EXPERTS

 As the oldest daughter I had to watch out for my younger sister that was a bit naughty. Sometimes she acted a bit weird. She was a very tiny girl with blonde hair. We all took care of her. She took advantage of that and was therefore a bit spoiled. For example, she liked to play on her own and hide in some corner. As we went looking for her and called out her name, she would not answer, even though she was nearby. When I told her that I was worried because she did not answer, she would simply say that she wasn’t in the mood for talking. She loved to climb trees in our fruit plantation. My parents warned me that I should pay particular attention to this and make sure she doesn’t fall of a tree. One day it happened. My sister climbed on a top of a tree and the more that I pleaded her to come down, the higher she climbed. I was scared as there were no adults in the vicinity. All of the sudden, like the universe answered my prayers, a chopper came. It flew so low that the branches of the tree swayed almost to the ground. My sister barely managed to stay on the tree. Since then my naughty sister doesn’t like heights.

 When I was nine years old we moved to another part of town and I had to change my school. Each morning, before I went to school, I had a stomach ache and I could not eat breakfast in the morning. My mother discovered that my pain is a direct result of my fear of the new environment. She encouraged me that I will soon make new friends and that the grades I get in school are not that important. Just after few days my stomach was OK.

One day, I had a conversation with a boy (he was almost three years old) about the cold. We were looking through the window onto a snowy atrium. We were discussing what we decided to wear this morning. I told him I have black mittens, he told me that he had blue. I continued with telling him, that my mittens have five fingers. He paused for a moment and then replied: “My mittens have six fingers!”

An auditorium in an elementary school many many years ago… one afternoon in the 60’s. The head teacher, strict, big, dark male teacher gives the third graders permission to sing in the empty auditorium. I sing with my best friend Tuula. I can´t remember what song it was. Before we started to sing the head teacher had switched the recorder on. The singing stops and after a while the auditorium fills up with bright girls’ voices. What a wonder and joy. Our voices!

In 1960’s, when I was a child, the most important media tool was the television. It defined the home arrival times, bathing times in the evenings, the Saturday´s sauna times and the sleeping times. It also connected family and friends, because at first there was only one channel and so we all watched the same channel simultaneously.
My most important memories are linked with specific tv-programmes like “The Sandman”. I have also warm memories about “Peyton Place”. On Wednesday evenings father and mom allowed me to watch that adult´s program, to fell asleep on their bed and then father carried me to my own bed (I used to pretend that I´m asleep so that I could enjoy that every time). Also, Eurovision Song Contest with that boring vote system interested me over and over again.
Radio was at my father´s use. When the news started we had to calm down and stop noisy playing. But then, after the news, Music Radio for the young started, and then was the girl´s time to enjoy the radio. In the 70’s we got a record player and we were allowed to listen to our favourite music.
Father used to film our family´s most important travellings and events. We watched those films many times and remembered those happenings. We have rerecorded those films to VHS-videos and now to a digital form.
 

I started my school in a Central Elementary School in 1968. From those first few years I can´t remember almost anything. I think that´s because we had a very severe teacher who had strict discipline, was unpredictable and who often embarrassed small pupils with his sarcastic comments.
On the third grade I got a new teacher. That teacher had graduated from the Teacher Seminar the year before and was full of enthusiasm, and treated us kids very well. My teacher conveyed to me a lifelong love to art and culture. I hope his teaching style had some impact to my own professional identity.
At school, once a month, we used to watch teaching films. I remember one specific film about volcanic eruption in Iceland. After that film we draw pictures where the magma was flowing down on the mountainside. My teacher praised my drawing.
Last spring there was another volcanic eruption in Iceland. Our pre-school boys were very interested in that event. We watched an educational film about volcanoes and drew fabulous pictures about volcanoes. We also wrote stories, where the president was threatened to stay under the magma, but the Hornets rescued him. We read the stories in the spring festivity.
I had a Dejá-vu feeling!
 

A little girl's life changing experience was the colour television. It was so wonderful and exciting, when I could watch “Black stallion” and “Clown Hermanni” in colours. The Clown had a red nose and the black stallion was really black. I watched that miracle with my brother and friends. We also organized childrens’ movie nights. The telly was the center in our living room, and it was like celebration watching that. Those were the days! Today, television no longer wakes up such a passion due to the Internet and the information explosion. The media comes from doors and windows, so that you can get tired of it!

I have grown up in Sicily, and I did not go to a nursery school, but to a pre-primary school. My teachers were nuns and one of the toys available for us were little stilts. One time I asked one of the nuns if she wanted to try them, too.

I like to remind the afternoons spent to play with my sister and our common friend. Our favourite game was the “Rubber band” play. It was a simple game because it foresaw only the use of an elastic ribbon tied at the ends.

There is an event of my childhood that I remember very well. I have been around 2 years and a half, maximum 3 years old, and at that time I lived at Lavino, a small village close to the surroundings of Zola Predosa, near Bologna. It was a very cosy green area with a small river.

I remember with pleasure and nostalgia my grandparents from my father's side. I remember that I passed most of the day with them - my grandma was very good at cooking, and when I was with them at lunch, she prepared a special pasta with courgettes and tomatoes - she knew that I liked that very very much!