Posted by pokornar on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 in Blog posts.

Andrew R Pokorny

I interviewed Vincento and Marte on May 30^th in the early afternoon.  Both Vincento and Marte live in Cefalu and are employees at Cathedral Coffee in the Duomo.  Marte is currently focused on raising her new young children when she is not at work while Vincento has a passion for playing football when he is off from work.

 

I went into my interview with the intention of asking about healthcare after I had a unique experience at the pharmacy where I was given prescription medicine without any prescription. Additionally, I have long been curious as to how socialized medicine works in Italy.  However, neither Vincento nor Marte understood my first question, which was about receiving healthcare and making appointments with doctors, and when we attempted to communicate about healthcare through the Google Translate mobile application, things became even more confusing for everyone.  At this point, I decided to switch my topic to something everyone in the world understands, football.

 

The first person I spoke with about football was Vincento.  Vincento is in his mid-thirties and works as a bartender at the cafe.  He explained to me that he has played football his entire life.  His playing days started around 7 years old and continue to this day.  He was jokingly upset as I was interviewing him because he was working that day and therefore could not play.  Vincento expressed his love to play on his off days with other men in Cefalu in a recreational league.  In addition to playing football, he is a big fan of Juventus, a professional Italian club-football team based in Turin, and he is also a big supporter of the Italian National Team.  He mentioned that he is especially excited for the European Championship this summer, a football tournament that happens every four years in which the best European national teams play against one another.  Vincento sounded optimistic about Italy’s chances despite their tough group with Belgium, Ireland, and Sweden.  Finally, I asked Vincento if he follows any American sports to which he answered that he does not.  Despite a significant language barrier between the two of us, Vincento provided valuable insight into an Italian male’s passion for sport.

 

Following my talk with Vincento, I had the pleasure to interview his coworker, Marte.  Marte explained that because she is now the mother of two, she no longer has the time for sports.  Despite this setback, she expressed her strong desire to play and looks forward to being able to resume playing sports in the coming years.  She informed me that the major sports for Italian children while they grow up are football, volleyball, cycling and dancing.  In fact, Marte grew up playing volleyball and dancing.  However, since her days as a youth, she has developed a passion for playing football.  Her passion does not extend to watching football as she has no favorite Italian club team and did not express any excitement for the European Championship this summer as Vincento had.  One of her main talking points during our interview was her aspirations for her children when it comes to physical activity.  Both of her children are boys so she expects that they will want to play football.  She talked a great deal about the importance of physical activity.  She believes it is crucial for a young child to start playing at an early age because it is good exercise.  Marte also stressed that she believes physical activity is crucial to maintaining a strong mind and balanced lifestyle.

 

These two interviews were extremely insightful into what appears to be a typical Italian view of physical activity and sports.  My major observation from them was the approach that both Marte and Vincento have towards physical exercise.  Neither person viewed exercise as a task but rather could not wait to be able to play: Vincento wished it was his day off so he could play, and Marte is looking forward to being able to play again when her children grow up.  Their positive attitude was surprising to me.  In America, we often view physical activity as going to the gym and see it as a chore.  However, this interview reaffirmed my suspicion that most Italians get exercise through more enjoyable means, sports.