Original anecdote: I was out for a drink with my Italian physical therapist and explaining that I really liked Italian culture. The more I understood it’s nuance, the more I was happy to share in it. He, however, was totally frustrated with Italian culture. As an example, he complained about having gone to the bus stop that morning only to find a hand-written sign that the bus wasn’t working. Further, he grumbled, the sign was written only in Italian! The English-speakers waiting had no idea the bus wasn’t running until he tapped them on the shoulder and explained. Perfect! To me, this captured absolutely everything one needed to understand about life in Rome: everyone complains, things don’t work, there are usually casual work-arounds, and people go out of their way to help you navigate the system even when you don’t know to ask.
In response to this little anecdote, I have been collecting a few stories that display those nuances of Italian life that simply cannot be explained directly. Painting a picture, perhaps, of the glorious underbelly of daily life in Italy.
Anecdote 2: I was up early in Bari to take the dog for a walk and I thought I would grab a cup of coffee. This was a pretty quick and pleasant morning ritual and when I finished, I thought how nice it would be to bring coffee and pastries home to my family. The “to go” coffee culture is not big in Italy. Why should it be? But Italian culture is pleasingly accommodating. Everyone really wants you to enjoy your morning coffee. So the nice woman at the shop packed up two cappuccini (yes – that is plural for cappuccino) with lids and handed them to me along with a bag of pastries that needed to be carried carefully. Now, this was a trick I had not anticipated having to perform, balancing stacked cups of coffee, a dog on a leash, and a bag of pastries.
I was proceeding down the crowded street reasonably well when my dog decided to “do her business.” Panic might have crossed my face. How was I going to scoop the poop while I balanced coffee and pastries and kept the dog out of people’s way. As I waited for my dog to finish up, a gruff-looking older gentleman in work clothes walked up and said something to me in Italian that ended with “mano”. Then he held out his hand, took my coffee and pastries and stood there, patiently, while I scooped the poop. He then gave me back my breakfast and proceeded on his way.
Anecdote 3: After renting our little house in Rome, we moved in and discovered about 1,000 little things that needed fixing. OK maybe they were not all little. There was water dripping from every radiator, water flowing out from under the dishwasher, missing knobs, and a terrible smell of mold emanating from under the master bathroom sink that I could not eradicate with aeration or bleach. Mold! Unhealthy mold that must be eradicated! I took photos of everything and called the realtor in an American confrontational huff. Calmly she replied, “Everything can be fixed. Don’t worry. You have a nice house.” And then she called the landlord. The landlord simply sent Umberto. I now understand that this is his response to everything, “Call Umberto”, and I now look forward to it.
On this first encounter, Umberto showed up with a big tool box, requested a list of the problems, and began proceeding efficiently into the kitchen to get to work when he stopped short and set down the tool box. “Ohhhhh black cat” he explained and asked if he could take a photo! There he was, a mature Italian handyman, doubled-over and totally distracted by a small cat. He also had a black cat it turned out and we spent some time exchanging photos.
Over the course of several appointments which were scheduled (and usually rescheduled), he patiently and skillfully fixed all the problems. Or almost all the problems. He investigated the mildew smell under the sink and provided a simple solution. Via Google translate, he explained that we needed to get something that smelled stronger and leave it under the sink.
Anecdote 4: We were on a big night out! There was a live band playing in the park near our house and we were heading into the secure concert area, full of little make-shift bars and restaurants, beside the stage. All we had with us was a small canvas bag with a picnic blanket and a half-full Nalgene water bottle. In their quick search, the security guards flagged the water bottle. Non possare! Not possible. I tried to explain that it was “solo aqua” and proceeded to empty it onto the ground. Before the ludicrousness of my American thinking that any self-respecting Italian would care at all whether I was drinking alcohol registered in my mind, the security guard was stopping me. The water he explained, now with a little English, was not a problem. Kindly, he explained however that the Nalgene bottle was a big problem. Flummoxed, I stared at him and he explained, now with a bit of acting, the major safety risk of this Nalgene bottle was that I could throw it at someone. I almost laughed but he did not. Very seriously, both guards simultaneously gave us the two-armed, shoulder shrug that translates (in this case) to something thing like “obviously there is nothing I can do about it so please stop asking questions and just go away.” My husband and I took a few steps back from the gate and tried to decide whether and where to hide the Nalgene bottle so we could just go in and get a beer. When you live abroad, small things are important and we didn’t want to lose a perfectly good water bottle so we took our time crafting a plan. After about 5 minutes, the security guards called us back over and told us just to put the bottle in our bag and go inside. Big problem? Problem solved!
I don’t know how better to encapsulate these facets of Italian culture that are, to me, so much more interesting than food, art, and fashion – the strange tension between being patient with things not working and being exhausted of things not working, the surprising kindness of strangers, the disinterest in maintenance but skill at repair, the nearly ever-present love of animals, the blasé attitude toward problems that Americans would tackle head-on, the insanity of some rules, and the way enforcement of those rules can simply dissipate with time and just the right level of annoyance.
Italy is not perfect. I got off the plane from the USA a few days ago and was immediately confronted with a person wearing a headset and yelling (yes – basically yelling) into the air toward their cell phone, gesticulating madly all the while. I saw again the graffiti and the piles of moldy trash that the city cannot seem to collect on a regular or timely basis. I nearly tripped over the woman who stopped short at the top of the escalator to finish her sentence as well as the two men in the metro, standing right in front of the door as it opened at each stop. Still, it’s nice to be back and to have spent enough time in this new place to see through the toursists and the chaos to the lovely.
