So much of my life lately has revolved quite closely around my ability to verbally communicate my thoughts and feelings. Making meaningful connections with people I meet via couchsurfing, the retreat on Vis, this blog --
Tony speaks un poco inglese. Margarita speaks niente. Giuseppe's brother and sister speak niente (or close to nothing). Giuseppe speaks English, but not in a way that allows me to exercise my sense of humor, because everything gets lost in the tedium of translation.
I've become significantly less funny since arriving in Italy. My humor is reduced to laughing at myself for never being able to refuse fichi and laughing at the puppy for being a puppy.
I'm back to the basics of nodding, smiling and eating my cena piano, piano. Eating dinner slowly ensures that I'm sempre occupato with a forchetta and cortella. Silence feels less awkward when my mouth is full of ficho or riso.
Perhaps these feelings of helplessness and isolation are exacerbated because for the majority of my travels, I've been surrounded by native English speakers or people desperate to learn my one and only language. Tessa's odd New Zealand/English hybrid accent accompanied me through the Balkans. Before that was England (where a fair amount of English is spoken). I volunteered as an English teacher in Istanbul (where it was generally preferred that I communicate in English). I taught English in France and my hosts in Germany spoke impeccable English (they'd lived in the States for a few years). Now that I think about it, I can trace a constant stream of English all the way back to my last volunteer gig in Rovigo, Italy (July/August, 2011).
Where my hosts also spoke no English (although there was another volunteer from California who'd satisfy my craving for non-laughter based communication).
But I've lost my Californian and there's not even internet at Giuseppe's to Skype my family.
Io impararo parlare Italiano.
But it's slow and it's awkward. As demonstrated by the above sentence.
Each morning I wake to the sound of doors BANGING, CLANGING shut as vento forte blows through the unfinished house. I hear Tony's footsteps on the floor above and wonder if he's off to attend his garden in the mountain.
BANG.
CLANG.
I stretch like an azzurra gatta and roll out of bed, crisscrossing my floral sarong across my chest and double-knotting it behind my neck. I open the bedroom door that never really closes and the strong wind --
BANG
CLANGS
-- it shut behind me.
I pass the empty room that used to belong to Giuseppe's grandmother and the empty room that belongs to Giuseppe's uncle. I pass an unused kitchen and flip-flop up partially finished stairs. I turn right at the landing and make my way through the danging zanzara drapes.
The puppy attacks. The chestnut boxer mutt grabs my sarong and nibbles my toes, growling and bouncing and flitting about, daring me to chase after him and escalate the fun.
I disappoint the playful pup by resolutely ignoring him (although his sharp claws make this a challenge) and continue on towards the kitchen on the left. Giuseppe's mother greets me with an enthusiastic, "ciao, bella!" and immediately begins to prepare my breakfast. She places the green cup with the green face at the place on the far right. Somehow she intuitively knows that I appreciate sitting in the same seat and drinking out of the same cup.
I love her for this.
She puts a mocha on the stove and warms up my milk. I try to get my own piatto out of the cupboard and my cucchiaio out of the drawer above the dishwasher, but Margarita brushes me away with a friendly, "No, no -- seduto!" and motions towards the table.
She brings honey and fruit and gluten-free cereal. Then plops herself across the table from me and says, "mangia, mangia!"
My goodness, that word...
Margarita tries to speak to me while I eat.
Somehow I learned that she volunteers with elderly people every morning. No money. Volunteering. She has terrible back pain and slept nary a wink last night because the puppy kept jumping on the bed. Pasta con funghi will be for lunch and she will try to purchase gluten-free spaghetti. She has five children, only her husband works and she hates how dirty everything is all the time.
"Grazie," I say as soon as I see the bottom of my green cup and begin to clear my place.
"No, no -- io," Margarita forbids me to lift a finger.
"Grazie," I don't know what else to say. I can't explain that helping out around the house makes me feel at home. I just have to accept her gifts regardless of whether or not I really want them.
"No, no! No grazie. Niente, niente, Aimee."
Ach... so I can't even say thank-you. This is tough. I'm only allowed a smile.
Before I escape down the stairs back to my room, Margarita makes sure to inform me that I am welcome to live there for at least forever and that all my family should come and visit for at least ten days.
I spend the morning practicing yoga and reading. During my month in the states, I have two yoga trainings lined up -- one in Portland and one in Boulder. Both of them should be harder than the Elemental training in Bratislava, and I'm already feeling nervous that my body will collapse the way it completely gave out in Slovakia.
So I push myself, staying in poses longer than usual and practicing the unpleasant poses I normally avoid.
My hips will be SO open.
13:30 is lunchtime at the Zema house, so I nervously make my way upstairs, bracing myself for the inevitable onslaught of "mangia, mangia!"
Margarita always prepares riso and pasta. If Tony eats with us, there is always a tomato salad.
The puppy always chews on our toes. Or our shoes. Or our pants. Or the chairs. Or the wall. He chews on everything except his kibbles, which he refuses to eat unless Giuseppe turns it into some kind of game.
"It's like feeding a baby!" Giuseppe complained after five minutes of play and half a handful of kibbles eaten.
Afternoons generally include some manner of excursion into the surrounding area. The most memorable thus far have been a night out at an art festival wherein Giuseppe and two friends completed and installed this piece:
A night of stone oven pizza (I just got to enjoy the fire and company, as the crust was not gluten-free) with six of Giuseppe's countless friends and family members.
A few hours spent with yet more friends in their garden, eating figs (sempre) and dark chocolate with candied ginger.
The countryside of Calabria is golden and dry. Orange flames lick their way up and down the parched slopes and smoke billows into the sempre blue sky.
"These fires are every summer," Giuseppe pointed out as we bounced pothole to pothole down the... umm... stimulating road.
The homes of many families in this region of Southern Italy are enormous and unfinished. I asked my friend why the houses were so big, and his answer wasn't surprising at all.
"It's because they were built by our grandfathers during a rise in the economy," Giuseppe explained away my bewilderment. "When they built the houses, they were thinking ahead. Maybe their son's family would live downstairs and their daughter's family would live upstairs. They built houses so many families could stay together. But then Italy had a crisis and people moved away for work. Now it's too expensive to finish the houses, so they stay like this."
20:00 is dinner at the Zema house.
"Mangia, mangia..."
"Basta, basta..."
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