Homage to Zakynthos

A Zacinto

Né più mai toccherò le sacre sponde

ove il mio corpo fanciulletto giacque,

Zacinto mia, che te specchi nell'onde

del greco mar da cui vergine nacque

Venere e fea quelle isole feconde

col suo primo sorriso, onde non tacque

le tue limpide nubi e le tue fronde

l'inclito verso di colui che l'acque

cantò fatali, ed il diverso esiglio

per cui bello di fama e di sventura

baciò la sua petrosa Itaca Ulisse.

Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio,

o materna mia terra; a noi prescrisse

il fato illacrimata sepoltura.

Zakynthos Greece 26-30 September 2010

The pleasant hustle and bustle of ours meeting still echoes in us and our school. We greatly enjoyed our get together and we are quite sure that all the team of students and teachers developed even more respect, friendship and understanding between us.

Short Folk’s story in my area

The group “Pratola Folk” was founded in the summer of 1974. Putting pression on some of his musician friends, sceptical at the beginning, managed, in time, thanks to a patient and constant work of research and musical re-elaboration to present a vast repertory about love, work and fight songs of Irpinia.

Other components became members of the group successively. Pratola Folk group, affiliated to ARCI-UISP, thanks to the personal interest of Orlando Marano to the RAI’s headquarters of Napoli, recorded an LP “Voci dalle Terre del Sud” distributed by R.C.A. in 1977.

From 1974 to 1980 the group made a lot of shows during very important national and international events, both in the most important Italian cities and in foreign ones (Germany and Switzerland).

With the terrible earthquake in Irpinia (1980), the constant work of research and musical re-elaboration, proffered by the group Pratola Folk , failed because of the several professional busy in the rebuilding of public and private town planning of Irpinia’s villages. From 1980 to 1987 the group continued, in a reduced way, to perform in Italian squares and Irpinia’s ones, with new components too.

In 1987, some exponents of the group, with petty and childish explanations were able to involve other components who had decided to give up the group. You made several attempts, in time, to compose the group again.

In Autumn 2003, after a revival concert, made in the public park of Pratola Serra in September, the friends were successful in the enterprise and they compose the group again together with some young men, who apart from their musical talent, they believed firmly in the research and the continuation of folklore.Now the components of the group, together with the new arrivals, believe firmly in the undertaken work.

Iter Ibericum

Comment of a student - Italian school-, about the visit (Comenius) in Dos Hermanas, published on the school newspaper IIS Pietradefusi, last week.

