the same time. The paper, though regional, is another good example of ground hog day. Every day it features our regional president (also nicknamed the last King of Tyrol) at least once. The letters to the editor constantly center around the same topics, such as bilingualism (a hot issue in the only German speaking region of Italy) or the removal (or not removal) of remnants from the fascist time. It's mainly the amount of obituary notices varies slightly from day to day. The demographic variations in the village center are the same day in day out: morning at eight, big cars with proud dad and moms who drop their children to school; between 8 and 11 mainly women with strollers; at around 12 hungry children who are either picked up in the big cars or run home by foot; in the afternoon it gets a bit mixed up, until it eventually turns into ghost village after seven, thanks to the restrictive pub opening hours of our mayor.
But the real groundhog day contribution comes from my 97 year old grandma who lives with us. Interactions with her are the most predictable thing one can imagine. Though she bears her age well (believe me or not, her taint is making me jealous!), she has this habit of making exactly the same comments on the same topics at the same time every day. "This is my favorite meal" is the breakfast comment, followed by "it's time to listen the news" at nine (for her age, she is surprisingly well informed and interested in what's happening in the world). But even the most shocking news wont be able to put her off the groundhog day track. The comment on my ready-steady lunches is "how easy it is for women nowadays!" followed by stories on how they had to prepare pasta themselves in the old days. After lunch, she is usually reading 'the' book about childhood in my region in the early nineteenth century. This books describes things just like as they really were during my childhood, she then tells me, before recommending me to read the book. Whenever I put on my winter shoes to go to work, she asks me if I am about to go trekking (admittedly, they have some resemblance with trekking shoes). Her favorite afternoon activity - besides the walking - is to watch the birds which come to the birdhouse in our garden, where my mother generously puts cereals throughout the winter. And the more birds there are, the more she tries to convince me that these birds are there because there is no cereal left, so to say in search of food. My counter initiatives to make her understand that the birds are there because there are tons of cereals in the birdhouse have been fruitless so far. As day turns evening, she prepares to go to bed. She usually then says "today I feel a bit dizzy" not blaming it of course on her age but on god knows what. Before falling asleep, I have to put eye drops into her eyes (which would work perfectly fine without eye drops, but for some unknown reason she thinks she would loose sight if the eye drop-ritual is just left out one single time. Once the eyes shine in the blue colour of the eye drops, the last comment of the day is about to find its way into the room: "Thanks god my eyes are still working!".

I have decided to escape groundhog day for a couple of weeks. Even though groundhog day has some amusing, even bizarre moments to offer, I think I am too young to get trapped in it.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Mini holiday

Pictures from a weekend trip to Sirmione and Brescia, in the south of Lake Garda. Places like these make it easier to live through a cold winter in the Alps.

Pregnant Flamingo

This carneval I had to dress up. There is no way ten year old pupils would ever forgive a teacher who shows up in normal cloths at carneval day. Since I had started teaching back in January, the question most often asked by my pupils was: "teacher, how do you dress for carneval?" I wish they would have asked maths questions at the same frequency (I am still wondering whether my explanations during maths were so clear and easy to grasp that they left no open questions, or whether they were so abstract that the pupils didn't even know what and how to ask...). The carneval theme for teachers was "animals". I initially thought that that's just something what teachers can consider if they want; but as I later discovered, it was a MUST. After a bit of thinking, I had the bright idea to dress up as a pregnant flamingo. Not that I would have ever seen a pregnant flamingo. But somehow I liked the idea of being a pregnant flamingo, just as I like flamingos per se. I admit that I didn't invest much time into preparations to get this pregnant flamingo dress on "it's legs". Just got a bit of pink textile, got my mom to switch on the tailoring machine, agreeing with her that we are both hopeless tailors; got some fedders for my hair and eventually a boa scarf for my neck.
On Thursday I dressed up in the morning, and drove to school. While sitting in the car my biggest wish was to walk along the shore of a lake in Kenya with the sun in my back instead of watching my hands freezing on the driving wheel. Once in school, everybody thought I am a slightly overweight ballet dancer with the secret wish to be a stewardess or a Unicorn, depending on where I wore the beak. The rest of the morning I tried to stand on one leg and wave my arms, to make my constume somehow credible.
And 90% of the afternoon I tried to warm up again next to the heater in my living room, telling myself that next carneval I will dress up as a brown bear. At least that costume allows one to wear ten levels of cloths underneath!