Nostalgia for ancient China

A lovely Chinese woman, Wei, from the city of Urumqi, in the north western corner of China, stayed here the other night in the room over looking the tower of the Duomo. Sometimes, although a guest is staying only one night, there is an interesting  and memorable exchange, and this was one of those meetings. 

Wei came out onto the balcony and looked at the view over the ancient buildings of Siena: she wanted to know when it was built  and I told her the height of Sienese power would be  around 1300- when some of these buildings were first constructed. She immediately countered that it would have been the Yuan dynasty in China. She was passionate about history and traditions; she was fascinated by the way  Siena has preserved its traditions, and she lamented the loss of all such things through the Cultural Revolution in China. She said : 'we must learn again from the Japanese and the Koreans.' (I am not sure Xi Jinping agrees...)
 We ended up watching Bertolucci's The last Emperor: which she had seen three times already, but she said she could never get enough of it...

ESTRAZIONE and more...

Well, the greatest news since last time is the joyous fact that ONDA was favoured by Fortuna on Sunday, when the last three contradas were pulled out from the lottery which established the final line- up for the July Palio. This momentous event took place at the Palazzo Pubblico at 7pm, in front of a waiting and packed Piazza, le tout Sienne  having made their way to see this spectacle.  After a ceremonial trumpet fanfare, at exactly 7pm  the first flag appeared at  the Town Hall window, creating a huge roar among those from the lucky contrada- in this case the Giraffa. The  next banner to take its place, after another fanfare, was that of Nicchio, the shell. So only one left... the thousand or so in the Piazza held their breath. The last  fanfare sounded, and there it was, the lovely  bandiero celeste/bianco of Onda. Much joy erupted. It means we will run in both Palios this summer: on July 2nd and on August 16!

And  trekking in the lovely Chianti -where the baby grapes are forming on the vines- continues when I can get away... 

                                                  

but there are so many people here now to look after in the flat, and sometimes I almost feel overrun, and rather stressed out, until I once more realize how lucky I am. 

There has been a young German woman here, Corinne, studying Italian at the Dante Alighieri, just like I did. She has been bringing her study companions here and they have been cooking- and I have been  invited of course, to these splendid dinners (well, of course, I should hope so!) and Robert, 'my' Swedish business man too, when he is here. Fun evenings...

And talking of fun evenings: that lovely Siena summer tradition which sees the Contradas opening their gardens for big barbecue/wine/live music events to which all of Siena goes began tlast week, in the huge gardens of the Chiocciola- The Contrada of the Snail:

Meanwhile I am putting together once more a piece of work I did for an exhibition in London in 2019... I dismantled it and brought these metal pieces - originating from Scaffolding planks ) to Siena. They are now changing shape and becoming something else: more pics will follow...

 

 

Bats in the Belfry?

Or rather: Pigeons in Loft, as it turns out... A dreadful racket from above has been disturbing my afternoons recently. Fearful that it may be rats or some other unwanted visitation, I called the trusted Filippo, who arrived within an hour, and entered the attick space where he found a little pigeon family...

The parents fled immediately through a  hole in the wall under the eaves, visible on the picture below leaving their four little ones behind, which were then carefully put through the hole one by one to the delight - presumably- of the waiting parents under the eaves... 
                                           

Super Hosting; Onda; Sofa, Friends, and other matters...

 Long time since last time...

                                            

...because these days are filled with all sorts of albergo activities:  greeting new guests, having  Spritzas on the balcony with them while talking about Siena, her history, her art and, of course, the focus of all Siena- the Palio. Not to mention ironing, hoovering and cleaning; getting supplies etc.  I still have noone to help me. This is  not quite like Hotel Djenne Djenno, where there were 14 rooms, but just as many employees...

When one year of this AirbnB activity is up- on the last day of June, I will take stock and decide whether I should look for a helper.  The rooms are full more or less the whole time. I have become a "Superhost"... And have rather an impressive number of five star reviews, if it is not too immodest to mention it..

