Say Cheese!

Its midnight in Italy and Josh and I are the only ones awake in the house for the moment, except college student Francesco who is 20 and has the perfect basement setup - insulated orange shag carpet walls and a futon in the studio just finished for him where he makes techno beats with squinty eyes and a giant grin.

We just got back from another ping pong match between Josh and Pasquale, a comic duo of very tall and very short, at the little pub up the hill.

This morning we were taken to a cheese making operation that was so beautiful it seemed like it was put on just for tourists, only it isn't and wasn't because we are the only tourists around for months and miles. The cheese and bread and oil olive and vinegar and warm grape juice were all brought to us in Tuscan ceramic dishes served on an old wooden table in a house built a million years ago, by an old woman so sweet and lovely that again, she might have been hired by the board of tourism. We bought huge hunks of cheese for Pasquales house and paid not enough.





We were invited to school today with Pasquale, who is the middle school music teacher. All of us spent three hours in class with him and his students. We were offered up as visiting Americans and got to talk all about ourselves- where we live, where we've traveled, whether we have facebook accounts, and if we know of the NBA. The girls were enhanted with Itzel and Ezra who played their parts well and were just goofy enough to add levity to the discussion without totally disrupting the flow of the class. The kids were very open and not jaded and the only technology they seemed to have was one cell phone and one digital camera between them all. They were not posturing or feigning boredom like I think American kids their age would have been.



We were treated to a performance by each of the classes, one group of 13 and 14-year-olds and then a class of a grade below. The children were broken up into sections, 5 guitars, 4 singers, 3 drummers, etc. They performed several songs in 3 languages including When the Saints Go Marching In, Stand By Me and Imagine. It was very touching.

I am told that American visitors to Chianni are not unheard of but also not usual. There is not a Tuscany magnet or postcard for buying anywhere in the village.

We also were invited to meet the family upstairs, a young couple with two small children who have lived their whole life in Chianni. Almost everyone we meet has always been here.

Tomorrow we are to go to Pisa in the morning and look at the leaning tower and then to do some GPS borrowing in Pontessieve and maybe exchange the rental car for something more reasonably-sized in Lucca, before a last night with the clowns.