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This precious little child is the American-Italian daughter of my second cousin. She was bridging the cultures and getting ready for Halloween. I think I learned as much Italian from her as anyone. | |
| Before I left the States, one of my Italian-American relatives gave me the phone number of her son, my second cousin, Paul. Although we had never met, he became my guardian angel when I got profoundly lost in Calabria. Almost 500 miles away, he managed by phone to get me to the Patriarch of the family who then got me to Serra Padace. I accepted Paul's invitation to visit him and his family in Bologna. After Venice, I stopped in his city and had a great visit. His wife, a beautiful Italian woman, cooked us fabulous meals and his daughter, bilingual at the age of three, was an absolute delight. Her mother calls her “la bimba.” If she wasn't reciting Italian fairy tales aloud, she was singing “itsy-bitsy-spider” in English. It always amazes me to hear a child speak in another language, much less two of them. On Monday night, we all climbed into the family car in search of dinner. Italian restaurants are notoriously closed (chiuso) on Mondays. We drove through the dark night for quite a while. Suddenly, I hear this tiny little voice from the back seat whisper “ci siamo persi” -- Italian for “we are lost.” I had to agree. More importantly, I finally learned how to properly say “I am lost” in the language of the country where getting lost had become my pastime. It was in Bologna that I ran into my first and only pickpocket. Now, you gotta wonder, if you were going to be an old gypsy thief, why would you LOOK like an old gypsy thief. This woman was quick. But, I saw her spot me and was prepared to defend myself. Her hand moved swifter than a Michael Jordan swoosh. | ||