I have been struggling for some time how to begin this new journal of mine. Have now decided I just need to plunge right in there... I have been here in Siena for some days now, and every day new impressions and experiences are just tumbling in over me and really need to be recorded. Because when they are, they take shape and in that way I can begin to form my new reality. Maybe in writing about it I make it happen?
But the bare bones of it- what is it? Well, having had my little mud hotel in Djenne, Mali for 12 years (www.djennedjenno.blogspot.com), I know that running a small hotel is something that suits me: I love creating a place where I can receive visitors- often interesting, inspiring people with whom I can exchange, laugh and have fun and maybe contribute something to their enjoyment of the place and just of our time together. In other words I am intending, hopefully, to set up a little pensione here in Siena.
Now, Siena is quite a different proposition to Djenne where I was a very big fish in a very small pond. Here it will be the opposite. I am nobody and there are hundreds of very good hotel/b&b establishments dotted around this town. Do they really need another one? Especially at this time when the Pandemic is still causing havoc to tourism...
But there are similarities which draw me to this place: both Djenne and Siena are ancient and important places which have their origins long before medieval times, although in both cases that period was their glory time. They both enjoy UNESCO World Heritage status; and they both have a great sense of civic pride- both have neighbourhoods that compete against each other- the 17 Contrade (the Italian plural for Contrada, or neighbourhood) of Siena run their great horse race the Palio while the 8 neighbourhoods (the Kin) of Djenne compete fiercely at their great festival, the Crepissage (the yearly mud plastering of the Great Mosque. Both cities have a boundless pride in their past and both share a certain disdain of foreigners. What would make me want to settle, as a complete stranger, in this semi-hostile environment? I did it once in Djenne, and somehow managed to penetrate the very heart of Djenne society through the work at the library, which continues to this day. What makes me think I can penetrate the heart of Siena? Why would they want me here? Maybe I need to see a shrink who can tell me the reason for my seeking out places like this..
The very practical reason for my seeking a new adventure in Europe rather than Africa now is that I never want to be uprooted again because of political unrest, which was the demise of Hotel Djenne Djenno, and the main reason for my leaving Mali. My new choice of Italy probably has something to do with the fact that during the last three of the four years that I have just spent in London a small group of friends read Dante's Divine Comedy together- in the glorious translation of Dorothy Sayers- so somehow Italy had been planted into my mind. My three weeks here in July 2019 while studying Italian and immersing myself into the stunning pageantry of the Palio -that insane and marvellous bareback horserace around the Piazza del Campo held every July and August- cemented my choice, and then it was just really a question of time...
Quite apart from the fact that I am horse mad, there is something else here with which I can entirely empathise: it is their show-off love of dressing up, of parading in their ancient costumes- I totally understand. I would too if I was one of them! So here I am, all alone at the moment, having moved into my new flat.
The top picture shows me in front of Hercules, no less, in the court yard of my new flat, which is housed in a splendid Palazzo of quite modern pedigree in comparison to the rest of this city, which counts its glory days somewhere around the 13th century. The original owner of 'my' Palazzo, in which I have rented the flat, was a pal of Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as the Mayor of Siena in the first decade of the 19th century. The entire Palazzo is an extravagant homage to Empire style, and it is waiting for someone to take it on to restore it to its former glory...
But back to my friend in the courtyard. Poor Hercules had an accident two years ago apparently. Some large piece of machinery smashed into him at the time of a partial renovation of the building. A local sculptor was summoned to sort out the damage done to Hercule,
but I don't feel he got it quite right...:
and our strongman is not quite what he was. Therefore I sympathize with him, and he makes me smile every time I pass him- after all, he is a kindred spirit- I am not quite what I was either. But let's hope I have enough left to create something here...the last adventure?
Because this is a new beginning and absolutely no one
knows me here I have decided that I am now Ann-Sofi rather than the Sophie I
have been since I left Sweden at the age of 17. This may seem like a
pretentious move, but the fact is that it is my real name. It is the one my
father gave me before he and my mother even knew that I was conceived. ‘We are going to have a son’ said
my mother happily as they walked through the Swedish midsummer landscape hand
in hand dreaming about their future, which was just about to begin. That coming
Sunday they were getting married. ‘Oh,
no’ objected my father emphatically, and it seems that at that moment he was
granted some acute prescience: ‘We will
have a daughter, and she will be called Ann-Sofi.’ That afternoon he was knocked over by a
speeding car and died in my mother’s arms. I have now belatedly decided that the
least thing I can do is to acknowledge at last that one wish of his? As a sort
of daughterly nod to my lost father.
xxx
Last Sunday, from my previous short term abode :
The sound of the drumbeat is deafening- the narrow streets of Siena have been alive with this rhythmic, martial beat since early this morning- in fact I was
woken by the Contrada of Istrice (the Porcupine) marching past my window at 8.00.
Later Pantera (the Contrada of the Panther) also took to the street in full
medieval costume and regalia. It has been hard to concentrate on anything today
because I cannot resist running to the window or down on the street to follow
in their wake to let myself be
intoxicated by their colours, sounds and pageantry every time they get near.
The Contrade of Siena have not been able to engage in what is
their normal preoccupation- i.e. the Palio- for the last two years because of the
Covid pandemic. The only time that set-back has occurred in the last several
hundred centuries was one year during the Second World War. During the last two
years other activities of the Contrade have also been curtailed- their parades
and celebrations in honour of their Patron Saints for instance. Each Contrada
has one, and on their Saint’s Day the entire neighbourhood is mobilized- the
men will don the ancient costumes, pick up their flags and drums and take to
the streets and the rest will bring up the rear, the old; the children; the young
couples with babies in prams; the young girls in giggling groups- all sporting
the scarves in the Contrada colours.
They will march to their church- every
Contrada has their own- for Mass, then a communal lunch on the square or street
in front of the church follows and then the afternoon the parade and the climactic finale
is when the Contrada enters the Piazza del Campo, that great shell shaped space
in the heart of Siena.
Until this August, all the Saint Day celebrations had been postponed, just like the Palio. But now the Sienese have had enough. If
they can’t have the Palio yet, at least they are going to begin their Contrada
celebrations once more... That decision has unleashed a storm of activity- like
the popping of a champagne cork all the pent up energy of Siena is exploding
and for the last couple of Sundays, in the late summer days of August, Siena’s
ancient streets are alive and the drum beat is echoing once again between the
walls of the city.