When I am not working here, the ONDA activities are multiplying: serving at fund-raising lunches and dinners with other volunteers from the Contrada, or just being part of what is going on- last Sunday there was a first communion mass at the cathedral, and here is a little Ondaiola about to enter the church with her friends from other Contradas. 

                    

The same day, The Oca (Goose) Contrada did their giro, when the whole day is taken up visiting all the other (friendly) Contradas, in full costume, all the drummers and alfieri  (flag bearers)out in force, followed by the Contrada members all sporting their Oca scarves. Here they are, being met and ceremonially greeted at ONDA by our alfieri.

                                        

The little theatre group is still meeting here on Fridays- we are working up to performing, finally, that short Alan Aykbourn play about the park benches. Thank goodness, a date has finally been set- the 7th of June, when it will be performed at a Sport Centre some kilometres outside of Siena, where our trekking group has its head quarter. I am not in it, of course. My function has been to provide my flat for the rehearsals: as well as being  the enthusiastic  cheer leader and soup maker. 

There has been two dear friends here: first Anna-Lena from Sater, the little Swedish town where I lived with my grand parents. We were best friends at primary school but have not see each other since I was nine and she was ten. And here we are! Anna-Lena has had a successful career as a hair dresser- she has her own salon in Karlshamn, southern Sweden. We had a fun, girly, gossipy time, catching up on the last fifty years - well, more actually...         

                                            

Then came Giulietta, another great friend this time from the UK, the little village of Blewbury where we met when I was 18 years old, and she maybe 12... we have remained friends all our lives though, and seen each other frequently over the years- 

                                    

And finally, that doom ladened sofa from my fathers childhood home in Sweden has finally made its tortuous way to my flat. Since it left my Islington home in the early nineties it has sojourned with my friends Eva and Leonardo in Milan; in another corner of Tuscany; and in Carloforte, Sardinia, whence it arrived last week. The gangster Johnny Rizzo seems to have given up his claim to sue me for 4500E (see previous blog post) and the sofa arrived via another transporter to the gates of Siena, where a local transporter took over- the lovely Luigi who with his colleague carried the great thing up to the third floor and miraculously made it through the narrow passage at the entrance door - Paolo, my architect had done mock-up trials on his computer and swore it would be impossible- but there it was, squeezing through after about an hour's work of patient  fiddling,  repositioning and reattempting...It took its assigned place at the end of my bed and I took a huge breath of relief. The sofa- the style of which I  described to Paolo as Biedermeier Terrone  - 'peasant Biedermeier '- is not worth anything in monetary terms. Nevertheless it  has cost me over 2000 Euro to transport here- which includes the payment to the  gangster,  my lawyer's  intervention, and the two different transporters at the end. Phew! 

But now it feels as if some of my father's spirit  is here in my room, watching over me...

                                                         

A Robe Day

                                                   

...is what they call this sort of day in New Orleans, if I remember correctly. Of course my last trip to that lovely city was some time ago, before Catrina wreaked its deadly havoc.

A  Robe Day  is the sort of day when one doesn't ever really get up properly, normally because of some over indulgence the night before. In my case that is perhaps true, but this need for a Robe Day was not ONLY caused by the double- ok- triple Campari Sprizas consumed here on the balcony last night with my theatre group friends before our customary wine flowing dinner.  It was also induced by a couple of weeks living under some persistent curse- as if all the most tedious gremlins had decided to hold their annual meeting and had chose ME as their meeting place, to try out new methods with which  to annoy people most efficiently: 

Important DHL documents went missing, bank transfers did not arrive; bank accounts with well tried and tested IBANS suddenly became unreachable.

Some gangster called Johnny Rizzo (a good gangster name) who had been entrusted with bringing a sofa to me from Carlo Forte in Sardinia, and to whom I had paid 750E up front for this job (I did not know he was a gangster then) never brought the sofa and pocketed the 750E. When I, finally, having written increasingly irate emails asking for my money back without response, arranged for my lawyer to write a letter to him, he countered with a letter from HIS lawyer to me, saying that I owed HIM 4500 E! He had, according to this letter, been backwards and forwards to Sardinia three times, had never been able to meet up with my friends because 'they were not there'! He wanted compensation and damages!!!

