fattoria didattica

What's really fun about this farm is that it's a fattoria didattica, which they say means a teaching farm. So it's like a school trip farm. Every other day we get a class of students ranging in ages from two to twelve come to see the animals, learn a little, make something like bread or cheese or candles and get yelled at by their psychotic teachers.

Federica runs the show and is fantastic. I've earned the role of her assistant. I prepare the espresso for the teachers, feed the mule so he stays still as she talks about him, use my shepherdess skills to keep the kids from straying, hold up the pig's feet so they can count the toes and translate various terms into French and English.

I'm pretty sure this makes ME the hunky farmhand. And the circle of life is complete.

I'm far from the hunky type though. Definitely more of the clumsy type. Yesterday going to take the slops to the pigs I fell flat on my back, and when setting up the benches in the classroom area I clipped two kids and broke a leg off one (of the benches.)

For some reason the kids seem to love me. Federica introduces me like a freakshow character - the girl all the way from CANADA who does not speak our language! Children are actually great to teach you a language. Unlike adults, they will not cut you any slack. No speaking slowly or using simple recognizable terms. They just repeat and repeat and repeat, louder and louder. For this I learned how to request a pink tiara on the drawing made of myself in a princess dress, and how to explain where chicken eggs come out of.

The kids are really fun to be around too. Most of them are city slickers like me, but unlike me are absolutely fearless. They begin charging towards the peacock the moment they spot it, grubby little fingers outstretched. Federica gets them to march in a circle chanting, 'PIOVE VAI, SOLE VIENI" on a potentially cloudy day and it's too cute for words. They're not quite sure what to make of me hanging around - I'm clearly not old enough to be their teacher but I'm definitely taller than them. The little Romeos hand me fistfuls of wild daises and rosemary.

It's also quite an honour to be finally included on the other side of these field trips. No longer one of the students, the adults enlist me as an ally.
Marco lingers behind to pet Olivia, one of the dogs, as the rest of the kids head over to the sheep. The teacher begins forcibly tugging on his arm.
"But I want to play with the dog!!" he wails.
"You can't right now!" she screeches.
"WHY?"
"Because it's her dog," she raises her eyebrows pointedly at me, "And she needs him right now."
I stand to attention. "Yes, sorry, it's my dog, and I really really need him. Right now."

Even by Italian mothers themselves I've been told it's not just a stereotype - they are truly one of a kind (read: suffocating, overbearing). Usually the kids here have their lunches and snacks provided by the school. So on field trip day the kids come stumbling off the bus with army rucksacks stuffed with panino after panino. The mothers who accompany the class on the trip keep their eight year old sons on their lap the entire time. Assuredly, none of them will leave home until at least thirty four.

As soon as the schoolbuses pull out, Federica locks the door on the classroom, refusing to let me clean up. She heads off to Pisa and I have my aperitivo and nearly fall asleep out in the late afternoon sun.