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As I described in my previous blog entry, my husband, daughter and I spent three weeks in Italy as WWOOFers (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I usually began my workday with the youngsters—lambs, kids, chickens and bunnies—helping muck out stalls, clean the coop, and water and feed the critters.

On one spectacular Italian morning, the farm owner’s daughter handed me a juicy cherry. I looked up and noticed its source, the centerpiece of the pen’s piazza. So after breakfast, with no other pressing assignment, I returned to the corral to harvest cherries. Fruits and vegetables were in short supply at mealtime, so gathering what was on hand seemed like a good idea.

As I squeezed through the gate, the animals crowded around, thinking perhaps that I would give them more mangini, their beloved cereal that some rowdy kids would jump right into the trough for, like toddlers lacking table manners. Budging my hips through their curious heads and holding my basket high, I climbed up the cherry tree, a couple of kids propping their fore-hooves against the trunk behind me. As I broke off leaves, the nibblers gobbled them. The chickens snatched up any fallen cherries. Looking down at their eager faces, I imagined a big piñata party, swaying the prize above them as they darted around for the fallout.

*  *  *

In the afternoon, my Nepali friend Jitta and I went to the neighboring countryside to collect elderberry flowers for making sambuco juice. We headed up the driveway in an older Fiat Panda loaned to us by the farm owner, Elisabetta. Strangely, the gaslight went on. I had just bought €15 of gas when we’d gone to the pizzeria in the next village a couple of nights before. The nearest gas station was about six kilometers up the road, in the opposite direction. By the time we reached the road, however, the light went off. So we took a left turn and headed down the mountainside to look for trees festooned with the distinctive flower clusters. As we drove along, the intoxicating scent of evaporating gasoline fondly reminded me of my first car—a ’68 VW Bug.

Just past the pizzeria, we stuttered to a stop. I restarted the engine and made a U-turn. Climbing back out of the village, the engine died again.

Heads in four-story homes across the road popped out of windows, bemused at this nervous American and a laughing Nepali. I engaged the emergency brake and we walked across to their compound. An older man and his brother emerged, then one man’s daughter. They cheerfully pushed the Panda off the narrow road and into their driveway while I steered. Looking under the carriage, one man noted the leaking gas. Jitta called Elisabetta on her cell phone, and while we waited, we shot the breeze with the friendly villagers.

Long story short, we ferried the car to the station up the road and later were dropped several kilometers from the farm to resume our mission.

Jitta sang as she picked, her chanting reminiscent of African-American work hymns, repeating verses, eventually swelling to grand chorus. When our buckets were overflowing with flowers, we started toward home. It was a hot day, and after about a quarter mile, we realized it would be a long walk. “Ho soldi,” I told her. “I have money to buy gelato.” Alas, no gelateria in these tiny hamlets.

Jitta suggested we catch a ride. Smiling shyly, she pressed out her palms and motioned people to stop. I told her, “Aspetti. Così fan tutte!” Translation: Wait, everybody does it this way. (The “Learn Italian through Opera” class I took a while back was coming in handy.) I stuck out my thumb and almost immediately, a little baldheaded man with thick eyeglasses stopped. He was a priest on his way to Verona. Intrigued and maybe hard-of-hearing, he asked us twice where we were from, each time drifting into the wrong lane as he turned his head. We quickly arrived at our farm—pleased to have survived the adventure.

It’s good to know. Sticking out your thumb in Italy is not a rude gesture. And what good luck to be on the receiving end of such warmhearted Italian hospitality. I love that place. It recharged my hope for humanity. Even the farm animals are kind to strangers.

See Part 1: Goats, Elderberry Flower Juice and an Unprincipled Potbellied Pig
See Part 3: Scheming Sheep and Nurturing the Circle of Life

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