No more bambini!

Alright, I finally feel like writing. First off, yesterday was the last day teaching at the elementary schools. For once, the first school was a major pain. We wanted to make it a 'review' day (translates to game day), so we did Simon says then duck, duck, goose. Except the teacher, who is normally a joy, was being a major pain in the ass. Serious PMS or something. She thought playing duck duck goose in the main foyer was too dangerous so we went outside. After a few games of nice, safe telephone they wanted to play red light, green light. Again, a few minutes in the teacher nearly had a heart attack that someone would get hurt. So we tried to teach them quack didilyoso (I couldn’t believe I remembered the song from first grade) which was incredibly hard. I can’t even explain the game in English, let alone Italian. I don’t remember why she didn’t like that game, but ultimately we ended up going back inside and leaving soon afterward. When we said it was our last day and good-bye, the kids all charged David with hugs while the rest of us left unnoticed. Not exactly a good start to the morning.

But then a miracle happened. We went to the second school and were brainstorming ways to get out early. I suggested we go to the supermercato and get some treats, so we could walk in with goodies, say thanks and good-bye and leave. Katy went and got some stuff, and as we walked down the hall to the classroom it was eerily quiet. At that point David said out loud “wouldn’t it be great if they weren’t here.” And right then we look in our classroom, and it’s completely empty. It was an absolute miracle, the gods heard us!! I like to think carma paid us back for never slapping any of those kids by giving us our last day off. We wrote a little note on the board, something like “Good-bye! ~Gli Americani” then split the snacks amongst ourselves and booked it the hell out of there before they came back.

When I came home I had the best lunch. She made boiled potatoes and fresh grown Italian green beans, and mixed them together. Simple, but so, so good. I was pretty psyched to eat Italian green beans in Italy.

In class we had an exam, which again took me probably under 20 minutes. If we don’t all 4.0 these classes I will be shocked. Then I hung around for a few hours and watched the end of my Grey’s Anatomy finale from the other day; it took me an hour to watch the last 10 minutes, but it was so worth it. Finally at 6pm we had a short lecture with Ruggero followed by a demonstration by Zona Briganti (Enrico’s band). They came in and played us some songs then each talked a little about their instruments and their music, etc. The dancer for the group explained the basics of tarantella, then asked if anyone wanted to come up and try. Of course, Matteo, the class suck-up, jumps right up there. It was pretty hysterical. Then afterward I walked home with Enrico and one or two others from the group. Yep, that’s right, officially a groupie…

Later that night I uscire’d once again with Enrico. We met some of his friends in the Villa, grabbed a bench and just chilled there for the night. They spoke nearly the entire time in Roglianese dialect, and I did not understand a single word. It sounds like a mix of Italian and Greek to me, seriously messed up. But we must have sat there for more than two hours, and even though I was just kind of half listening it was a fun night.

Finally, to sum everything up, this morning I went on a special little outing. Manuel’s teacher at the kindergarten asked me earlier this week to come in one day and read some English words to the kids. I just finished up there, and it was literally about 20 minutes of me teaching them how to pronounce English words that were in their little workbooks. Thinks like apple, butterfly, green, feet, brother, etc. Italians absolutely cannot make a “th” sound because in their language they always keep their tongue behind their teeth. So when I tried to teach the “th” for “brother” and “three” they all sounded pretty ridiculous. The teacher kept sticking her tongue out way too far and the kids kept spitting.

Alright, that’s about it for now. I have the rest of the weekend mostly free, so maybe you’ll hear some good stories or maybe you won’t. Baci ciao