Everyone claims to have met one. Everyone says they know about someone who has never left the base, or never gone anywhere their whole tour here. We all talk about that pitied and piteous creature who cannot acknowledge that they live in Europe, and cares nothing for the lifetime and more of joy and wonder at their fingertips. A mythical beast stalks the faketown of Gricignano, and its name is dependapotamus.
I first heard the term probably on my first night here. It’s cropped up here and there ever since, and every time it makes me smile and cringe together. Dependapotamus. Oh, it’s hilarious. The image of a military spouse, swollen to hippo proportions, waddling about a house she’s terrified to leave, makes me laugh every time. But that poor girl, that poor husband.
I’ll carry the stereotype further, and get almost inexcusably, irrevocably mean, but [spoiler alert] all shall be redeemed. The term bears lingering over, like refried beans or sausages. Disgusting as you see it constructed, but quite palatable afterward. She doesn’t have to be fat (yes, it’s always a she. The male equivalent is usually a servicemember himself and we just ridicule him to his face). She doesn’t have to be mean, or overbearing, or lazy, or any of the above, but the term in the Naples context (that is, talking about Naples-area military spouses) always implies a terror of leaving the house. That terror keeps her from leaving the base, and it clouds and colors her impressions of Italy unfairly. She hates Italians because they’re unhelpful at the Commissary on base. She hates Italians because they’re loud in the pool on base. She hates Italian drivers, and is terrified to drive off base. How could anyone like it here, she asks. Italy is home to 70% of the world’s art, but for vacations, she wants to go to America (that is, “‘merica”). Or just stay at home.
Dependapotamus describes someone who didn’t want to come here, and doesn’t want to try to like it here, is too afraid to take a chance and explore, and therefore hates it here.
Now, clearly there is no one who ever fits this description completely, or at least not for a very long period of time. If someone spent their whole three years here like that, that is a person above all to be pitied. Because no human being is static, and no one’s attitude toward one of the great destination countries on earth can remain 100% negative forever.
In reality, among real people, I wonder if the term simply describes someone in the throes of culture shock. I know these people who are terrified to drive in town. I know these homesick full-time moms who were wrenched from a comfortable life and support network and thrown into one of the hardest overseas assignments in the U.S. military (don’t ask me, ask the guy who’s lived overseas with the military 27 of the last 35 years, in all of the locations available. He’s the one who said if you can live in Naples, you can live anywhere). If you’re grieving for the life you had, and you encounter minor hardship after minor hardship, and your patience wanes and wanes until it snaps completely, you will begin to behave like a dependapotamus.
But how precedented is the feeling of distaste for a foreign land, especially from the spouse of the principle traveler? Abigail Adams, that paragon of servant wives, the one any military wife during times of long absence aspires to emulate, writes the following of Paris (Paris!), to which her husband had dragged her for his diplomatic service: “You inquire of me how I like Paris. Why, they tell me I am no judge, for that [living outside the city] I have not seen it yet. One thing, I know, and that is I have smelt it… It is one the very dirtiest place I ever saw. There are some buildings and some squares, which are tolerable; but in general the streets are narrow, the shops, the houses, inelegant and dirty.” She goes on to talk about how hard it is to meet, let alone converse, with French women, and then when you do meet them (in this instance one of Ben Franklin’s “most intimate friends”): “I own I was highly disgusted, and never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies of this cast.”
The wife of a senior diplomat said these things. The wife of a future president, who raised children, one of whom became another president, without much help from dad, gushed about the DISpleasure of living abroad in a palace outside one of the greatest cities in the world (though, to be fair, in this historical context, “the worst of times,” maybe Paris then had more austere and hostile qualities than we modern travelers see).
This too shall pass, as they say. Abigail did eventually look back at her time in Paris with fondness. But the shock in the moment is undeniable.
“To have had Paris tolerable to me,” said Abigail Adams, “I should not have gone to London.” Now there’s a sentiment I can commiserate with.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Living in Naples
I’ve decided that everything I hear about Naples is true. I love it here. I also hate it here. Both equally true. But mostly I love it here. A small town crowning a tiny Italian mountain is infinitely more fascinating than a small town back home. The evening, Italy at twilight, when the Mediterranean sun has set but hasn’t finished shining, holds a magic no swarm of mosquitoes or pack of stray dogs feeding on roadside trash can truly quench. Hiking up the rim of an extinct volcano and looking over the bay of Pozzuoli, the islands of Procida and Ischia, the hydrofoils leaving for the Amalfi coast across the Bay of Naples—this is the sublime in the supreme.
