The Day Time Stood Still

Without looking at my watch, I can tell you what time it is at the Bologna train station. It is twenty five minutes past ten in the morning, August 2, 1980, to be precise. Two things will strike your eye when you either approach the Bologna train station from the main entrance, or if you arrive there and are standing out in front and something just doesn’t seem right. Look for a moment, and it will start to stand out. Where there is now a MacDonald’s adjacent to the main entry hall, the architecture seems to be out of synch, from a different time, than it. Then, you may want to check you watch and to see what time it is so as to catch your train, (though ultimately, that may in itself prove to be an act of futility), but the clock reads 10:25, even though it is well into the afternoon.

Twenty-one years ago, on August 2, 1980, members of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari executed one of the most infamous civilian attacks in recent European history, known as the Strage di Bologna. They bombed the Bologna train station, killing 85 people, and literally stopping Time. The shock of the blast blew out the clock, and the city of Bologna has since decided to keep it there as a reminder, per non dimenticare, of what happened that day.

Bologna holds an interesting place in Italy, politically and socially. Theoretically, it is Communist by political stripes, though I often joked at the visible wealth there that it was “rich enough to be Communist.” Socially, it houses an extremely highly educated population and boosts the alma mater studiorium, which is more or less the mother of all universities, as L’Università di Bologna, where I was fortunate enough to be a visiting lecturer, is recognized as the oldest established western university, officially designated as such in 1988, celebrating its 900th anniversary, at which time the controversial Bologna Accord was signed, re-defining collegiate education in Europe on a grand scale.

Something else that makes Bologna special is its sense of city awareness and pride. People are really proud to be from Bologna, and they should be, it is an incredible city, very likely my favorite mid-sized city to date. It has an incredible infrastructure for civic events, and there always seemed to be something going on in Bologna that was celebrating being “bolognese.” In addition, it is a city that is highly geared to the personal and family level, and nearly every week in the summer months one can find some sort of program on the piazza maggiore, with kids running around, laughing and chasing pigeons, under the shade of the half-finished façade of the San Petronio Basilica.

The church itself has been a source of anxiety as well. Inside, on one of the tableaux paintings, there is a depiction of sinners being tormented in Hell, amongst them is no less than the prophet Mohammed. While living in Bologna, there was a controversial case in which seven Muslims were apprehended based on the suspicion that they were going to bomb the cathedral as retribution for the painting.

Any act of violence upon civilians is an act of social horror. The bombing of Bologna’s train station struck a deep, deep chord with all Italians, and was even more insidious because it was home-grown. The NAR was Italian. Similar to the Timothy McVeigh-masterminded event in Oklahoma City and the more recent tragedy in Norway at the hands of Anders Breivik, these were acts of terror from home.

Today, commemorating September 11, 2001, and the events that transpired that day, such acts are on my mind. They are still all unfathomable to me. Yet, the Bologna train station does stick out in my mind. Mainly because it was place that I have been to the most often where such an event took place. I had visited the Twin Towers years before when they were still standing, and was in complete awe of their monumental stature, but I have not been to other such sites, except for the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, where Pakistani terrorists attacked and lay siege to Mumbai, the result of 164 dead and over 300 wounded. Currently, the hotel has a police barricade around it as does the plaza in front of the Gateway to India to prevent any further attacks. Reminiscent of the November 2008 bombings, more deaths were recorded in Delhi this week at the hands of Pakistani attackers.

But, to return to Bologna, what made it different for me was that it was because I went to that station nearly every day to take a train to the Forlì campus, where my department was located. And, every time, upon approaching the station, I would see that clock stopped, and it would indeed give me pause as to how it had happened. I do remember feeling uncomfortable at times there, imaging what the scene must have been like at this station, which for me was usually a place to enjoy knowing that I was in Bologna. There would be moments, though, when I would seem to have flashes of the chaos and pandemonium, and above all the fear that must have been there on that day. It is as if sometimes I could still feel it, the horror, suspended in Time.

Camel Time

This past weekend in Madurai, the school that I teach at celebrated “Sports Day” at the local stadium. The students were divided up into the four historical Tamil Nadu dynasties: Chera, Chola, Nayalla, and Pandyas. Instead of what one would expect in a normal “Track and Field” day at an American school, for example, there was actually very little sports that day. Instead, it was more of a celebration of sports as the events themselves had been done throughout the week at school and this was more of an awards ceremony and exhibition of a few of the sports clubs and musical spectacles carrying the message of the importance of protecting the Earth and an awareness of Nature. Of the three clubs on display were the Yoga, Gymnastics, and Karate, again not something you might see highlighted in an American or European school.

