【BBC2015.8.3】祖母级旅游团如何搞定她们的首次假期

連長

【中文标题】祖母级旅游团如何搞定她们的首次假期 【原文标题】How a group of grannies got their first holiday 【原文链接】BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33723575

一群打意大利北方乡下来的老奶奶们一直梦想着能看到大海。她们曾试过靠给日历拍写真筹集旅费，但结局与电影里演的不太一样，行不通。这之后，其中一个老奶奶的孙子加入了进来，并提出了一个听起来更加不靠谱的想法。

每个人都喜欢发生在现实生活里的童话故事，尤其是结局皆大欢喜那种。

尽管这篇故事里的主角们早已经过了童话里公主的年纪，然而她们的名字确实可以和长发公主、灰姑娘或欧若拉媲美。艾米丽、尤兰达和安米达是这个老奶奶旅行团的组织者，她们刚刚启程前往了她们生平中的首次海滨之旅。

她们自称是“the funne”（念作FOO-neh），在她们讲的那种方言里（译者注：特伦蒂诺方言），意思是“妇女”。她们的平均年龄是80岁，许多是寡居老人，绝大多数成员都从未看到过大海。

安米达（左） ，艾米丽 （中） 和尤兰达（左）

她们都是杜鹃花俱乐部（The Circolo Rododendro）的成员，‘杜鹃花’是本地的一个老年俱乐部，成员们每周抽两个下午的时间聚会，每次聚会持续两三小时。最年长的妇女们热衷玩兵戈游戏，年轻一些的喜欢玩扑克、闲谈，有时甚至会沉醉在舞池里跳舞。俱乐部里最年轻的是艾米丽，今年70岁，她说“自打她加入这个俱乐部以来，就一直有人提议去海边旅行，但是总是事与愿违，不是这个病了，就是那个出了问题。”

“妇女们”居住在意大利北部特伦蒂诺自治区道内市的一个叫Alpine的微型村庄里。它坐落在该国冬季最寒冷的地方--道内山谷，这地方冷到可以在当地巨大的冰冻瀑布上举办世界冰攀锦标赛。

很难想象当地严酷的冬季过后会有一个沁人心脾的夏天，完全就像是童话故事里的背景画面：花儿漫山遍野四处绽放。开阔的山谷距离村庄中心十分钟车程，一代又一代人在这里开垦狩猎，度过她们的夏日时光。

尤兰达从前曾是种土豆的，也割过稻子，就是放在阳光下晒干后把一捆捆的稻子背在她的背上拿去谷仓。不过相较而言，她认为她那困难的工作算是轻松的。“那些比我岁数大的妇女们还得背着孩子去地里，干活时就得把孩子放在一边。还得用镰刀去除草。”

这项工作按理说应该是由男人来完成，但是在1950年代，本地的男人大都去修山谷里那座巨大的电力水库了。艾米丽说“这就是以前农民的生活，我母亲生育了八个孩子，可她连照料一个孩子的时间都没有。

没人去旅行过，那个年代的孩子都没能跟大人们养成度假的习惯。道内市的市长凯蒂·佩里萨蕾回忆了她与丈夫第一次出游的情景，她说：“到了离出游还有两天的时间，他都还没有告诉他妈妈，这让我怒不可遏。他觉得他妈妈会认为我们是在贪图享乐。”

毫无疑问，对于大多数妇女，包括市长的婆婆妈，这不仅仅是她们的第一次海滨之旅，更是她们人生中的第一次度假。尤兰达指着距此60公里（35英里）的一个城市说：“你知道吗？有些人还从没去过特兰托，我第一次去时是在我20岁。”

她们讲了一个叫依勒玛的83岁老奶奶的故事，她唯一一次去城市里面是因为她的现任丈夫被送往医院。她在那里待了三天，但寸步不离守在病床前。艾米丽继续说道：“有些人甚至从来没有离开过这片山谷，她们在道内出生，在道内长大，在道内离世。”

艾米丽和尤兰达是为数不多的几位看过大海的妇女。艾米丽在1962年看到过大海，尤兰达是1977年，都是在她们当护士的时候，几乎都没什么机会弄湿脚丫。

尤兰达（左）和艾米丽（右）在做土豆玉米粥

她们邀请我共进午餐：土豆玉米粥，是当地的特色菜。尤兰达切了点葱，用黄油和橄榄油炒了下，然后放进了玉米粥里。在她搅拌玉米糊和土豆泥的时候，我们讨论了下她们想了一辈子的旅行。

一年以前，她们开始筹钱，起初是手拿着蛋糕在村里的集市上卖。结果不甚理想。但是在集市上，她们碰巧预见了卡提亚·贝尔纳德，她是本地拍纪录片的。自那以后，她就开始专心跟拍她们的筹钱事迹。在她的建议下，她们试着像本地消防员那样拍摄日历写真：12个妇女，每人一个月份。

卡提亚聘请了一个职业摄影师和化妆师来到杜鹃花俱乐部。她说：“拍摄日历写真对她们来说就是一场冒险，因为她们中有些人是生平第一次打扮。”她还补充道：“对大部分人来说，她们的婚礼就是她们的第一次也是最后一次化妆。”

那本日历的风格随意搞笑，展现了妇女们天马行空的个人梦想：骑在马上驰聘草原，在热气球里，坐在一辆双层巴士里，甚至还有想法是把自己的画像挂在卢浮宫里。但是，尽管期望很大，日历却没能筹到一分钱，大家觉得原因可能在于当地民风保守，也有可能是出于嫉妒。许多的村民表示，觉得她们太老了，不适合搞这种“可笑又没意义"的事儿。

看起来她们永远也筹不够钱支持她们去旅行，直到有一天，艾米丽的孙子提出在互联网上众筹。她承认一开始听到他解释“众筹”的含义时，她觉得他疯了。“我说，别搞笑了，谁会把钱给一群想去海边的老女人？肯定会有人说‘如果你想去海边，那你就自己掏钱。’”

但是，实际上，就像挥舞魔法棒那样，她们亲眼目睹了潮水般的捐款从遥远的伦敦、纽约、澳大利亚等源源不断地涌来。三天内她们筹到的钱就已经超过原目标的两倍了，艾米丽不得不收回原先对孙子说的那些话。为了向支持者表示感谢，她们许诺了明信片、日历、徽章，甚至还有烹饪教程。

多出部分的捐款将全部用来让更多的乡下妇女一道旅行。唯一的条件就是她们必须年满60周岁，当然了，还必须得是女性。

艾米丽是为数不多的一位有丈夫的妇女。你可能会觉得他会羡慕妒忌，但是他却猛烈地摇头。勒恩诺是一位退休的卡车司机，他说他已经受够了旅行，没有一起去的欲望。可以说他很爱他的夫人，支持她的计划。但是艾米丽承认说，一些杜鹃花俱乐部的男退休老人曾问过她为什么他们不能去。她总是回答说“因为你不是妇女”。可以说她是措辞坚定，有着妇女的主导意识。

艾米丽（左），安米达（中）和尤兰达（右）

这个旅游团里有一位发型师和一名护士，她们甚至还说服了一位村医和她们一起旅行。尽管如此，有些妇女还是考虑到健康问题不会去旅行。齐阿拉曾为日历摆拍，但是她有严重的心脏病。尽管她梦想看到大海，她还是害怕去。

但对其他人来说，梦想就快实现了。

她们的目的地是克罗地亚的乌格连岛，选择那里是因为那里有跟道内市一样的守护神：雪圣母。当卡提亚发现那里有一个地中海岛屿，还偶然发现与小山村有千丝万缕的联系时，她知道那儿就是妇女们想了一辈子的海滨之旅的目的地。雪圣母日在每年的8月5日庆祝，她们的长途巴士在8月2日离开了道内市。

卡提亚说她们收到了克罗地亚人发来的脸书信息，克罗地亚的人们通过互联网听说了她们的故事。她面露喜色地说道：“克罗地亚人不断表示要陪伴老奶奶们去海边或者协助她们。还有人提供给她们公寓居住。克罗地亚等着欢迎她们，庆祝她们的到来。”

妇女们一定得去这个地方。事实上，她们也希望到了那里之后能找到些帅气的克罗地亚男人一起跳舞。艾米丽干笑着说：“希望那里的音乐适合我们跳舞”。尤兰达咯咯笑着回应：“我们可不会跳拉丁舞。”

“我们没有人会游泳”

---尤兰达，妇女

尽管她们都已经等不及要去海里趟水，但是当我去找她们的时候，大伙都坦白说她们还没有买泳衣。尤兰达说：“我会买的，但是我不知道是否会穿上，我已经73岁了，我不敢肯定我的身体条件允许我穿泳衣。艾米丽则更实际，她说：“我打算穿条短裤下水。如果水深只到膝盖的话，我肯定会的。”随后尤兰达插嘴道：“可我们根本不会游泳啊！”

但是，就算她们不能潜入海浪中，她们也肯定能把脚丫弄湿。如果她们有空的话，说不定会顺便写明信片。她们娇羞道：“我们得写350张明信片给众筹者们”。我则建议她们寻求仙女救星的帮助。

A group of elderly women from a village in northern Italy have long dreamed of seeing the sea. They tried posing for a calendar to raise the funds - but unlike in the film, it didn't work. Then one of their grandchildren came up with what seemed like an even more far-fetched idea.

Everyone loves a real-life fairy tale, especially when it has a genuinely happy ending.

The protagonists of this story are rather more mature than traditional princesses, although they do have names to rival Rapunzel, Cinderella and Aurora. Erminia, Iolanda and Armida are the leaders of a posse of grandmas and great-grandmas, who have just embarked on their first ever trip to the seaside.

They call themselves the funne (pronounced FOO-neh), which in their dialect means "women". Their average age is 80, many are widows, and the majority have never seen the sea.

They're all members of the Circolo Rododendro - the local pensioners' club where they meet for a few hours, two afternoons a week. The oldest funne like playing bingo while the younger ones play cards, chat and sometimes even indulge in a spot of ballroom dancing. "Ever since I've been a member of the club, people have been saying, 'Come on, let's organise a trip to the seaside!'" says Erminia who, at 70, is the youngest of the group. "But something always went wrong: one would get sick, another would have some other problem."

The funne live in the tiny Alpine village of Daone in the Trentino region of northern Italy. It's situated in the Valdaone valley, which in winter is one of the coldest places in the country - so cold it hosts the world ice-climbing championships on its colossal frozen waterfalls.

But it's hard to imagine their bitter winters on a glorious summer's day here. It's a perfect fairy tale setting: flower-carpeted fields, shady woodlands, and cascading rivers. The open valley, 10 minutes' drive from the centre of the village, is where, for generations, they've spent their summer days, tending their land and looking after their animals.

As well as farming potatoes, Iolanda used to cut straw, turn it in the sun, then carry bundles on her back to the hay barn. But she says her hard work was comparatively easy. "The women older than me used to take their babies with them in baskets which they left beside them while they worked. They used to cut the grass with a scythe."

This job was traditionally done by men, but at that time - the 1950s - a lot of the local men were off building the valley's huge hydroelectric dams. "It was a peasant's life," says Erminia. "My mother had eight children but she didn't have enough to care for one."

Nobody ever went on holiday and the children of that generation never acquired the holiday habit as adults. Ketty Pellizzari, the mayor of Daone, remembers the first time she and her husband went away together. "Two days before leaving he still hadn't told his mother and it made me furious. He thought she'd think us frivolous," she says.

Indeed, for a lot of the funne, including the mayor's mother-in-law, this won't just be their first trip to the seaside but their first ever holiday. "Do you know some people haven't even been to Trento?" says Iolanda, pointing in the direction of the nearest city 60km (35 miles) away. "I was 20 the first time I went."

They tell the tale of how 83-year-old Irma only went to the city when her late husband was admitted to hospital. She spent three days there - at his bedside. There are even some, Erminia continues, who've never left the valley. "They're born in Valdaone, they grow up in Valdaone, and they die in Valdaone."

Erminia and Iolanda are among the rare few funne who have seen the sea. Erminia saw it in 1962, Iolanda in 1977. Both were then working as nannies, neither so much as got her feet wet.

They've invited me for lunch: potato polenta - a local speciality. Iolanda chops leeks to be fried in butter and olive oil then added to the polenta. As they mix the cornmeal into the mashed potatoes, we discuss the trip they've spent a lifetime dreaming about.

They started fundraising a year ago by holding a cake sale at the village fair. The result was underwhelming. But at the fair, that they bumped into Katia Bernardi, a local documentary maker. She has been following their fundraising endeavours with her camera ever since. On her suggestion, they tried making a calendar like the local firemen do: 12 funne, one for each month.

Katia engaged a professional photographer and make-up artist for the shoot at the Circolo Rododendro. "Making the calendar was an adventure for them because some of them were made up for the first time in their lives," she says. For most, she explains, the first and last time they wore make up was on their wedding day.

The calendar, with its tongue-in-cheek photomontages, presents the funne living their personal dreams: atop a horse on a ranch, in a hot air balloon, on a London bus and even hanging in a portrait at the Louvre. But, despite high hopes, the calendar was a fundraising flop, which the ladies put down to local disapproval and, perhaps, envy. A lot of villagers, they say, consider them too old for such "ridiculous nonsense".

It looked like they'd never raise enough to finance their trip until Erminia's grandson suggested crowd-funding on the internet. She admits that when he explained the concept she thought he was mad. "I said, 'Don't be ridiculous, who's going to give money to a bunch of old ladies who want to go to the seaside?' They'll say, 'If you want to go to the seaside, you can pay for yourselves.'"

But, in true, magic-wand-waving style, they saw donations flood in from as far away as London, New York and Australia. Within three days they had more than doubled their target and Erminia had to eat her words. To thank their supporters, they've pledged postcards, calendars, badges and even cookery lessons.

All the extra money raised will be used to take more of the village funne along. The only condition is that they must be over the age of 60 and, of course, female.

Erminia is one of the few whose husband is still alive. You might think he'd be envious but he shakes his head vigorously. A retired lorry driver, Renzo says he's done enough travelling and has no desire to go. This is, he smiles, his wife's project. But Erminia admits some of the male pensioners at the Circolo Rododendro have asked why they can't go. She always gives the same response: "Because you're not funne." This is, she states resolutely, a women's initiative.

The group is taking a hairdresser and a nurse and they've even convinced the village doctor to go with them. In spite of this, some of the funne won't be able to travel because of health problems. Chiara, who posed for the calendar, has a serious heart condition. Even though she dreams of seeing the sea, she is too scared to go.

But for others, the dream is coming true.

Their destination is the Croatian island of Ugljan, chosen because it has the same patron saint as Daone: the Madonna of the Snow. When Katia discovered there was a beautiful Mediterranean island with such a serendipitous connection to the tiny mountain village, she knew it would be perfect for the funne's seaside holiday of a lifetime. The saint's day is celebrated on 5 August; their coach left Daone on 2 August.

None of us knows how to swimIolanda, Funne

Katia says they've received Facebook messages from people in Croatia who've heard the story through the internet. "There've been offers to accompany the grandmas to the sea or to assist them," she beams. "There've been invitations to stay in apartments there. Croatia is waiting to welcome them and celebrate."

So the funne shall go to the ball. In fact, they're hoping to find some nice Croatian men to dance with when they get there. "Let's hope there's music suitable for us," says Erminia dryly. "We don't know how to dance Latin American." Iolanda giggles.

Although they can't wait to paddle in the sea, when I visit them the ladies confess they haven't yet bought swimming costumes. "I will buy one," says Iolanda, "but I don't know if I'll put it on. At 73, I'm not sure my physique will allow it." Erminia is practical: "I'm going to splash out on a couple of pairs of shorts. If it's true that you can go into the sea up to your knees, I definitely will." Then Iolanda chips in with another confession: "None of us knows how to swim!"

But even if they won't be diving into the waves, this time they'll definitely be getting their feet wet. If they have time to, that is, in between writing postcards. "We have to send 350 to our crowd-funders," they groan. I suggest they get the fairy godmother to help.