But the robberies, the horror stories told and retold within the American faketown in Gricignano, are also true. A girl I work with has gotten robbed more times than I can count, likely because she is loud and has probably made enemies, so now her enemies know every time she goes out of town. I hesitate to say the gassing stories are true (allegedly thieves will gas people in their sleep so they sleep through the entire nighttime robbery), but I’m willing to believe.
And the pizza, the caffe, the sfogliatella, the seafood are to die for. And I can park at work for free and walk to the international airport. And I get gas coupons that make the astronomical European gas prices obsolete and I can drive around Italy paying what an American pays for his or her gas back home. And within eight hours of driving, I have access to 70% of the world’s art.
Ah, Naples. It’s no vacation, but it’s a chance of a lifetime. The mafia terrifies me. The gypsies terrify and fascinate me, and bother me when I park at Ikea. They stole my friend’s car when she was in it.
Napoli is a condensed Italy, an Italy without hospitality, or at least a pre-tourist Italy. Neapolitans are an intense variety of Italian, or perhaps an unconquered breed. Individuals have been extremely hospitable and friendly, but as a group they repel the casual tourist. There are very few “touristy” places in Naples. It’s for the varsity team—all others need not bother. There is treasure here for a seasoned explorer to find. It requires more than mere receptivity. You’d hope the next sentence would read “…and rewards more than the more immediately pleasing tourist destinations.” But it’s never that simple. Maybe I’ll be able to say that, eventually. Maybe not. That’s probably the wrong way to frame it, but I’ll have to let you know.
But the robberies, the horror stories told and retold within the American faketown in Gricignano, are also true. A girl I work with has gotten robbed more times than I can count, likely because she is loud and has probably made enemies, so now her enemies know every time she goes out of town. I hesitate to say the gassing stories are true (allegedly thieves will gas people in their sleep so they sleep through the entire nighttime robbery), but I’m willing to believe.
And the pizza, the caffe, the sfogliatella, the seafood are to die for. And I can park at work for free and walk to the international airport. And I get gas coupons that make the astronomical European gas prices obsolete and I can drive around Italy paying what an American pays for his or her gas back home. And within eight hours of driving, I have access to 70% of the world’s art.
Ah, Naples. It’s no vacation, but it’s a chance of a lifetime. The mafia terrifies me. The gypsies terrify and fascinate me, and bother me when I park at Ikea. They stole my friend’s car when she was in it.
Napoli is a condensed Italy, an Italy without hospitality, or at least a pre-tourist Italy. Neapolitans are an intense variety of Italian, or perhaps an unconquered breed. Individuals have been extremely hospitable and friendly, but as a group they repel the casual tourist. There are very few “touristy” places in Naples. It’s for the varsity team—all others need not bother. There is treasure here for a seasoned explorer to find. It requires more than mere receptivity. You’d hope the next sentence would read “…and rewards more than the more immediately pleasing tourist destinations.” But it’s never that simple. Maybe I’ll be able to say that, eventually. Maybe not. That’s probably the wrong way to frame it, but I’ll have to let you know.
Driving part 2
The last time I mentioned driving I was somewhat shellshocked at the way the Neapolitans have taken to cars. Italian driving in general is pretty wild, but Napoli is a distilled essence of Italy, an Italy without laws.
“Romans drive crazy,” says Maurizio, a Roman, “but we don’t like to drive in Naples.”
There’s rarely been a better example of a pot and kettle, but it speaks to not only the disdain anyone north of Naples feels toward this city, but also to the reputation of the Neapolitan man in a Fiat.
First, the disdain. Northern Italians say that Africa starts south of Rome. Indeed, Rome is as far south as most of the tourists come, except destination travelers looking for a day in Pompeii, Amalfi or the Royal Palace in Caserta (and then only to film something they couldn’t get permission to film in Rome). If you’ve been to northern Italy, from Tuscany and Florence to Venice and the Dolomites, from Milan to Torino to the Cinqueterra, there’s enough to explore for a lifetime. Why bother striking south, into the harsher land with sharper wine and fewer road signs? Why spend valuable vacation time wandering lost through the rough city, risking pick pockets in a region with 30% unemployment? There are answers, and there are reasons, but most don’t stop to hear them.
