"Caffe? Dolce?" the waiter stops by to ask, leaning over the people at the end of the table in order to be heard.
"Cosa avete di bello stasera?" asks someone towards the middle.
The waiter puts one hand contemplatively on the shoulder of the man over whom he is standing and begins to reel off the options. The men order things with chocolate, cream, and sauce flavored with frutti di bosco. The women order sorbetti, causing a lively discussion to erupt. The theme of it appears to be that they should go ahead and indulge, have a real dessert, stop watching their figures.
Italian, Italianized English, and two varieties of dialect fly up and down the table, along with a lot of gesticulating and some of the idioms I have come to love so much. I can detect at least three different conversations occurring simultaneously, with people occasionally crossing over from one to the other as their opinion is requested - often by someone shouting down the length of the table. The guy sitting next to me is so animated he bumps me in the shoulder.
"Scusa!" he interrupts himself, touching my back briefly in apology before reaching around me to smack the guy on the other side of me, ostensibly to reinforce whatever point he was originally making. The waiter, in the meantime, has surreptitiously gone around the table and managed to confirm everyone's choices.
"Ah-oh!" the first guy finishes off decisively with something that is between a sound and an actual expression, as far as I can tell. I look around and take a deep breath, absorbing the smell of pizza and coffee, the jovial attitude, and the deep sense of contentment that my dinner companions, longtime friends who have taken me temporarily into their group, derive from each other's company. I'll miss this when I leave.
Monday, May 18
Sunday, May 3
The blue car saga, continued
Part the first here.
It was rapidly concluded that I was not capable of making it from my lesson with the six-year-olds at the school to the ten-year-olds’ living room in Nearby Village in the twenty-five minutes that had been allotted for this purpose. This is partially due to my ineptitude in driving and general stupidity, and partially due to the fact that apparently very few people can make that drive that fast at rush hour. And the people who can are all native Reggiani.
“Ma (but), what if you left a little earlier?” suggests one of the mothers in the living room in Nearby Village. I explain that I would love to leave earlier, but that I only have twenty-five minutes between these two classes and that at least five of those get taken up prying the six-year-olds off my various limbs and re-attaching them to their parents instead. Not to mention mundane things like actually walking to the car. And also the clock in that classroom is slow, but I don’t mention that because then I would have to explain that half the clocks in the school are slow and the rest are fast, and sometimes it’s tricky to remember which are which.
The three sets of parents look at me in mild shock. A discussion breaks out, in which it is established that one cannot drive from Reggio to Nearby Village in twenty minutes at this time of day, even if there were no six-year-olds involved. Someone mentions the fact that I should have time to eat; I repress an unbecoming snort of laughter. Eventually it is decided that I will come fifteen minutes later, thus giving me forty minutes between the two lessons.
You’d think this would solve my problems, but… no.
On the day of my third lesson in Nearby Village, I am excited. I have got rid of my previous class in record time (we pretended to be a train on the way out of the classroom), I have the keys, I have been informed that the car has plenty of gas, and my lesson plan for the Nearby Village kids includes a game that looks like fun. Excellent.
I climb (crawl) into the car. It is already in neutral. Life is good. I shove the key into the ignition and blithely turn- no. No, I do not turn the key, because it will not budge. Crap. I go to give the wheel a good twist to vent my frustrations, and note that it will not move either. Great. This time the car probably really is broken.
I have no desire to be late again, so I whip out my trusty telefonino and call the secretary.
“Francesca. The car is stuck. The wheel won’t turn, and the key won’t turn either.”
“Cosa?” she asks, probably wondering whose idea it was to hire me. I repeat, in sketchy Italian, just to eliminate any language barriers.
“Ah. Beh, non lo so. Aspetta. Ti mando qualcuno,” she says mysteriously, before hanging up on me. (Wait; I'll send you someone.)
Five minutes later, two figures emerge from the café under the school and wander over to me and the blue car. I recognize them as the owners’ daughter and her boyfriend (daughter of the owner of the cafe, I mean, not of the school). We are friends with the people from the café, which is lucky (they will even make you a cappuccino in the afternoon if you want one - once or twice we did that, just to see their faces).
Another five minutes later, they have straightened out my car. Apparently you can lock the wheel by shoving it completely to one side. Apparently this helps safeguard you against theft. I don’t really get it, because if everyone except for me knows this trick, presumably that includes the potential car thieves, no? In my opinion, what really safeguards you against the theft of your car is keeping a close eye on your keys. Anyway, though…
It is as I get into the car for the fourth lesson that I realize that the week before they had unblocked the steering wheel without explaining how it is done, and that I have neglected to inform myself since then. And of course the stupid thing is locked again. (And bear in mind that I am not the clever, logical kind of person who is likely to figure these things out on her own.)
I sigh and drum my fingers against it (the wheel) for a moment to gather my wits. I eye the horizon suspiciously. It had better not start to rain.
Five minutes later, the wheel is still blocked and I want to cry. Instead, I call my supervisor, Other Teacher.
