La Bambina, Non Il Neonato

Last night I heard a rumble of people downstairs right before dinner. I expected it to be the normal crowd of 40 year olds but to my surprise it was actually a dinner party for all of the relatives of my host family. The table had been extended and a huge vat of wine had been placed in the center. Ages 13 through 70-something were there. We had pasta, prime rib, potatoes, tomatoes, and tiramisu. I got to hear story after story about my host brothers’ childhoods.

A very passionate political debate broke out at one point. It was great. Since I’ve been keeping up with everything lately I could follow along: Libya, Berlusconi, the Mafia, the States … and following along with that is actually quite a feat when listening to Italians talk over one another. The hand gestures that at point would have just added to the chaos of the conversation now add clarity. One man, who reminded me so much of my Opa, would pull me into the conversation every now and then with something like, “Cosa pensi della pena di morte negli Stati Uniti? (What do you think of the death penalty in the U.S.?)” I would give my response. Fortunately he and I agreed on every question he asked me because having to defend my point, in Italian, would have taken a lot of the fun out of this.

I talked to my host mom’s sister in law for a while as well. Her husband is a pianist so for about ten years of their lives they lived all over Europe: Madrid, Lisbon, Geneva, Istanbul … so I had a lot to ask her about. She was fascinating. It did strike me as strange though that on the scale of difficult Italian the conversation I understood was extremely difficult but the conversation I had was just kind of average and I couldn’t find a way to pull it up to the same level as the other.

It’s still a little funny to me that no matter how much my Italian progresses my comprehension is about six steps ahead of my speaking ability. Some people have said to me that languages just work like that. But, I’ve talked to quite a few people who have the opposite problem: they can speak easily but struggle to understand everything. I think it has something to do with me being someone who listens more than I speak. I listen, I decide what I want to say, and then I say it. The people who have picked up on speaking before understanding have always been the friends of mine who tend to speak more than others in general. They need to be constantly speaking to get by because that is the way they communicate with the world.  It’s really interesting to me.

This family also refers to me as the “bambina” (the baby) like my internship had. I told that to an American friend, who has been living here on his own since college, at one point and about how funny I thought it was and he said, “Oh that’s really nice. That’s a really affectionate name to be called.” Then later he added, “Have you been called a ‘neonato’ yet? That’s even nicer than ‘bambina’ because it’s an even smaller baby, it’s a really tiny baby.” “So, an infant?” “Yeah, it's the Italian word for infant or newborn. Just wait until you’re called the newborn.”

 This sounds more like a demotion to me so I’m hoping to stick with the title of baby.

[photos from the terrace again]