"Natty... Naaaaattttyyyyy... svegliati, andiamo." Mamma Carla is stumbling around herself because 5AM has never been our kind of hour. I crawl out of my little monster's bunk bed (cuddling -> snoozing -> completely passed out) only with such willingness because I've got places to go, people to see, things to do.
And so begins the glory of the Exchange Week. Intercultura has organized this chance to be hosted in another part of the country to see the lifestyle differences and I think I have just hit the jackpot...
Catching a Saturday morning plane in the company of my Venezuelan darling, I arrived merely two hours later in practically another world, in the same country. Welcome to Sicily where the sun is shiny, the drivers are deadly and the accent is incomprehensible. The lack of a legitimate middle class has everyone living in the gutters or with gold, living a particularly history that makes it difficult to identify this island’s image as one similar to the Bolognese Italy I’ve grown to know and love. Founded by the Phoenicians, named by the Ancient Greeks (Panormus: always fit for landing in), ruled by the Byzantine Empire, Arabs, Normans, Sicily is surely one of a kind. The Palermitans claim to speak Italian, but their Sicilian dialect has remained popularly in-use, perplexing any outsider. When they make the effort to speak true Italian it’s like your little Watertown girl making her way down into the heart of Alabama countryside. If you could somehow imagine Jersey City, Upper East Side New York and the heart of Tennessee’s countryside all within a short drive, you might just get a good idea of Sicily. My week was in the center of the capital city, Palermo.
My host family included the typical parental unit along with two sassy brothers. If I could describe Vito (14 yrs. old) and Costante (13 yrs.) in any simple way, both physically and behaviorally, it would be best to compare them to the Blues Brothers. Vito is possibly more sarcastic than I, rocks the local market sales better than Karen at Goodwill and could spend a whole day happily mocking my accent. Costante is already a sweet, classy gentleman who loves playing Palermo’s finest tourist guide, telling me all false tales in which he's usually the city's hero. The host father, Alessio, I unfortunately never really got the chance to know because he suddenly had to leave for France on wine business (why can’t that be the story of all our lives?). I spent a decent amount of time with the mother, on the other hand. She was a real sweet heart, doing her thing all week, calling me by “darling” and essentially leaving me free-to-do-me considering I “did only have one week in Sicily” (I took that as mom-code for: live it up).
By now we know that with AFS there's never a dull moment, aye? The minute-by-minute organized "vacation" we had planned began bright and early every day with tons of variety. Two days at an elementary school to “broaden their cultural horizons,” a day in a high school discussing the Mafia and its forms in our respective countries and the rest of our times in and around the city, bam.
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| .....dead or possum? |
At the elementary school I was both the loved celebrity and the American, in the most negative sense of the term. The second day I was treated like a queen, but not before I got a little of this attitude: Come abroad. Get out of the US and you’d be surprised by how they see us. Don’t get me wrong - the American influence overseas is mind-blowing but that doesn’t mean it’s always appreciated. They speak the brutal truth while criticize our economic/military power, absurd healthcare system and “lack of culture” due to lack of ancient history. I’ve learned to shut up for the most part because 1. a yelling Italian in a heated debate cannot be interrupted 2. sometimes there’s nothing to defend. Anyway, this was the throwdown, Natalie vs. Elementary Teacher, that led me to make a great impression on these 8 year-olds. Talking about Indians and slavery isn’t exactly how I would have passed the time describing the USA but to each his own. We are both loved and hated abroad and let me assure you I see the best of both worlds on a daily basis.
In our day at the high school, we watched a true-story film about the Mafia and then discussed its respective forms in our own countries. In the company of fellow Italian classmates, I listened intently to my friends of Indian, Columbian and Paraguayan nationalities explain what is seen on a daily basis. The calm in their tone of voice as they spoke of the fighting and deaths and brutality left me in shock. They have given me an impression of hopelessness. It isn't that these kids don't want to see a change; they just don't see the possibility. This is how it is - period. Those who try lose hopes or lives and the rest is left how it was before. I can’t really say that I have my thoughts on this subject well organized yet. I’m still learning a lot about the Mafia and its dynamics. How about a To Be Continued? Consider this like a “How I Met Your Mother” promise when they say, “but I’ll get back to that” and then really do, episodes and episodes later.
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| Modello Beach, Palermo, Sicily |
So I saw some beautiful things in our runs around city but I also met some wonderful people. Once upon a time back in the old days of my American youth, Karen drilled the “you are who you walk with” phrase into my head. The content and pride for the company I keep is relevant for the whole year but what really made this week special was the people I spent it with. Technically we’ve already been together (throwback to Rome Sept. 2011) but here in Sicily we are meeting as strangers yet acting like long-lost buddies. The thing about being a foreigner with foreigners is even if we’ve got nothing in common, we’ve got everything in common. Would you expect yours truly from little old Watertown to have made such friendships this week with a Turkish actress, Columbian photographer, Paraguayan fighter, Brazilian dancer or an Indian competitive horseback rider? The thing about these AFS kids, at the risk of sounding like some weird super exclusive clan, is that we generally all share some personality similarities. It takes a certain type of someone to drop it all and start fresh. My Americans understand who I’ve been; my Italians understand who I’m becoming. At the end of the day, however, it’s my AFSers who understand how that change happened.
Catching the plane home, I felt a strange sense of nostalgia for a place I hadn’t even left yet. I couldn’t help but thinking about what my year would have been if I had spent it in the “other” Italy. I would have taken a different accent, met different people and been exposed to another culture completely. How strange to see such a diversity in the same language and just a short plane ride away.
If I stop someone for directions, they will not only guide me the way but even ask how I’m doing, if I’m new here, what I’m doing in the area, blah blah. It seems a little creepy but their free sense of living has a very peculiar charm. The southerners are a lot more expressive and friendlier than those of the North. Sicilians are proud to be Sicilian. In the movie we watched about the Mafia with the high schoolers, it was said at some point that, “My passport is American, but my heart is Sicilian.” I don’t have a Sicilian heart but I know that a nice chunk of it will always remain Italian.
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| Omnomnom Brioche: gelato sandwich! |
I’m sure any foreigner could say the same thing about Wisconsin, California and New York but I think it’s the eyes from the outside who can describe these changes in the most accurate way. I love my new friends and vacations. Well, we had a blast. The late nights (or early mornings?) and the weird alley parties and the weird company and the strangers and the food and the good times and the-things-I’d-never-write-on-my-blog-because-my-mother-reads-this... gah I want to go back! But at the end, I’ll say it even if I sound like a broken record, it’s great to come home.
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| Austria. |