“Other Teacher,” I say, “the steering wheel is blocked and I don’t know how to undo it. Please enlighten me.”
“Of course!” she exclaims cheerily. I grind my teeth. “You just push lightly on the brake, turn the key towards you, and the steering wheel towards the left, hard.” This is far too many things for me to think about at once, but I give it a try anyway. And another. And another.
“Got it?” she chirps, “you have to push the steering wheel really hard.”
“No,” I grunt, ramming the steering wheel with all of my (meager) might.
“Oh, wait, wait!” she exclaims suddenly, “I mean right. Turn the wheel towards the right. Your right, my left.”
I glance up at the school, briefly wondering at what angle she can possibly be sitting that she would picture the car from any point of view other than the driver’s. Meanwhile, I give it another try and finally the wheel comes free.
“Thanks!” I say before hanging up and reversing sloppily into the parking lot. I am about to go zipping around the first roundabout when some rain splatters onto my windshield. If only I knew how to turn on the windshield wipers…
I take advantage of a straight bit in the road to flick a couple of switch-type things at random. Nope. I wiggle the rod that, in my mother’s car, controls the windshield wipers and they twitch feebly. I experiment a little more, and finally find that if I hold the rod up with my right hand (which leaves only my left to drive, but whatever), the wipers move slowly back and forth, which, I suppose, is better than nothing. Just not quite better enough to be able to actually see what’s in front of me, so I roll down the window and stick my head halfway out and that is why, when I arrive in the living room in Nearby Village, the same ten-year-old goes, “Ciao! Ma… come mai sei tutta bagnata? Did you forget your umbrella?”
The blue car and I had lots of other fun adventures together after that. There was the time another teacher and I took it home (clandestinely! such daring!) after a particularly late bunch of lessons and were so tired we may have missed a stop light. And the time when I had caught some sort of febbre/cough/dizziness/difficulty-remaining-upright thing off one of the wee ones and had to teach in a different nearby village anyway and I drove there in a sort of Tylenol Flu-induced haze and taught for four hours propped against the blackboard (thus ending up with a lot of chalk dust in my hair – very elegant, per usual) and then took a nice nap in the blue car (in a parking lot) before driving blearily home.
By the end, though, the blue car and I were quite good friends and the roundabouts rarely even ruffled me anymore.
“No, Francesca!” I say into the phone with a quick look over my shoulder to check for oncoming traffic. I ease into the roundabout. “We absolutely can’t put those three together. He’s very slow and she’s very forceful and the new guy seems really shy.” Is it legal to drive and talk on the phone in Italy? Boh. No one has said anything yet, anyway…
As the secretary blathers on about scheduling, I zip around two more roundabouts and calmly spoon some yogurt into my mouth from the cup I am holding in between my knees. I have been on deck for at least ten hours and haven’t eaten since some crackers after the first class.
By the time I reach Nearby Village, I have checked the CD for their first exercise, straightened out the scheduling difficulties (more or less), finished my yogurt, and managed not to kill anyone. I slap on some lip gloss and ring the doorbell. The cute ten-year-old greets me with a hug, and has no comments as to my appearance, navigational skills, or choice of outerwear.
"Cosa facciamo oggi?" he asks, before launching into an exhaustive summary of his day at school.
I feel a vast (and largely ridiculous) sense of accomplishment.
It was rapidly concluded that I was not capable of making it from my lesson with the six-year-olds at the school to the ten-year-olds’ living room in Nearby Village in the twenty-five minutes that had been allotted for this purpose. This is partially due to my ineptitude in driving and general stupidity, and partially due to the fact that apparently very few people can make that drive that fast at rush hour. And the people who can are all native Reggiani.
“Ma (but), what if you left a little earlier?” suggests one of the mothers in the living room in Nearby Village. I explain that I would love to leave earlier, but that I only have twenty-five minutes between these two classes and that at least five of those get taken up prying the six-year-olds off my various limbs and re-attaching them to their parents instead. Not to mention mundane things like actually walking to the car. And also the clock in that classroom is slow, but I don’t mention that because then I would have to explain that half the clocks in the school are slow and the rest are fast, and sometimes it’s tricky to remember which are which.
The three sets of parents look at me in mild shock. A discussion breaks out, in which it is established that one cannot drive from Reggio to Nearby Village in twenty minutes at this time of day, even if there were no six-year-olds involved. Someone mentions the fact that I should have time to eat; I repress an unbecoming snort of laughter. Eventually it is decided that I will come fifteen minutes later, thus giving me forty minutes between the two lessons.
You’d think this would solve my problems, but… no.
On the day of my third lesson in Nearby Village, I am excited. I have got rid of my previous class in record time (we pretended to be a train on the way out of the classroom), I have the keys, I have been informed that the car has plenty of gas, and my lesson plan for the Nearby Village kids includes a game that looks like fun. Excellent.
I climb (crawl) into the car. It is already in neutral. Life is good. I shove the key into the ignition and blithely turn- no. No, I do not turn the key, because it will not budge. Crap. I go to give the wheel a good twist to vent my frustrations, and note that it will not move either. Great. This time the car probably really is broken.