Our second meeting

On arrival at the airport of Seville, on 25 April, the temperature is hot and the reception of the guests, by teachers and pupils’ parents of IES S. Virgen de Valme in Dos Hermanas is even warmer. It isthe second meeting of the Comenius project, that I. I. S. Petradefusi Section of Classical High School, is developing with partner schools of the towns Dos Hermanas (Spain), Zacyntos (Greece) and Mouscron (Belgium). It’s some years European Union responsibles for education programs encourage exchanges between schools in different countries. Students working on joint projects, that schools decide individually, freely choosing the topic but always following the rules established by European and national agencies. Families are directly involved in the project, hosting the students of partner schools. Moreover a Comenius project, properly interpreted, arouse the partners: enthusiasm, helpfulness, generosity, familiarity. We got to Dos Hermanas while they were celebrating the Feria in Seville (the two cities seem almost to be one since Dos Hermanas increased in recent decades from a few thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants). The Feria of Seville (Spanish city festivals are so called ) is an important anniversary and attracts thousands of visitors (this year the chronicals report there have been six hundred thousand people). Under the sun that beat strong even though we were in spring, the main activity during the Feria was to taste wine, eat cheese, ham, seasoned olives, then dance flamenco to the rhythm of castanets and beat hands. To feast women of all ages wear the traditional costume, like gitana ones (long skirts flounced with lace bodice and snug), as they wore in Spain until the beginning of the twentieth century. So the teacher Marisa (here we use naming principals and teachers), the project manager for the Spanish school, accompanied the guests to the Feria, offering flowers to colleagues to adorn her hair, as is the tradition in the Feria. Dos Hermanas’ town , very nearly three times bigger than our Avellino, shows the modern face of its neighborhoods (barrios), extremely clean and well-organized. Drivers not only comply with road signs, but aboveall comply with pedestrians, when crossing the road. I think it is not just for concern of the fines that local police can impose to the unruly but for inner sense of respect. At City Hall the delegations, with headmistress of the institute, Ms Carmen, were welcomed in the council chamber by a young woman councillor of education, Mrs Ana Conde, who carefully showed the administrative organization of the city. Twenty seven are the advisers, including the mayor (who in Spanish is called alcalde). I must say regretfully that the administration of a municipality in our province, even of a few thousand inhabitants, takes more than half of those are enough for this Spanish city of over one hundred thousand people. The care for culture in Dos Hermanas is not a rhetorical or parade. They really believe in the importance of culture as social promotion! One example is the municipal library. This, on two floors of a building downtown, is really exceptional, not for the number of volumes owned, but for the organization which is without parallel in our country: downstairs, at street level, the shelves of books in a large reading room, upstairs books and computers. The regulars of our library are usually students, here I saw many elderly people sitting at tables reading books as well as some disabled people did; we all stopped to admire a group of nursery school children guided by moderator, who mimicked the characters of a fable. The opening time to the public is without interruption twenty four hours a day. In Dos Hermanas you can spend the night in the library! At school pupils of four countries presented the institute they came from and the work already done on the dietary habits of teenagers. The students have shown no embarrassment but great enthusiasm speaking at the microphone in front of an audience so diverse in origin and addresses of national studies. After all they are the protagonists.Families have loved to greet us offering Andalusian specialties preparing them the same way they use to do in their homes. We have to give a due recognition to families and teachers who are the prime movers of these experiences; they make the greatest contribution to mutual understanding and construction of a great European nation. Much more important is this quiet but fruitful work if we consider the difficulties that the EU must face daily: prejudice to be overcome need more and more of contacts and exchange of experiences between people of different countries.

The first meeting

Remarks about the first meeting "ECAP", published October 25, 2009 in newspaper "Corriere" of Avellino (Italy)

Special Easter traditions in our area.

Situated at the northeast border of Campania with the region Puglia, Greci, is the town of the province of Avellino, which jealously guards, many centuries, its language and its culture. Its geographical position in the inland area of Southern Italy, has helped to keep the oldest part of the Albanian language, compared to communities arbëreshe widespread in Calabria, Basilicata, Molise, Puglia and Sicily. The community of Greci it is the only town in the province of Avellino, and the whole Campania region, where arbëreshe is spoken, the language brought by Albanians in the fifteenth century theyrepopulated many lands of Southern Italy. The town, of the Catholic faith, had kept the greek-orthodox rite on liturgy, which was obstructed and was replaced at the end of the seventeenth century, with the Latin rite. The religious feast in Greci remain, however, some sections of the ancient rite in the period of Easter. Good Friday community grecese still retains an 'ancient liturgical tradition. It is sung on the evening of Good Friday in an old church song arbëreshe, the "Kalimera", which commemorates the Passion of Christ. The song consists of over three hundred verses, sung at a rate of threnody (funeral song in Ancient Greece) by women in the country arbëreshe language. "Kalimera Krishtit Baku (Kalimera Benedict Christ) begins with a heartfelt cry" Hasten people hurry / hurry than they are / all that Christ did for us / you now you know (Erdhni erdhni gjnjat / Erdhni sa më jinni / E na sa Krishti trees / Ju dwarfs ket to nationals). It continues with an invitation to accept Jesus of the humble part of the faithful: Oi you blessed Jesus / accept this passion / that we will sing / with all devotion (or you Krishti baku / grade Kete passiun / s na ket këndomi / but gjthë devuciun). The village women, during Holy Week, are used to prepare some sweets at home: the bagels, pizza with ricotta, "Panarin" for boys and "Nusan" for girls. Once these cakes were baked in public ovens of the town. "Panari" and "Nussia (respectively mean basket and doll) are made of shortbread decorated with hundreds and thousands, which have the characteristic shape of the basket to the heart and the doll, as Easter gifts to children, the" Basket "and to the girls “ Doll”.