Tuesday November 4, 2008
Thousands of people chowed down on spaghetti and meatballs in a local school cafeteria today as America voted in its first African American president. Two immigrant volunteers stood out from the crowd as one happily cleaned trays and the other sang.
Flowra Plane moved to Syracuse from Sudan five years ago. She works at the Haven Dining Hall at Syracuse University. But today, she volunteered to clean trays at the 59th Annual Election Day Spaghetti Supper at Cathedral Academy at Pompei.
“My sons go to school here so I wanted to help,” Plane said. “I am shy because of my accent, but I like it here.”
She then dumped leftover meatballs into a trashcan and hugged a reporter before returning to the kitchen.
Augusto Collacchi moved to DeWitt from Italy almost two decades ago. Unlike Plane, Collacchi flaunts his non-American accent by singing for the Spaghetti Supper.
“Do I got an accent? No!” Collacchi jokingly said in his thick Italian accent.
Collacchi says he has been singing for the supper for 15 years. He says he does it for the people.
“If you find dancing people, then I play dancing music,” Augusto said. “It makes for happy people.”
He then started singing his favorite Neopolitan song and tried to get a reporter to dance along.
Plane and Collacchi were unique in the crowd of mostly white senior citizens at the Spaghetti Supper. Each had distinctly different accents and cultural backgrounds, making them ingredients in the Cathedral Academy at Pompei’s melting pot of people and spaghetti sauce.
No comments:
Post a Comment