More news from Monopoli...sorry, I am a few days behind! This is Tuesday and today we deviate from what will be our typical schedule, that is, school in the morning and tutoring in the afternoon. Today, we will tutor for most of the day. In the morning, we tutor a young female architect, a young woman who is a singer in a choral unit and a female dentist. The dentist, Carmella and the archite...ct, Antonella live in Monopoli and the singer, Sylvia lives in Bari and must travel by train from Bari, about an hour north of Monopoli. The volunteers enjoyed their sessions with the adults, especially because the conversations were mutually beneficial. This is ‘real world education’ - teachers learning from students and students learning from teachers. Their topics range from music to fashion to food to history to genealogy, etc. The variety of conversational topics is endless. Sylvia is a beginner and needs more elementary tutoring, while the others just need to continue to practice conversational techniques.
In the afternoon, we traveled to Polignano a Mare by train – a 5 minute ride. We plan to have lunch there and meet two high school students from Scuola Classico. They will provide us with an English tour of the old town area and we will practice and enforce conversational techniques with them during the tour. Before we meet them, we find a small ristorante for il pranzo. We really lucked out with our choice. We dined on ravioli stuffed with eggplant with a pesto sauce followed by panna cotta…..now remember, we didn’t get any last night! One of the volunteers remarked it would remain in her ‘top ten’ meals. It was a very good experience, but alas, we go back to panini tomorrow. Now a laudable word about the panino – they are filled with all sorts of delicious foods and it’s sort of like gelato; you never get a bad one.
After lunch we searched for the police station, where we were to meet the students, who sadly did not arrive, due to a schedule change in their afternoon extracurricular activity schedule. Since flexibility is the key to success in Italy, we courageously set out on a self-guided expedition. It was a delightful day and we arrived back at the hotel, weary from walking.
Now, for those in the agricultural aspects of this region, at present the focus is on cool weather vegetables, colorful spring wild flowers, and colorful trees dotting the landscape with lemon, oranges and tangerines. The most beautiful trees in blossom now are the almond trees. They are always the first to bloom here in Puglia and they provide the winter countryside with a stunning backdrop. The almond tree coupled with the yellow and white wildflowers are a sight to see.
- Phyllis
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