Peter vs Giusseppe
These 2 men each have a market on this Main St. just down at the end of my block. The blocks here in this part of town are about 200 ft. long with 2 story apartments on each side of the one-way street. I went to Peter's store first because he was right out there with his fresh fruit and veggies. He has a few other stuff too. Like one or two bottles of olive oil, a bottle of Balsamic vinegar, one pkg. of toilet paper. You get the idea. He is the one with a smart phone with language translator. I just speak into the phone in English and it translates what I say into Italian. So we can correspond very well.
Then a few doors down I discovered in the basement of Giusspppe's apartment building is his store. It's about 8 times bigger than Peter's and has things like meat and cheese and beer and household cleansers etc. But the problem, because they are rivals, I feel like I am dishonoring one when I shop at the others'. It wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that most of the time they are sitting outside their respective store and can see who shops at whose store.
I went to Peter's store one day to get peppers and because he always has the better lettuce (not iceberg). This day he didn't have any peppers so I walked to Giusseppe's and Giusseppe saw this. He asked me something like "he has no pepperocini"? So I found myself one day taking the car and parking on the next side street and sneakily going into Peter's to get lettuce. When I came out with my bag I saw Giusseppe sitting watching me. He wasn't outside when I went into Peter's.
Sounds so silly but they are the only stores in this part of town. There is a bigger store down the road in the center of Villanova about a mile away. I live in S. Villanova. But I can find almost anything I need in Carovigno at Euro Spin. So I went there yesterday.
I gave the little Black Lab puppy some water yesterday after asking his "old man" if I could. I can't imagine how this old couple will be able to take care of this dog when it gets bigger. The man can hardly stand without help. The old lady needs help with everything. She wants nothing to do with the puppy and shoos him away when he tries to play with her feet. All she does the whole 2 hours she sits here is shuffle through what looks like a small deck of cards. They don't speak. All dogs have to be on leashes. This Black Lab will get bigger and stronger and easily pull the man to the ground. This is not good. The puppy just wants to do puppy things and the old man keeps saying "basta, basta" "stop stop". The puppy needs to chew because he's obviously teething. Sometimes he resorts to chewing on the leather strap of his leash. I want to get him a chew rawhide or something but I am not sure how the old man will accept it.
These people are NOT friendly to outsiders. To each other....YES.
Thursday night very late, around 1am I could hear people singing and playing an accordion and tambourines. So I went out and stood by watching. They waved me to come and sit with them. There were 6 men, 1 woman and 1 boy about 12. One man was playing the accordion and 2 were playing the tambourines. They were singing in Italian on the edge of the beach at 1 in the morning! This little town stays up so late with kids bouncing a basketball in the street outside my door and yelling. So after I sat down to listen to the guys singing and making a lot of noise, they handed me a glass of Champagne that they were all drinking. They indicated they knew I could only speak English. I've been here almost 2 weeks now so they knew. I stayed for about an hour and said "grazie" and "buonanotte". Thank you and good night. They all smoked. Except for the 12 yr. old. (yet)
So far Fasano has the best pizza. And they serve it during the day. Pizza is only served after 8pm here.
The man with the fresh, just caught fish is here outside again.
It rained here yesterday! Just for a minute and was precluded by a few hours of loud thunder. It rained just enough to get the streets a bit steamy.
Today looks beautiful again.
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