Meanwhile my friends  were able to come up with plenty of evidence - Whatsapp messages, audio messages etc- and I also provided plenty, which was all duly sent off with another letter from my lawyer, telling them to get stuffed- in appropriate legal language of course. So, this was some ten days ago and we have heard nothing back so we are beginning to hope it MAY be the end of the story...

AND there is more in this tedious saga of the gremlins' general meeting: I was supposed to have something called an Ablation, which is a procedure to get one's heart ticking in the proper rythm, and I was in need of this operation. I had waited months for this, and last Wednesday I finally went to the hospital and the procedure was due on the Thursday morning. I have already had this operation, eight years ago, in London, and that time I was given general anaestetic, and thankfully slept through the whole thing.  But this time, when they had already wheeled my trolley to the operation theatre, and were about to start the procedure- which involves making holes in one's groin, threading electrodes up through the body to the heart, and then somehow burning our certain areas to jolt the heart into proper action again- I realized that I was not going to be given general anaethetic but had to remain awake during the procedure! 

I am afraid I panicked. I am normally far too brave for my own good but this really rattled me. In floods of tears, I was unable to remain absolutely still, and they had to abandon the procedure. Instead they performed an electro chock, which I have also had before but which is not so invasive but

also not so efficient. As I write this I am still feeling my heart beeting normally, though... who knows? 

A lot can happen in a Week!

Well, last Sunday it was Easter- here ,above, the beginning of my Contrada Easter egg collection, which will nestle among the crystals in my 'chandelier'  and be completed next year, inchallah... 

Easter Sunday was a beautiful sunny day when Giuseppe - our Sicilian from the Theatre group- picked me up at the Porta San Marco and we went off deep into the Crete Senese for Easter lunch at the gorgeous little village of Chiusure, high up in the hills, a stone's throw away from the beautiful Abbazia di Monte Olivieto Maggiore. The Campari Spritz was welcome after my  non-alcohol lent observance.

Talking of the Theatre group: here are two other members, just last Friday, still rehearsing that Alan Ayckbourn play on the park benches. They are honing and polishing and getting better, but I now firmly believe they need to perform it and we need to start something else... 

But is is still fun to have them here of course: every Friday I make soup, trying not to repeat myself and come up with new variations. 

 If I have any paying guests in my rooms, they are always invited too- many accept and others prefer to go into town for dinner. If that is the case we normally try and keep the noise down later when we  rehearse- they are quite a noisy bunch- and move into my bedroom after dinner. 

This soup tradition is rather venerable. ( It just dawned on me, that I have in  fact told you all this soup story before ... oh, well, here you have it, once more...) 

I started it with my chess club when I lived in Islington in the late 80s, early 90's. It then migrated into the Ladbroke Grove Tuesday get-togethers, which some used to call, rather pretentiously,  'Sophie's Salon', where soup was always served at ten.  This tradition further migrated, after my return back to London from Mali, into a literary get together, when we read through the whole of Dante's Divine Comedy during three years, and there was soup then too...

And that eventually became our ZOOM meetings every other Wednesday for  short stories, during Covid when meeting up in real life was impossible, so no soup then.. but since, every time I manage to get back to London we meet up, and this is just what happened this last week: three nights in London because I have decided to sell my Ladbroke Grove flat finally-  one of these nights with the Short story group, and more soup... 

When I meet up with my old London friends I often reflect on how much I enjoy their company, how easy it is to laugh with them, and how much I do miss my English friends- I love it here in Siena, but there is not doubt that I am an outsider here still- the easy banter, the laughter of a London evening still escapes me here, maybe because of the language barrier I still experience. 

Once back here is Siena I find that the Scirocco has caused havoc on my balcony- Sahara sand on the pavement and on the folding chairs!  It is the same wind that I know from Mali- just from a different direction.  In Mali it is called the Harmattan-  it is a North easterly wind that brings fine Sahara sand- and here the Scirocco comes from the south of course.

