It renews year after year and its favorite seasons are spring and summer. I’m talking about the old women who, walking through the alleys of Puglia, you will meet.
From the villages along the Gargano to those of the Bari hinterland, from the small squares of the high Salento down Puglia.
You’ll find them there, outside the door of the house. Sitting alone or in company. Some, the more traditional ones you will see on straw chairs, others, the more equipped ones, on those chairs with wheels, those for the office, just to be clear… the times are changing!
Each is engaged in something, some with mending, some even with their hands in the dough to prepare the famous orecchiette or to clean some seasonal vegetables, and some with gossip. So afternoons run until the evening, scrutinizing with the curiosity typical of the elderly anyone who passes in front of them. They see the sun, the rain, the funeral, the baptisms and they always stay there. You pass, look at them, and they make you feel at home. And you know that you will be in their speeches for a few minutes! Ahhh, maybe I’ll be like them too?
It’s a beautiful sight: it arouses the curiosity of some and causes nostalgia in many others. Because these old women make us go back in time and make us think: “ I wish we could recover at least some of those traditions that the hateful modernity is taking away”.
And while we’re here thinking, in some little street right next to those old women, the children play football, you hear their voices, you can also hear the music and the TV coming from some house and the voices of those who say hello from one balcony to another.
There is so much desire for sun, so much desire for life.
