on being local...

This morning the church bells tolled that someone in our tiny hamlet had died. Long, slow, evenly spaced tolling of the bell. It was followed immediately by a joyous ringing of the bells that indicate a "festa", a wedding, a baptism, or, most unusually but in this case, the entry to heaven of the "senior elder" of our village of 90 people.

This afternoon I was driving down to sign insurance papers at my lawyer's office and a resident on his way home from work flagged me down to ask me who had died in our village today. Despite the sad news I had to tell, it made me feel truly local.

In the time I have been coming here (my first visit to this hamlet was 21 May 2004) there have been many changes. I used to worry that my presence might cause problems as I represented a very different lifestyle for women. Independent and free to move about is not the norm here. When I bought my house and joked to the neighbours that we didn't want any more strangers here, just me then "basta" (enough) I had no idea how many people of different nationalities would be living here within such a short time.

A visiting kiwi once wrote to me that "Caprile is dead". I see a hamlet that is very much alive, and growing daily. Caprile has births, deaths, marriages, laughter and tears. The residents are unemployed, blue collar, white collar, professional people and even a couple of artists and musicians now. It has happy people, sad people, angry people, problem people, healthy people, sick people, loving people, caring people, old people, young people. There seem to be more young folk now. I have many more names to learn, people to meet. Today I met a new couple who couldn't believe that I had been here so long and we hadn't met before.

The locals call me a Caprilotta, and I am happy to wear the translation as well as the name!