MARCH IN ITALY

LIFE IN THE TRULLO:

Don: I don’t think it has ever occurred to me that I might spend any amount of time in a home that was somewhere around 400-500 years old, but here I am in an Italian trullo in Alberobello. This is home for us for about a month. It is an all-stone home built without mortar. Even the cone-shaped roof is made of stone. Inside the place is beautifully restored with a rustic appearance, but done with an artistic touch. Floors are polished stone, walls are white stucco, and rooms are separated by stone archways. There is electricity, but the wiring limits us to using only one appliance at a time. You can’t heat the water and run a space heater at the same time without blowing the circuit breaker. So we have to plan well. The water heater manages to heat about 2 gallons of water before starting over. We heat mainly with a wood stove which does not last through the night. Since temperatures dip into the low to mid 40’s at night, it isn’t uncommon for our bedroom to be as low as 52 degrees in the morning. We are finding that our lives have suddenly shifted in dramatic ways. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has new meaning. We are having to scramble for the basics and have had little time until now to think about the meaning of it all. Our minds have been occupied with how we will provide for the fundamentals, like food, shelter, warmth, and sleep when we find ourselves suddenly without the things that are “automatically” available like they are in Ohio. And we have to do that when it is such hard work communicating the most elementary messages to those around us.

Mary Ann: I’m finding myself amazingly domestic these days. Housework and cooking have never been my love or my forte, but here in Alberobello I spend a good deal of time shopping at the weekly market or supermercato for food, creating simple menus from the basic foodstuffs and spices we gather up. A couple of days we ate sliced fresh tomatoes, asiago cheese, fresh bread, tasty local oranges, and figs for breakfast. Right now there’s a pot of bean and sausage soup simmering on the small gas stove, seasoned with only a little salt and oregano we found in the cupboard. This is a small place so I’ve had to learn to be creative. The potatoes and onions are stored in the cleaning bucket, alongside the food processor; bread and pasticcini (sweet pastries) are piled on the apartment-sized refrigerator.