One year, 300 days, top-10 and sick of writing diary
Today marks one year spent in Italy for me; I arrived on the 4th of June last year, one day after the Italian border opened for EU-citizens post the first wave of Covid-19. Not willing to risk that border closing before I had a chance to come to Apulia, I travelled to Rome, spending my summer there working and studying Italian, preparing myself for the fieldworking-year to come and being more aptly located for my husband to pay regular visits (more so than had I been in Ostuni from the start, considering the less than direct flight route needed to get there in general, in times of Covid-19 in particular). Little did we know then that he would spend most of the year here in Italy with me, smart-working in his line of work that he during the current situation can. Nope, it had not occurred at all to us that the work-from-home-those-who-can-encouragement would turn into a silver lining of sorts for the two of us. But it did, and sorry as I am about the circumstances paving way for him being on this journey with me, as grateful am I for the fact that I have had him by my side, emotionally and physically, all along during this process. I am not sure how I would have felt being here without him for an extended period—which indeed occurs a reality for many ethnographers conducting research in places other than where their close ones are, and which indeed was the plan also for the two us in me adhering to my vocation—but I know that his presence been important for my conduction of this fieldwork. It has namely, more so in some ways than others, been much tougher than I could ever have imagined it to be, carrying out this fieldwork—vocation of mine—that is.
Funny coincidence, at least for someone like me, keen on celebrating anniversaries of all kinds, even such made-up by my own selective counting of sorts, today also marks 300 days conducting fieldwork. Or well, I stand to correct myself, today marks 300 days spent in the place where my fieldwork is conducted; for, while being here 300 consecutive days, I have not conducted fieldwork all days. At least not fieldwork per se. Far from it. I have been taking days off to read and to write, to think and to reflect, to celebrate holidays and to just be—here and with him. Days have been allocated to live life in this context as well as to contextualize ways of living here. While most of these 300 days—all so neatly indexed in my diary, which pages I so enthusiastically been filling up on a daily basis, but the last couple of weeks become awfully sick of writing in, additionally to all the other writings that my job entails—have been (pre)occupied with fieldworking—many rather practically, others more observantly, and yet others fairly intuitively—I have been particular with also giving myself, let alone us, space to do other things, such as to explore places, people, practices and what have you also beyond the scope of my research. It has not been easy. Far from that, too, for being here with the purpose of conducting ethnographic research about olive cultivation and olive oil production, such as through fieldwork, I have found it rather challenging to justify not spending time—all time—doing just that. Nagging almost. Thanks to the presence of my husband though, I have experienced an easier time tuning in and out of (field)working-mode, and to not becoming completely wrapped up in my research, although I am almost totally immersed in the place of its setting. One reason for this, I think, is that our togetherness here in many senses much resembles that of our day-to-day life anywhere, and this, I believe, has kept me so to speak somewhat grounded in place; that is, in the place of us, which is one where I find space and comfort to unwind.
Speaking of unwinding, we have in the honor of this celebrational one-year-300-days event booked ourselves a weekend in the mountains of Fasano. I have some fieldwork to attend to in the area and considering that it is a roughly 2-hour drive from where we currently live, we figured to make most out of the weekend, combining pleasure with purpose, enjoying the scenery at once ethnographically and privately. The image above is from the view of the B&B that we are spending the weekend at. The subsequent 10 images constitute a sort of top-10 selection of photographs visualizing a selection of top-10 happenings from this one-year-300-days period.