And with spring comes the first stirrings of the Contradas...after their winter hibernation the 17 contradas sent out their  alfieri to bear their  ceremonial  banners at the solemn Mass in the Duomo this morning, celebrated by Cardinal Lojudice.

So, Siena starts to reverberate once more to the sound of the ancient drums, the harbingers of the summer season...

                                                                            

Djenne, Bamako and Back

I was not even away for a week. But somehow everything which needed to be done was done.

The second day saw me racing up the familiar road north in one of those old Mercedes cars, so beloved by the Malians (albeit lacking in air conditioning ) on my way once more to Djenne- I love this road and I know every twist and turn, I know when the horses start- it is just after Bla, which is also where one buys the best salty peanuts by the side of the road. Just  before that, one must cross the Bani river, all yellow like vanilla from the sand stirred up by the many workers that line the shore extracting sand for building work onto their barges and pirogues.

Djenne too is Horse country- although horses here are used to pull the carts on their way to the weekly markets, and no longer ridden. 

                                                    

But this time I received a message from Babou at the library that we (Driver Cheick and myself) were required to drive up to Mopti before going to Djenne, to make a courtesy call at the Governor's residence.  This was something of an imposition, to say the least, because it meant continuing on our journey north for another hour and a half, having already travelled all day. But one is not at liberty to refuse of course. I  therefore ended up in an over stuffed armchair doing small talk with the Governor  who was very surprised that I had travelled all that way without a military escort- that is apparently what the other few toubabs do that come this way. My enforced Mopti visit also meant that I had to stay the night in the Hotel Flandre, Sevare, because even I recognized that perhaps one should not be travelling around after dark on these roads. Nevermind, I had a refreshing swim in the pool in this hotel, which is owned by a Dogon, once a guide, who has managed to keep his place going and functioning really quite well- quite a feat in these days of Malian hardship.

Once in Djenne the following morning, there was a whole merry go round of authorities to say hello to before we were allowed to begin the work at the library which was the reason for my visit: First the Prefect- a new one, quite handsome and relatively young, certainly an improvement on the last one, then onto the Chief of Police, followed by the Gendarmerie... this is all the fault of the French who complicated everything by installing all these different authorities, which are now well ensconced into the Malian bureaucracy. We did not have to visit the Maire fortunately, neither the Village Chief, the latter the only secular authority that existed before the arrival of the French Colonials. 

Having  shaken every required hand, we were finally allowed to start working at the library below

where I had the sad task of closing the Digitisation Project down, finally, after 16 years. When it started, with the Pilot Project for the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme in 2009, the library contained the collections of some thirty families. After the three major projects with the BL that followed, as well as the last five years with hmml.org, the Benedictine Foundation from Minnesota, the library now contains the collections of 204 families from Djenne and the surrounding villages. This is in fact now one of the more important manuscript libraries in West Africa. It will not entirely be abandoned- it will remain operational on a very modest level, until more ambitious plans and financing can be found-once more through the generosity of my cousin Pelle and his wife Nanni, who have also just sponsored the 11th edition of the Djenne Cataract Operations.  

The film 'Dreams of Djenne', by my cousin Elisabet, was finally shown in both Djenne (below) and in Bamako, for the benefit of the staff at Hotel Djenne Djenno and at the library.

I was able to make my customary  visit to Imam Yelpha and his posse- where the well rehearsed  attempts were once more made to persuade me to become the forth wife of Monsieur Yaro, in turquoise boubou beside me below, all provoking the customary giggles.

Once back in Bamako I spent a lovely afternoon with my 'son' Lassi, Keita's second son, by the pool at the Badala Hotel.
                                                

and on the last night, just before leaving for the airport,  I was lucky to catch half an hour of the Hunters' festival at the Palais de la Culture , Bamako- I love the Hunters, or the Donzo, so emblematic of West Africa with their ancient disregard for both Christianiy and Islam, their bogolan clothes hung with mirrors, animal skins and bone, and their smoky wood note music, songs and legends which remembers  the great forests, where lions once roamed...