Lions and Tigers and Jehovah's Witnesses

Take a long drive in Illinois and you'll find miles and miles of cornfields with a lone farmhouse dropped in the middle.  In Italy, it's kilometers and kilometers of vineyards and instead of a lone farmhouse you'll find a clump of four or five houses called a borgo.

Borgos were built to house different families that had land in the area.  They used the same well, split up the chores and borrowed each other's tools.  In the winter they even shared their animals' heat.  After dinner the families would head to the barn to sing and play games, benefiting from the extra warmth of the livestock.  Today, borgos are often inhabited by extended families who share babysitting services, WIFI and the remote control for the gate at the end of the driveway.  (see Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My. Gates and Shutters and Curtains, Mamma Mia.)

I live in a little borgo.  I wasn't surprised to learn that my borgo was built before they had running water and electricity.  The surprise came when I learned that in 1970 when I was on an airplane going to see my uncle's new electric car in Hollywood, some of my Italian neighbors were still using outhouses.  And in 1981, when I was riding my bike to town to see the first airings of MTV (cable hadn't come to my house yet) the Italian barrista was riding his bike out to the country to deliver messages to the people that still didn't have phones.

Most of my neighbors were born in the houses they live in now.  In America I heard days-gone-by-stories from my grandparents and great grandparents and they were referring to when they were very young.  In Italy, I hear these stories from my neighbors and they're referring to not-so-gone-by days. I can imagine Gemma going to the well to get the water because Gemma is still alive and the well still exists.  There's no need to go to a museum to learn the history of the area because I'm living with the history of the area.

Though I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere, at least I'm in the middle of nowhere with a few nice neighbors.  I can hear Fabrizio calling for his cat, Paris, every evening.  I can watch Maurizio's dad trimming the hedge when there's a waning moon (if you trim when it's waxing you won't get good results).  I can listen to Emma and Bianca's melodious Italian and giggles in their inflatable pool.  And I can smell Virgilio's meat cooking on his homemade grill.  He burns wood in a little metal basket.  As it burns, the coals fall onto a tray below.  He spreads them out, lays a grate on top and cooks.  There's no button to turn the gas on and there's no charcoal or lighter fluid.  He goes to the woods, collects dead branches and cooks his Sunday meal.

From the kitchen window I can see a couple of the borgo's gated driveways.  Last week I happened to be looking out when I saw the Jehovah's Witnesses.  They rang  two neighbors' bells and were invited to approach the house and talked for a minute.  Then, unaware that I was watching, they came down my little road and stopped in front of the house.  With no gate at the end of the driveway there's no place to attach an intercom or buzzer.  To make yourself known where I live you have to come right up to the house and ring the doorbell. It's called a doorbell, not a "gate-at-the-end-of-the-driveway bell."

Perhaps it was the first time the Jehovah's Witnesses had called on a house with no gate.  I stood there waiting to see what they'd do, while they stood there wondering what to do.  In the end they moved on to the next gated driveway, rang the bell and were invited to approach the house.  It seems not having a gate in northern Italy is more threatening and provides more protection than having one.  Few houses have signs that say divieto d'accesso (keep out) or proprieta' privata (private property) but with a gate, who needs a sign?

For an American in Italy, a house with no gate says, "Welcome" without a welcome mat. It's too bad they're so hard to find around here.