From Sarah in Italy:
Estate dell’Italia mio (My
Italian Summer)
The
Rotary Short-term exchange program is not for the faint of heart.
No amount of preparation can get one ready to jump into an entirely new
culture and way of life, much less inoculate a person to losing their ability to
communicate with speech. To become
part of a new world, take on new habits, adopt a new diet, learn a new language,
and alter expectations for how daily life will go is not easy. There is no way to be prepared to experience the world in a
different way, but packing a good sense of humor and humility will go a long
way.
From
the moment I hopped off the plane in Rome’s Fimucino airport, I felt this trip
to Italy was different. I had been
to Italy twice before, but I had not been alone, and I had not spent every ounce
of energy on the plane and in the airport trying to ingest every word of Italian
I heard or saw. My biggest concern
(and what proved to be my biggest problem) was the language barrier.
I knew I was living with a family that spoke no English, in a town of
30,000 people who spoke only the English of pop culture (they know more about
Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera than I ever will!).
From Rome, I faced a three to four hour-long car ride with two people I
couldn’t speak to. I found
Letizia and her mother, and they kissed me (something I wasn’t expecting), and
then we went off to find the car. From
that first moment on, Letizia and I had our pocket dictionaries out, flipping
madly through the pages trying to communicate in the other’s language.
Until we both fell asleep in the back of the car halfway to Fabriano, our
information-getting conversation was a race to see who had a better mastery of
alphabetized words.
I
suffered little of the traditionally-named “culture shock.”
I was prepared for the small showers (although I did take to washing my
hair in the sink when I learned there was only one shower a week).
I was ready for the size and feel of the town (the previous summer’s
town-hopping in Italy gave me a good idea of what to expect).
I was even ready (and willing) to take on the all-carbohydrate diet.
The hardest thing for me to do was to revert to an infantile inability to
communicate. I could understand
much of what was going on around me, and by the end of the month, I fluently
heard Italian, but to answer a question or interject an opinion or make a
request was near impossible. From
my whole experience, the only thing I’d change about my preparation would be
that I would have learned to speak fluent Italian before I left.
It was difficult being constantly misunderstood, and I wish I could have
better shown who I was.
Despite
the language problem, I truly enjoyed myself.
I was in Fabriano during their ten-day Palio, when they celebrated the
medieval origins of the town with parades, competitions, decorations, and a
great deal of wine. The old part of
the city is divided into four quadrants, which compete against each other in
athletics (archery, races, jousting), the arts (each quadrant makes a huge mural
on the ground with multi-colored flower petals), and parades.
Since my family participates in the parades, they got me involved as
well. They dressed up as royalty
and got their hair done every night, and I got to be a peasant.
Each quadrant also has a rosteria (a type of restaurant) where people
from that quadrant can go for dinner. My
quadrant, Cevara, had the best rosteria (the Porta Cevara).
At 10:30 every night, the dinner-eaters cleared out, and the festival
moved in. The athletes return from
their competitions, and the paraders change back into street clothes, and the
party begins… and does not end until 4 or 5 in the morning. Palio was certainly my favorite part of my time in Italy.
My
family was wonderful. They overfed me with delicious pasta and gelato and panini.
They made sure I was comfortable and safe, almost to the point of
annoyance. The mother was
especially careful that I was taken care of.
She babied me a bit, but she also taught me to cook several Italian
dishes, and never let me skip dessert. We
also went on several day-trips, one to Venice, one to Siena and Pisa, and
another to the nearby grottos of Frasassi.
I also liked Letizia, my counterpart, very much.
We got along well, which is a good thing for two people who spent eight
weeks in each other’s constant company.
Although
I never got homesick, I did have several pangs of desire to be able to do my
routine and see certain people. The
problem with the four-week exchange is that I was there just long enough to find
a niche for myself, and people I wanted to spend more time with, when it was
time to go. I feel as if I lost
valuable time trying to find a place to fit in, but I realize that it takes some
time to become part of a new world. The
best way to tackle the Rotary short-term exchange is to go in with an open mind,
a sense of humor, and the desire to wring every bit out of the experience.
I would advise that knowing the language is a good thing, but in lieu of
that, one can still have the experience of a lifetime.
|
