This morning I caught on RAI 3 "Bitter Rice"
A true invitation to a wedding for me, a lover of neo-realism and film Vecchiotti in general, those with the dubbing is crackling in the background as is "old" those who speak of an Italy which barely remember its existence. That when we were certainly some 'poor but maybe (this is the part that cliche) less unhappy, and less alone.
I look like I did not know the ending, and I always cry at the end. Maybe because for me the "world's rice is not so remote and unknown. Daughter, grandson and great grandson of rice pickers, it's like on the screen as rivedessi heard the stories many times, seasoned with a little 'fairy tale and a touch of tragedy. It seems another world, and instead it was mine too, long ago.
The world was an event. The expected, with fear and hope. "I will call again this year, there will be room?" you ask with your heart in your throat, before the idea has no place and then leaving home, fathers, husbands and children for almost two months ... You wanted to go, you had to go. And when the "call" you were not even thinking about it a moment, drop everything and left, ready to change my life if only for 50 days. Not only but ... mothers, sisters, aunts, neighbors, all marching together toward the fields of water. Because the world was for women only. They needed women to walk on tiptoe in the water without crushing the buds ... their hands to slip through the thin seedlings and leaving only the healthy and strong. Their patience to stay from dawn to sunset bent the nose on the water, without complaint. Mondine sang all day. "It seems that after all is not so hard ..." muttered the corporal, one on each side of the plantation, alert eyes that no get up from work. The younger then, with skirts and trousers rolled up to leave gaping holes in their legs up high, it was not so bad watching all day. They sang, yes. Each of them had something to say at the bottom, to tell, waiting for the end. A ditty to head to knock out the anger and frustration. Be exploited does not like mica, but the money is used at all. And so the smaller the dowry dreamed of singing pure linen and a husband to know maybe there, away from home. The older, the dreams ended, singing I think the family for a while 'would go ahead with them. Eventually, certain professions, only women know how to do them.
My mother said that on the first day seemed like a Dante's inferno. You ended up to greet the family with tears in his eyes and then away, a journey of a lifetime even though our house to Lomellina were only a few kilometers, an hour's drive to do it quietly. But it was the landscape to change, to make you look completely different ... and then, in the world there were going by car. We were going by train, there were special trips just for the "country rice", or old trucks, if the distance was short. And then the last stop on a tractor of his master, until the goal. In less than no time a stream of women filled the cicada farms and proudly showing off dialect of every stripe. We understand, in spite of everything, and quickly. To two months would have worked, ate and slept next to strangers who would become your best friends, your companions. The hosts graciously conceded in exchange for room and board work, old warehouses as dormitories and three meals a day, rice, vegetables and meat directly from the production of the farm. And a few bottle of wine, because the morale remained high.
When you descended from the wagon had better hurry, the most coveted seats now ended. The old, old craft, and knew every corner of the paddy should not rush to grab the best bed near the window or in the most tranquil. But it always ended up losing precious moments to browse the known faces in the crowd, the friend ever, "I've taken the first place," "sleep close as last year?", "how are you, you took the photos of your children?" Among the chatter began the construction of the "nest", the "Stay". The most far-sighted set off from home with everything you need, the mattress, clean sheets, just enough to not turn into the wild. But there were those who thought of living in an adventure and leave the rest to chance, looking only to wear a scarf most flamboyant, not to end up confused between all the others, made equal by the large straw hats worn to avoid burning your face the sun. So the dark skin was not a symptom of tropical vacation. If you were black and withered you were a holiday that made her fields to work.
The first night was the longest for the novice, excited and scared ... "Working under a boss is hard, if not do you recall at home, it seemed that the biggest had fun good-naturedly poking fun at a good time to refresh but then" you're close to me, I'll show you how to do it, you'll soon learn ... " Basically, it started just like that, in unison, taking her hand and proceed cautiously to the center of the wide expanse of water, plan to not end up upside down, eyes narrowed to overcome the repulsion. If you do not think about walking barefoot in the mud and the mud is not so bad. If not you notice, the mosquitoes do not bite and those slimy things Peeping between the legs are not snakes, but caresses. If you sing and do not think it is now evening, at sunset, the roar of the boss announces that the work day is over, the bag of rice in a kilo more, until today you are free to do what you want. It 's true, it will take to wash a lot in life because we are few and taps, soap disappears immediately if you're not careful ... Yet at the end of the toilet doth even some talcum powder, just what's in the papers! He got his master's wife, the green metal box was nearly empty and she can afford a new one. So off to fight for a breath of the scented powder that makes you feel so nice and made the skin as clear as that of the plaintiffs. In spring evenings the darkness and sleep are also close, the shadows lengthen gradually at the foot of the poplars and willows, the rice fields are silent and only the crickets sing, you can chat in peace, the instinct to guide each the other, good and bad, are born wild and dislikes everlasting love, the quarrels for nothing, and peace is made, we swear friendship forever, at least until the end of the campaign. It is difficult with the sun and sometimes under water because if the rice is finished for all rots, and then we run twice and no longer appropriate to who is ahead of all other just to show off. It does not matter anymore. You run, you do not sing anymore, some rosary is recited, Mary is the mother and Women just like rice pickers, will not remain deaf to their prayers.
one day and then another and another, this campaign will never end ... It seems longer and more tiring than usual, the evening lacks the will to even talk about what will be next. The effort marks the shakes faces and bodies, arms and legs ache, what is still missing ... 10 days, a week, maybe tomorrow?
"Tomorrow." Tomorrow it's over, tomorrow is the last day, the party and then pay and then all at home. Hands run fast, now it works almost without noticing it, too bad, right now we had learned so well, now that seems not to have done nothing all my life ... Would want to slow down and make it last forever, this last day, we waited so long and now it seems that with the country's rice should end up all over the world ... But no, will not. The last evening will be the most beautiful of all, unforgettable, we should celebrate and be together, so that bodes well for the whole year, until next time. We wear the dress with good, what's the bottom of the bag protected by a layer of tissue paper, weave flowers in your hair and will be unrecognizable, even to the masters and their families, tonight there is no difference singing and dancing, no tears, goodbyes and see you tomorrow, next year, we exchanged addresses and postcards, we will meet because there will be another campaign of rice and can not do it without us.
you return home. In his pocket a bit 'of money, never enough to repay the effort, and a bag of rice to keep close all the way, they are to be losing a grain. Around the corner there are other jobs to be won. There is the harvest, tomatoes, tobacco, canning factories, then in autumn the grapes and apples ... in the country is difficult to be with our hands. He looks distant horizon. On summer days you can see from the hills across the plain, some say that it appears even the shape of the Duomo in Milan ... Some cousin tired of working the land has decided to drop everything and go to live in the city ...
Who knows how it is ...
Little by little, we went all "downstream". We are "migrants", as I have said ... the city with my parents offered opportunities that they might not have found it in a campaign increasingly difficult to live and manage, if you do not have the whole valley. But some things will remain inside, like an indelible tattoo. The only way to live with the memoirs and stories from time to time. With a longing in my heart and eyes to the hills.
a mondina I never will be. But I've also had my "campaign". On my work book says "farmhand". My first salary was one of "working wine" the grape harvest is still done by us by hand and some work is known, only women know how to do them ...
Who knows, maybe even tell you this, at one time or another.
