05. Via Ca’ Ruta, Calabria – The houses
This district is called Calabria because here lived Antonia, the doctor’s housekeeper. She was Tuscan but, in those days, for the Vallebonenchi (people from Vallebona), from Tuscany down it was all considered Calabria. Many children lived in the Calabrian district. I recall always playing together with wooden bowling pins that older children had built.
During the war, the houses did not have cooking gas. The women went to Montenero to collect wood to burn inside the kitchen stove. They had to walk down the creek then back up, down and up repeatedly, to load bundles of branches and collect logs to cook. It was a hard life. The women supported the whole family.
Kids were just kids, but also a little like adults, because at a certain time of day each of us had to go home to light the fire and cook the pot of vegetables. When our mother arrived, the vegetables were ready. She mashed them and added them to pasta or whatever was available.
We had a ceramic dishware set with matching plates — that was a luxury. In the evenings, when I walked up into the village, I saw huge cockroaches in the alleys, because on the ground floors there were animal stalls. Almost every family had rabbits, goats, and chickens.
My mother had three goats. When she milked them, she filled the bucket with frothy milk. I would wait for her to step away so I could skim the foam with my finger — it was so good. We children craved sweets. Even though we had eggs, milk, and sugar, we never had pudding. With a little flour and lemon zest you could have made a custard… but I don’t know — maybe they didn’t know how, or maybe they lacked imagination.
The toilets were outside the house, and didn’t even have a window. You did your business in barrels that were later carried away on shoulders or by mule and emptied in small plots of land that most families owned. Everything was hard. Everything was tiring.
I was born in a house without water or electricity. Torn bed sheets were patched and reused for a long time. On Saturdays we bathed in a basin. There was little water, and many diseases.
We fetched water from the village fountain with a bucket. Many times, I would spill just a little bit on purpose, so they’d send me back. I was happy, because I’d secretly meet him at the fountain and we would talk for a bit. I liked him right away, and those few words we exchanged were enough. For me, meeting him was a really beautiful thing — truly beautiful. Years later, we got married, and it stayed that way forever.
There was a saying: “Candu che tu te marii a tute e musche nun staghea dà a pata.” ("When you get married, you’ll stop swatting flies") — meaning that once you’re married, you stop fussing over little things and focus on what matters.
