Europe?

During my month on the dig, I have 2 days during which I don't have to work and instead, I stay home to clean the appartment and prepare lunch (somebody different does it every day). Today was my first one of those days and, having finished all my chores, I have a bit of extra time to write another post.

In Canada, I've often heard people talk about how different European culture is from North American culture: they're more socialist, they more environmentally conscious, they're more fashionable..., they're about 20 years ahead of us. Had I thought about this a little bit, I'd would have surely realised that these are broad generalisations and that even if these they were true across Europe, these unifying characteristics are few and far between compared to the infinite number of distinguishing characteristics of individual countries. However, I did not think of this, and in my mind, I had a rather unified picture of Europe - simply with different languages in different countries. Of course, rural, Southern Italy, is not much at all like Wien so Gravina came as a bit of a shock to me.

To begin, it's so formal and traditional! Where Wien seemed like the modern and open-minded place I imagine much of California to be like, I imagine Gravina is much like rural Northern Ontario would have been 50 years ago. The first big shock was the presence of machismo I am all too familiar with from my time in Costa Rica. In Wien, I was so impressed at people's apparent maturity towards sex and nudity: they had billboards for some sort of cream with an entirely non-erotic picture of a topless woman (there was also a male equivalent) that simply wouldn't pass in Toronto; I was at a party where a new mother casually hiked up her shirt, and began to breast-feed her baby making no attempt to conceal her breast (for example, with a little blanket, as women often do in Canada); at a swimming pool (where nudity technically wasn't allowed) there were women comfortably walking around topless, without getting any unwanted attention - nowhere did I see a woman get any unwanted attention!

In Gravina, it's the complete opposite. Men stand on the street and whistle or shout at young women, and the guys are all sooo "cool". During our trip to the beach, I spent some time chatting with the bus driver, a middle-aged, married man with 2 children, who after failing on his own, tried to get me to arrange him a date with one on my 25-year-old collegues. The strangest manifestation of the very traditional gender roles here was when I attended mass last Sunday morning: for every woman there, there were nearly 10 men! When I brought it up with Alesia, an Italian student working at one of the other sites, she told me that women usually go to mass just as much as men, but because there are masses at various other times, women probably wouldn't be at the Sunday morning one because they would be preparing lunch.

Speaking of religion, I also learnt from Alesia that most young people here are baptised, confirmed Christians, that, like in many other parts of the world, go through the motions of their faith without feeling too strongly about it. However, in contrast to what I encountered in Wien, people apparently go through the motions without really questioning or reflecting on them, and very few reject them. I certainly got a vibe of this passive acceptance at the mass I attended.

Another, more pleasing, characteristic of the culture here is the camaraderie that exists between older women. They always seem to be sitting out on their front step or balcony looking out on the street for somebody to give them a little piece of gossip. And if they happen to miss something, not to worry: most of the billboard space here seems to be used to announce deaths in the town.

As you may have noticed, my comments on Gravina are a bit more superficial than my ones about Wien (I think so anyway). This simply reflects the different way in which I am experiencing the culture. Most of my time here is spent on the site and so my interactions with and observations of the people here are quite limited. So if you actually want to know what Italy is like (or any other place I write about), please refer to aircanada.com...