It's the small things

After [almost] two months living in Italy, it is no real accomplishment to declare that I know the Italian word "freddo" means cold and "caldo" means hot. However, last weekend in the early morning, when my littlest child woke and immediately began screaming to be OUT of her crib and FED immediately, it's something to say that I got up, half-dressed and fully groggy, and turned on the "f" faucet to wash my face and teeth. Up until then, many mornings greeted me with a blast of hot water, as I turned on "c", let it run a bit, and
splashed myself, burning my hands and face.  My first morning thoughts have often been a silent string of swear words, and a fresh feeling of incompetence. When I was awake enough to realize that my morning brain knew "c" equals hot, I took it as a small, but important, gain. There are others.

Maddy has been blessed with an extremely strict teacher, who wears big, silk scarves around her neck even when it's 85 degrees outside and another 10 inside.  She screams at the kids about not knowing their math, about not being up to 5th grade standards, about this and that.  She punches her fists on desks and lets out exasperated sighs.  She assigns and assigns homework and finds fault in almost every work,
even bringing children to tears.  Beyond that, the class stays seated  for five hours straight, doing work in their hot classrooms and grembule without more than a ten-minute break. Twice a week, this is
extended to an eight and a half hour day, with a half hour break for  lunch.   Yet, as miserable as Madeline is at school [and, despite her brave face, she is certainly having a hard time] she is learning a lot. Most
noticeably, her Italian is soaring along, she is even learning about parts of Italian speech and grammar, and her math -- initially behind the class--is now almost "in the middle" of the class.  She has gone from
expecting every answer to be right [American style] to being happy when she gets more
than half the answers correct [Italian style]. 

Her teacher, who had told Maddy her art was "too small for the page -- no good," and her Italian "wrong, wrong, wrong" asked to "have a word,"  with me.  In a hushed tone, while loosening her bright scarf wrapped around her neck, she told me that she was happy to teach Madeline and found her to be a good student. I stood there, not a little surprised, and managed a confused grazie.
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When we decided living in Italy for a year was a great idea, Michael and I promised Allie that she could continue her gymnastics.  Promises were easy to make in Montana, and much harder to execute here. After many calls, and lots of searching, we found a gymnastics team in Mantova. The only issue was she had to make the team: no problem, we thought. Allie is a good gymnast, taking first in most of her meets in most of the categories.  She is dedicated and hardworking, and has a high threshhold for hard physical work. However, when we stepped inside the doors to the Mantova "Airone" gymnastics, we were surprised.

The kids were good. Really good. They all had perfectly fit bodies [gymnastics style], incredible flexibility and strength. Kids were flipping and splitting and hand-standing all around us.  The coach, a plain-looking woman in her late 40s, said she would allow Allie to practice with them for a few weeks and then decide if Allie could join them for the year.  With that, Allie practiced, trying her best with a new set of words and expectations. When we picked her up,  the teacher shrugged her shoulders, "She is behind in some things. Keep coming. We'll see."

And so Allie came. For the past two months Allie came and worked [oh how she worked] and tried her best. Until, tonight, the teacher asked Allie to stand in front of the team. In Italian, she asked,

"Do you want to be part of this team?"

"Si," Allie replied

"You understand what I am saying?"

"Si," Allie replied.

The teacher turned to the group of kids and asked, "Do you want Allie to be a part of our team?"

"YES!" they replied loudly, in English.

Allie came home with her new gymnastics team shorts [hot pants, black] and shirt [blue, with an Italian flag] and warm-up [flared pants].

"Are you happy?" I asked, ruffling her head.

She nodded."Si."
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Posso giocare means "May I play?" in Italian, and it's an important phrase to know if you are under 12 in Italy.  Here, the most amazing thing happens when a few kids get together and begin to play: other kids -- I have seen as young as three years old--ask to join in the play.  They are not prodded to do so by their parents:  it's just part of the culture. Add a ball, and you have every kid within a city block ready to join.

In Varazze, after a lovely birthday dinner for my mother-in-law and a shot of melloncello [say YES if you are ever offered this yummy drink] my kids and nieces and nephews began playing a game of soccer in an old piazza.  As they toured around the old stones, balls whizzing, kids yelling, other, non-family kids were suddenly in the mix, too. And off they went: ten at night on a Saturday, kicking around an old ball on a cobble-stone street, sweating, laughing, playing.  I thought of the US and our teams and coaches and Sunday morning games, our soccer shoes, and mid-game-snacks and cheering-on, our fees and jerseys and regulation balls, and it hit me:  I must bring some of this delicious melloncello back to my friends.

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