Second, the reputation. I call all drivers here men. It’s a very male world. Even in Bahrain, I saw more women out in public (one exception: malls). Walking through our little town’s piazza, Julie wonders if women are even allowed outside here. The only ones we see are behind registers, in courtyards gossiping around plastic glasses of wine, or naked on billboards. Oh, I forgot the prostitutes. One hazard of driving is the old man who stops to pick up a prostitute (all of them African, most of them carrying their kids around, most, one assumes, slaves). If I want to smash into any Italian drivers, those are the ones.
But I categorize the drivers as young rich men, young fashionable men, old rich men, and old men. These drivers can be either male or female, but female drivers here usually fall into the young fashionable men or the old men categories.
Young rich men drive very expensive cars, impeccably shined, and yield to no one. Their car could be an enormous BMW SUV* or a tiny BMW sports car, and we have no idea what they do to earn this kind of money (though at least out where I live, one assumes, unfairly, it’s either the Comorrah or Casalesi clan). They are extremely special, and therefore extremely impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. In fact, how dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stop or yield the right of way. If they are within 100 meters of your intersection, either stop or consider an alternate route.
*(no SUV here comes close to the size of the average American SUV. A VW Taureg looms larger on the road here than a stretch Tahoe does in the U.S.)
Young fashionable men may be extremely poor and barely able to afford their Fiat 500, but that thing is spit-shined and they are prouder of it than of their new sleek purple popped collar. They yield to no one. Because Italian youth live with their parents well into their 30s, this car is also the proverbial basement couch for the amorous young couple. The fashionable young men are extremely special, and therefore extremely impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. Being the most creative category, they may even create opportunities to cut you off, for example by passing you on the right and cutting you off, then zipping to the left lane and answering their cell (which, on Italian freeways, requires a 70% reduction in speed) and then coming up from behind you and cutting you off again. How dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? If you can beat them into the intersection, you may continue on your way in relative safety, until you meet another one.
The old men drive extremely slow. Not slow like an old person on a U.S. highway, trailing the speed limit by five or ten in the right lane. No, old Italian men drive 20 in any lane. 20 kilometers per hour, or maybe per day. They are the greatest hazard on the road, all the more so because they’re probably 50% of the johns stopping to rape the slaves on the narrow street corner, too. They are terrified of driving, but what the heck, all the kids are doing it nowadays, and they’re at least as special as any of these young ruffians. Probably more so, because he remembers when this whole town was nothing but a couple of fields and a café/bar. At an intersection, assume this old guy doesn’t know he’s on the road, let alone where he’s going, and just go around him.
Old rich men are like the young rich men, but their range of cars will include a Mercedes with blacked-out windows or a Mazerati. One assumes they own this particular strip of road, to include all the businesses on either side, the slaves working every corner, and the utility companies employed to repair the road and pick up the trash. They’ve grown patient in their old age, but are probably more special than any other Italian, who is more special than anyone else. They may grant you the right of way as an act of munificence, but pretty much most of the time they are impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. In fact, how dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? If you don’t yield them right of way, tomorrow that intersection will be gone.
I’m not sure what the protocol is for passing a horse. I guess just wait for an opening. The same goes for a scooter, the driver of which is holding the reigns of a white pony. I let that guy go.
I’ve concluded that driving here is about asserting your manliness, or your specialness, or somehow convincing the entire world to bow down to you. Honor is supreme. Yielding is dishonorable. “I am special,” everyone insists. “It shouldn’t have to be ME that backs up.”
In the States, the most impatient and self-absorbed drivers are the rich suburbanites. They are in fair supply, and they drive even bigger SUVs than anything to be found in Europe. A New Yorker profile of one of the super-rich suburbs of New York City said that money, while it may not be able to buy happiness, certainly buys impatience. But there are enough semi-courteous people, or at least community-minded people with the barest hint of suspicion that they may not be the most important person in the universe, to keep the rudest among us in check on the U.S. roads.
The advent of the Euro halved Italy’s wealth and impoverished an entire generation (probably more). Maybe these “new poor” Italians still feel as special as the American rich. There’s a pregnant concept.
“Romans drive crazy,” says Maurizio, a Roman, “but we don’t like to drive in Naples.”
There’s rarely been a better example of a pot and kettle, but it speaks to not only the disdain anyone north of Naples feels toward this city, but also to the reputation of the Neapolitan man in a Fiat.
