Seite - 45 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Band 1/2015

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Arnd Schneider | An anthropology of sea voyage 45 2001), from Teggiano (Province of Salerno), who came to Argentina in 1933 on the Principessa Giovanna. “She was only 11 years old and on the journey gets lost in the port of Naples. The father and grandfather start looking for her. The grandfather says, ‘I know where she is’. They had been passing a toy shop and she saw a doll, but it was too expensive and they couldn’t buy it. And they found her eventually in front of a toy shop looking at the doll, which they couldn’t afford. The other thing my mother told me was that they were used to drink home-made wine in Italy – including the youngsters -, but the wine on the ship was so bad that she never drank wine again. Also, she experienced two thunderstorms and the ship almost hit a rock in the Strait of Gibraltar. In Brazil she saw black kids diving for money. The family came from Italy with a big trunk full of hand woven linen (from the dowry), with their initials sown in. ” Later, when I visited Nélida cimino at her home, she showed me the enormous trunk which she couldn’t open (since she had lost or misplaced the key), but she also didn’t want to open any longer – “it’s just old heavy linen” she said laconically. She also told me that the family brought machines to make pasta, and a big copper pot which they later sold to a Spaniard. But when they saw the small farms and pigs in the countryside near Saladillo, they wanted to turn back. The grandfather (father of her mother) had been a farmhand ‘swallow’ (peon golondrina, Sp. ) and had made the journey seven times. Annunnciata Peppe, born in 1938, in Sasso di castalda (Potenza) told me: “I didn’t have children. I married through marriage by proxy (por poder Sp. / per procura It. ). Me and my husband went to school together. But he went to Argentina with his par- ents already in 1957, a brother had gone earlier. “Were you engaged?” I asked her. “Not engaged, but we knew each other. I followed him in 1966, he had been here already for nine years. he wrote letters, there was no telephone. he ‘called me’ and proposed mar- riage. he didn’t come for the wedding – my brother took his place in the wedding cer- emony, that’s how it is in the marriage by proxy. My brother was the personero (proxy) substituting the bridegroom. My husband also married on the same day, but here in Argentina. And then we had another wedding party here in Argentina when I arrived. “ “Were you happy to leave?”, I asked. “Well, I left my mother, my sister, my brother …. here I had nobody. I left on 23 August 1966. he paid for the voyage. In Naples I took the boat, the Giulio Cesare. I travelled for 17 days with four other ladies in the cabin, on the lower deck. We ate well on the ship, and if you didn’t like one thing, you could order something else. There was a swimming pool – but we didn’t swim; [laughs] there was no custom of that in my hometown. We went to the theatre – but I don’t remember what we saw. … There was a cinema, and a church. We were just idle. ” “What did you think about Argentina?”, I interjected. “Well, I didn’t think much, whatever would come up … My father had been to Argentina, he had also traveled previously on the Giulio Cesare. In 1980 I made one more trip on the Enrico C. from Genoa, lasting thirteen days. But it wasn’t as nice as the previous one, the ship wasn’t as nice. We went by plane but returned by ship, to bring things, up to 100kg. We brought the machine to make salami, and the one to make tomato sauce (la salsa). The food onboard wasn’t as nice. ” “But did you ever think of returning to Italy?” I asked. “No, now I have the family here.”