Advertisement
Published: February 5th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Carnevale Viareggio
The mechanized, vibrant puppets are tremendous in size and delight. At 5pm the move up and down the streets, accompanied by singers, dancers and cheers... Saturday February 5, 2005
Ospedale Careggi-Pronto Soccorso
Walk-in clinics, on-call doctors, nurse practioners, private doctors that attend to private needs. Although in Florence, with a pharmacy on every street corner, I have found all of my medications without prescriptions and a medical remedy or a bit of advice for just about any thing...I have had my first encounter with the socialist organization of the Italian emergency room.
A Saturday evening. Bus 14 drops me off in front of the hospital. I wander around the dull-lit grounds. The muscles of my esophagus have been spasming for 5 hours or more, and now my breath is quickening. Acid. I take medicine for this, but tonight it's not working.
At 8:30pm I find signs for the PRONTO SOCCORSO. How does this all work? Where are the doctors that I assumed I'd recognize? There are approximately 40 people waiting. Some exhaustedly resting heads on shoulders. Others standing nervously with anxious faces. I try to read the signs. Red-emergency. Yellow-emergency. Green-semi emergency. Blue-you can wait. Who will tell me where I rate on the spectrum of pain and patience? I begin to cry because I am overwhelmed and because I am fatigued from the
undulating pain in my esophagus and chest. I ask. I am supposed to ring a bell. Tears wiped away, but obviously alone, the door opens and I am ushered into another room. They take my name. I describe my pain.
It is 8:45pm. I wait in this room, which opens into the main hall in which ambulance vehicles from all around the city deposit their patients. Every 20 minutes or so a new ambulance, another case. A man beaten up, face slashed. A pregnant woman living in Germany with her husband, in Italy for the weekend, back and stomach pains. An old woman having respiratory problems. A homeless main, drunk, found in the street. An older man, dizzy first, then unconsious. With me in the waiting room-a woman with a damaged finger. Another with pains in her stomach. A young man with his girlfriend with stomach aches. A man with throat issues. A daughter accompanying her mother with a swollen foot.
After 3 hours, several of them leave without ever being seen. Visitors come in through THE door. They are ushered back out. Or they want to visit their relative. I fall in and out of sleep, but am
fully aware of how long I am waiting. No one is attended to with haste. Not even the young Moroccan with his face slashed, or the grandmother with respiratory issues. She is wheezing. He naps, still in bloodied clothing and gauze absorbing his leaking face. 5 hours go by. I am still in pain.
At 12:55am, a nurse points to me. It's my turn.
I am lying on the bed at 1:10 am. The large room is divided into three sections by curtains. There are computers and lots of modern devices, thank god. The rest of the hospital looks like it's under construction and quite empty,
I explain. They type and listen. Take my life signs. Take some blood. Puncture wrong. Wow that hurts. Put in IV, 10 minutes and a dose of medication should sooth the excited muscles. I'm already taking the top dose of medication. Should go back and get another exam done to see if it's worsened. Can't do it here unless I'm exhibiting emergency signs. Which I am not. At 2:00, I am lead to a room. Sit, rest for 10 minutes, drink water they say. No water comes and 40 minutes later I
go into the hall looking for someone. "Signorina, aspetti la, per favore." "Ma, ti prego, sto confuso. Sto aspettando per 30 minuti. Dove il mio dottore? Di che cosa sto aspettando?" "Per rispetto, Signorina, aspetti! Muoviti!" With force. I begin crying again, silently as possible, in the small waiting room. There are windows, 4 seats and lots of empty space. I am exhausted. I don't know who I'm waiting for or why. And my chest is not 100% better. 2:50am, in peeks my doctor. Everything fine? Yes. They call me a cab, after he has given me my papers and reaffirms that I'm feeling better. "Torni immediatamente se senti qualcosa piu forte. Va bene? Hai capito?"
I am home at 3:15 am and sleep for the next 10 hours. I paid no bill, no copayment. All was free. Except my time and 6 hours of patience. Those in TRUE emergency or those who have money see private doctors. So goes, I am told, of the social health care in Italy.
