Socializing

by Jael Cooper
In Cagli, everyone seems to socialize in the piazza after dinner has finished, even the children. The evening is the time they get together and see how their friends and neighbors have been doing and what they have been involved in that day. In America this time does not always exist, but when it does it is reserved for the daylight or early evening hours. You will not find groups of people eating gelato and drinking wine right next to children kicking a soccer ball. The world of children and the world of adults do not mix so easily. In the American town I grew up in, for example, a few families may gather at one house and spend the early evening chatting while their children are off in the backyard or the playroom. If the adults were to be out together in public, the children are most likely handed off to babysitters who typically feed them and get them into bed before the adults get home. There is a separation of family life that, in Cagli, seems to be more about the integration of friends and children than the boundaries of time and space.