First, the disdain. Northern Italians say that Africa starts south of Rome. Indeed, Rome is as far south as most of the tourists come, except destination travelers looking for a day in Pompeii, Amalfi or the Royal Palace in Caserta (and then only to film something they couldn’t get permission to film in Rome). If you’ve been to northern Italy, from Tuscany and Florence to Venice and the Dolomites, from Milan to Torino to the Cinqueterra, there’s enough to explore for a lifetime. Why bother striking south, into the harsher land with sharper wine and fewer road signs? Why spend valuable vacation time wandering lost through the rough city, risking pick pockets in a region with 30% unemployment? There are answers, and there are reasons, but most don’t stop to hear them.
Second, the reputation. I call all drivers here men. It’s a very male world. Even in Bahrain, I saw more women out in public (one exception: malls). Walking through our little town’s piazza, Julie wonders if women are even allowed outside here. The only ones we see are behind registers, in courtyards gossiping around plastic glasses of wine, or naked on billboards. Oh, I forgot the prostitutes. One hazard of driving is the old man who stops to pick up a prostitute (all of them African, most of them carrying their kids around, most, one assumes, slaves). If I want to smash into any Italian drivers, those are the ones.
But I categorize the drivers as young rich men, young fashionable men, old rich men, and old men. These drivers can be either male or female, but female drivers here usually fall into the young fashionable men or the old men categories.
Young rich men drive very expensive cars, impeccably shined, and yield to no one. Their car could be an enormous BMW SUV* or a tiny BMW sports car, and we have no idea what they do to earn this kind of money (though at least out where I live, one assumes, unfairly, it’s either the Comorrah or Casalesi clan). They are extremely special, and therefore extremely impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. In fact, how dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stop or yield the right of way. If they are within 100 meters of your intersection, either stop or consider an alternate route.
*(no SUV here comes close to the size of the average American SUV. A VW Taureg looms larger on the road here than a stretch Tahoe does in the U.S.)
Young fashionable men may be extremely poor and barely able to afford their Fiat 500, but that thing is spit-shined and they are prouder of it than of their new sleek purple popped collar. They yield to no one. Because Italian youth live with their parents well into their 30s, this car is also the proverbial basement couch for the amorous young couple. The fashionable young men are extremely special, and therefore extremely impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. Being the most creative category, they may even create opportunities to cut you off, for example by passing you on the right and cutting you off, then zipping to the left lane and answering their cell (which, on Italian freeways, requires a 70% reduction in speed) and then coming up from behind you and cutting you off again. How dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? If you can beat them into the intersection, you may continue on your way in relative safety, until you meet another one.
The old men drive extremely slow. Not slow like an old person on a U.S. highway, trailing the speed limit by five or ten in the right lane. No, old Italian men drive 20 in any lane. 20 kilometers per hour, or maybe per day. They are the greatest hazard on the road, all the more so because they’re probably 50% of the johns stopping to rape the slaves on the narrow street corner, too. They are terrified of driving, but what the heck, all the kids are doing it nowadays, and they’re at least as special as any of these young ruffians. Probably more so, because he remembers when this whole town was nothing but a couple of fields and a café/bar. At an intersection, assume this old guy doesn’t know he’s on the road, let alone where he’s going, and just go around him.
Old rich men are like the young rich men, but their range of cars will include a Mercedes with blacked-out windows or a Mazerati. One assumes they own this particular strip of road, to include all the businesses on either side, the slaves working every corner, and the utility companies employed to repair the road and pick up the trash. They’ve grown patient in their old age, but are probably more special than any other Italian, who is more special than anyone else. They may grant you the right of way as an act of munificence, but pretty much most of the time they are impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. In fact, how dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? If you don’t yield them right of way, tomorrow that intersection will be gone.
I’m not sure what the protocol is for passing a horse. I guess just wait for an opening. The same goes for a scooter, the driver of which is holding the reigns of a white pony. I let that guy go.
I’ve concluded that driving here is about asserting your manliness, or your specialness, or somehow convincing the entire world to bow down to you. Honor is supreme. Yielding is dishonorable. “I am special,” everyone insists. “It shouldn’t have to be ME that backs up.”
In the States, the most impatient and self-absorbed drivers are the rich suburbanites. They are in fair supply, and they drive even bigger SUVs than anything to be found in Europe. A New Yorker profile of one of the super-rich suburbs of New York City said that money, while it may not be able to buy happiness, certainly buys impatience. But there are enough semi-courteous people, or at least community-minded people with the barest hint of suspicion that they may not be the most important person in the universe, to keep the rudest among us in check on the U.S. roads.
The advent of the Euro halved Italy’s wealth and impoverished an entire generation (probably more). Maybe these “new poor” Italians still feel as special as the American rich. There’s a pregnant concept.
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