Obviously my previous plans to visit CARNIVALE in Viareggio for the next day, Sunday, were erased. I slept most of the day and ate light. However, I would not
let go my trip to Viareggio and my wishes to see the incredible puppetry I've heard so greatly of!
...TUESDAY FEB 8...
So, on Tuesday, February 8th, 2005, my friend Maya and I took the Intercity train to Viareggio and spent the early afternoon wandering the streets of the port town. We were amazed by the relaxed, tranquil, contemporary, summery air of the town-concluding that it must THRIVE during the hots days of June and July. The beach is long and clean. I dip my hand in the water. The mountains emerge behind. Their is a port full of private boats as well as several cruise ships docked and idle. Beautiful here. Whites and yellows, pinks and light blues. The buildings are low and windows are wide and large. The setting sun casts a golden warmth to the board walk, and we settle on a cone of gelato artigianale (made by hand). In a few hours, the entire city begins to awaken with new life-families dress in costume for Carnevale.
And a parade begins at 5, with loud music, bands and singers atop and adorning huge paper mache floats. Some are 2 or 3 stories high. Some small but hilarious. The big ones are mechanical with dancing political figures, phrases and words, blinking eyes, trumpets blowing, play-on-words, social causes materialized as flower-stuffed cannons.
The streets are filled with confetti and spray string. As the sun lowers, and thousands more crowd into the streets, the floats begin to light up and Maya and just stand and gaze and gawk at it all. Artistically, the puppetry is unbelievable. They take a whole year to design, construct and mechanize.
Having eaten a german sausage, gelato and a few free samples of Brigadini (crispy chips with the taste of Anise, delicious!) we wander back to the train station around 7pm. Behind us, we leave the party just beginning...bands, beer, pizza and panini, more confetti, music, joyous italian songs that everyone knows by heart.
FYI-I was reading an article in the daily italian mini newspaper called LEGGO, which reported that now a days, most children have no idea what the history of Carnevale is or WHAT the traditional masks were! (think of the masks of Venice, the original ones) Historical costume and masquerade are now only 20%! Instead children and adults alike wear costumes of cartoon characters, animals and comic heroes! What a shame!!!!
INFO ABOUT CARNIVALE TAKEN FROM THE WEB:
The ANNOTICO Report
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute: Community Affairs
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/calandra/community/commcarn.html
======================================================================== =========
Carnevale:
The Italian Pre-Lenten Festival
Carnevale is the traditional pre-Lenten celebration in Italy. This is a time of merry-making, masquerade processions, masked balls, parades, pageants, jugglers, magicians, stilt walkers, elegant costumes and opulent masks, singing and dancing, fireworks, and outdoor feasts in the weeks prior to Ash Wednesday. Carnevale is a time of indulgence (and the last chance to eat meat) before Ash Wednesday which signals the penance and fasting of Lent. During carnevale anything goes, as revelers play out a reversal of roles, where slave and master, men and women, nobility and commoners, change places.
* A carnevale ogni scherzo vale *
Carnevale occurs all throughout Italy, where every city, town, and village celebrates its own traditional customs. Places such as Viareggio, Ivrea, Sciacca, Napoli, Roma, Calabria and Venezia have unique and elaborate celebrations that are world-famous.
The festivities of the last days of carnevale are the most intense as they culminate on Marted? Grasso (otherwise known as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday). Bonfires burn all over Italy on Marted? Grasso as a doll representing the King of Carnival (Re Carnevale) is ceremonially consumed in the flames to symbolically signal the death of carnevale and make way for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
Around the World: Pre-Lenten festivals are also celebrated in many other parts of the world such as the famous celebrations in Port of Spain, Nice, European countries, Trinidad, Caribbean Islands, Rio de Janiero and New Orleans.
Derivation: The word carnevale literally means farewell to meat from the Latin carnem levare.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 19; dbt: 0.0249s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb