Siena

We now have reach the part of our trip where it is all about being able to observe the children and the culture of the city. We had a lot of time to relax and enjoy our surroundings, which is exactly what I took time to do. In our two days here I spent one night sitting in the main square just watching as the children played and enjoyed their time as their parents sat on the side line talking about their day. Sounds pretty normal right?

It is hard to imagines life without these small moments of time were laughter and childhood is all that matters. You are free to laugh and play as you grow. To me I have seen this situation many times in my life, but I always forget to take the time to actually observe it with open eyes. 

I know that I am here to take the time to observe the key aspects of this culture to be able to relate it back to my findings working with the children. But I also understand that I am here just taking a glance into their culture, and that everything I am learning is just the tip of the ice berg. 

Dinner with Contrada Della Selva. The cool thing about being in Siena is learning about the contradas. Separate little villages within one whole community that would compete against one another in the twice a year horse races. These little villages had their own churches and functions that they did on their own. It was the family that you were born into, and you had that community to support and help you when you needed it. Your contrada was your way of life in what you grew up learning and what you respected. 

Now of course thinking about having something like that back around the states, you can only think of the high hate rate you would have about contrada to contrada, but that is not the case here. You respect the other contradas for they are also in your community just a different part. Now that doesn't mean the competition rate was not high come race time, but other than that it was still community. 

Again this is where I started to realize how big respect of community and family fall into place within these cities and towns that I have been in observing.