The Seniors’ class representative gave an inaugural speech for the program and in it she said something, though perhaps oddly phrased, stuck in my mind. She said that some students may not be good in school, but are good in sports, so Sports Day is for them an important day. This stuck out because in a typical American high school, it is the athletes who nearly always have the spotlight and of which the majority of television shows and films will focus on if they are about high school. An excellent example of such a mini-series, and one which my sister worked on, is “Friday Night Lights” which actually attempts to balance small-town Texas football with the academics as the coach’s wife is also the principal, bringing the war of attention to the home front.

However, the balance is often not struck in reality, nor in the show. One of Socrates’ well-known dictums about education is the need to have both a healthy mind and body. This is something that I have always had a strong position on as well. I believe that if possible, the addition of physical conditioning is a crucial part of mental development. During all of my schooling and professional life I have been either active in swimming or water polo and was the swiming coach at the Antwerp International School as well.

While I was teaching at the Study Abroad program in Castiglion Fiorentino, I had been swimming at the local pool for as long as it was open. Set against the Tuscan hillside on one end and looking up at the 12th-century town of CF on the other, it was a swim workout that included quite a deal of backstroke because I never tired of either view under that Tuscan sun. However, the pool did close, and I was at a loss as to what to do. Often, the students and faculty would play ping pong in the off hours, which does work up a sweat at times, but was merely a band-aid to the situation.

So, I decided to start a yoga class. One of the classrooms was called the “Bishop’s Room” as it was a vaulted appendage to what had at one point been the Bishop’s apartment that the program now owned and used for faculty housing and classroom space. As such, I booked the Bishop’s Room and put out the notice. As is common with novelties, the effect can often wear off rather rapidly. With Yoga, it is quite amazing how many things can become suddenly so “important” and not make a class. However, I held the class at 7 a.m., so this was to be expected with college kids and I as actually more surprised with how many soon made up the core of the group on a near-daily basis. Beth, Katie, Barrett, Jamie, Dane, Whitney, Leyla, and Andrew became the base for the CF yoga club.

The most surprising of all, however, was Andrew. Andrew had been more than aloof in my “Portrait of A Student in Exile” class in which we were reading works dealing with either self-imposed or state-imposed exiles as well as writing about our own experiences of living in another country. Andrew would normally just be sullen, disengaged, or flat-out rude by either not showing up or falling asleep. Reality slightly hit when he failed his first paper, but he shrugged it off with an air of disinterest.

But, when Yoga classes started, I was more than surprised to see Andrew. His friend, Leyla, who was the exact opposite type of student, had convinced him to come. Within a short time, I could not believe the transformation that I saw in Andrew. From my Yoga Guru, Bekir, I inherited a tendency to philosophize during long poses, thereby distracting people from their discomfort, allowing them to actually settle into the pose nearly unconsciously. I could see Andrew taking it all in and he never missed a class, even if it had been a late night for everyone. Suddenly, he began to “show up”  in my class as well and ultimately became one of the strongest students.

It was the Camel that broke the student’s back though. As the winter came on in CF, I began to incorporate the Camel pose. Now, if you have ever done the Camel, your thighs probably just started aching from memory. Bekir would have us do lots and lots of Camels in late autumn, early winter because that is when we become more sedentary, more kapha, more lethargic, in a word, lazy. The Camel, then, is the ultimate antidote to this winter psychosomatic slumber. It is also the ultimate thigh workout.

At the end of the workout (had to be the end, because often you can barely walk after several sets), I had a specific DJ Cheb i Sabbah song that I would play, indicating that, yes, ladies and gentlemen, “It is Camel Time.” A collective groan would sweep across the room when that song would come on. However, Leyla and Andrew became the superstar Camels. They took it to a new level and it became a serious source of pride, and for those not attending the Yoga class, it was not uncommon to hear, “yeah, but you haven’t done the Camel.”

When Andrew and Leyla went back to Austin, I heard from them and they actually started classes with Bekir, being so proud of their Camels. It was a great feeling for me as a teacher that I had stumbled upon a way of getting to Andrew, because for me, the greatest failure I experience as a teacher is not reaching those that that seem to be unreachable. I was on the verge of giving up on Andrew, and it was the most unforeseen event that the Camel would be the key that finally unlocked that door. By the end of the semester, I could not believe the transformation that Andrew had undergone. I have learned to never underestimate the power of the Camel.