I have no desire to be late again, so I whip out my trusty telefonino and call the secretary.
“Francesca. The car is stuck. The wheel won’t turn, and the key won’t turn either.”
“Cosa?” she asks, probably wondering whose idea it was to hire me. I repeat, in sketchy Italian, just to eliminate any language barriers.
“Ah. Beh, non lo so. Aspetta. Ti mando qualcuno,” she says mysteriously, before hanging up on me. (Wait; I'll send you someone.)
Five minutes later, two figures emerge from the café under the school and wander over to me and the blue car. I recognize them as the owners’ daughter and her boyfriend (daughter of the owner of the cafe, I mean, not of the school). We are friends with the people from the café, which is lucky (they will even make you a cappuccino in the afternoon if you want one - once or twice we did that, just to see their faces).
Another five minutes later, they have straightened out my car. Apparently you can lock the wheel by shoving it completely to one side. Apparently this helps safeguard you against theft. I don’t really get it, because if everyone except for me knows this trick, presumably that includes the potential car thieves, no? In my opinion, what really safeguards you against the theft of your car is keeping a close eye on your keys. Anyway, though…
It is as I get into the car for the fourth lesson that I realize that the week before they had unblocked the steering wheel without explaining how it is done, and that I have neglected to inform myself since then. And of course the stupid thing is locked again. (And bear in mind that I am not the clever, logical kind of person who is likely to figure these things out on her own.)
I sigh and drum my fingers against it (the wheel) for a moment to gather my wits. I eye the horizon suspiciously. It had better not start to rain.
Five minutes later, the wheel is still blocked and I want to cry. Instead, I call my supervisor, Other Teacher.
“Other Teacher,” I say, “the steering wheel is blocked and I don’t know how to undo it. Please enlighten me.”
“Of course!” she exclaims cheerily. I grind my teeth. “You just push lightly on the brake, turn the key towards you, and the steering wheel towards the left, hard.” This is far too many things for me to think about at once, but I give it a try anyway. And another. And another.
“Got it?” she chirps, “you have to push the steering wheel really hard.”
“No,” I grunt, ramming the steering wheel with all of my (meager) might.
“Oh, wait, wait!” she exclaims suddenly, “I mean right. Turn the wheel towards the right. Your right, my left.”
I glance up at the school, briefly wondering at what angle she can possibly be sitting that she would picture the car from any point of view other than the driver’s. Meanwhile, I give it another try and finally the wheel comes free.
“Thanks!” I say before hanging up and reversing sloppily into the parking lot. I am about to go zipping around the first roundabout when some rain splatters onto my windshield. If only I knew how to turn on the windshield wipers…
I take advantage of a straight bit in the road to flick a couple of switch-type things at random. Nope. I wiggle the rod that, in my mother’s car, controls the windshield wipers and they twitch feebly. I experiment a little more, and finally find that if I hold the rod up with my right hand (which leaves only my left to drive, but whatever), the wipers move slowly back and forth, which, I suppose, is better than nothing. Just not quite better enough to be able to actually see what’s in front of me, so I roll down the window and stick my head halfway out and that is why, when I arrive in the living room in Nearby Village, the same ten-year-old goes, “Ciao! Ma… come mai sei tutta bagnata? Did you forget your umbrella?”
The blue car and I had lots of other fun adventures together after that. There was the time another teacher and I took it home (clandestinely! such daring!) after a particularly late bunch of lessons and were so tired we may have missed a stop light. And the time when I had caught some sort of febbre/cough/dizziness/difficulty-remaining-upright thing off one of the wee ones and had to teach in a different nearby village anyway and I drove there in a sort of Tylenol Flu-induced haze and taught for four hours propped against the blackboard (thus ending up with a lot of chalk dust in my hair – very elegant, per usual) and then took a nice nap in the blue car (in a parking lot) before driving blearily home.
By the end, though, the blue car and I were quite good friends and the roundabouts rarely even ruffled me anymore.
“No, Francesca!” I say into the phone with a quick look over my shoulder to check for oncoming traffic. I ease into the roundabout. “We absolutely can’t put those three together. He’s very slow and she’s very forceful and the new guy seems really shy.” Is it legal to drive and talk on the phone in Italy? Boh. No one has said anything yet, anyway…
As the secretary blathers on about scheduling, I zip around two more roundabouts and calmly spoon some yogurt into my mouth from the cup I am holding in between my knees. I have been on deck for at least ten hours and haven’t eaten since some crackers after the first class.
By the time I reach Nearby Village, I have checked the CD for their first exercise, straightened out the scheduling difficulties (more or less), finished my yogurt, and managed not to kill anyone. I slap on some lip gloss and ring the doorbell. The cute ten-year-old greets me with a hug, and has no comments as to my appearance, navigational skills, or choice of outerwear.
"Cosa facciamo oggi?" he asks, before launching into an exhaustive summary of his day at school.
I feel a vast (and largely ridiculous) sense of accomplishment.
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