Bambini (Children)

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things”

-Plato



Jenna walks through the piazza and people smile at her. She’s our “Italian ambassador” for good reason: she paves the way simply by being a child.
Children are revered in Italy. Often, I see an adult caress little Maria or little Mario’s face in both hands, and gaze at them with something like rapture, as if they’re looking at the Savior, the Christ child, the Miracle. Of course that doesn’t stop the adults from screaming at the kids a few minutes later…”Mario, BASTA!”(stop).
I have a photograph of Jenna in Italy when she is 18 months old. She’s racing across the piazza in Bologna, bursting with toddler exuberance, elbows bent, stout little arms and legs pumping, and the people in the background are all watching her, smiling.
On these warm, late summer nights in Carloforte dark-skinned children run joyously wild in the piazza, yelling, playing, some on bicycles or scooters, most without helmets or parents nearby.
I’ve noticed that whether it’s the lack of helmets, lifejackets, seatbelts, guardrails or parents, there’s a pretty relaxed attitude about safety around here. Somehow, despite all this recklessness, the children not only survive, they thrive. There’s a sense that everyone is watching out for them, and all villagers (parents or not) seem to embrace this role.
The other day in the piazza a small child was playing and then fell hard and hit his head. The “head-hitting-pavement” sound is one that most parents are familiar with, and within seconds several adults rushed to the child. The boy was crying and wailing and one man picked him up while the others encircled him, murmuring calm, comforting words and gently rubbing the boy’s back. The mother finally showed up a few seconds later, and the other adults (all of them strangers) casually went back to what they were doing. It was sweet and caring and so “communal”.
Jenna, our Ambassador, seems more integrated into this community than Jeff or I—primarily because she spends full days in the company of Italian families. Jenna’s ability to forge friendships (first with our landlord’s girl Sara, then with our boat neighbors Arianna and Flavia from Rome, and most recently with the new girls across the street, Carola and Angelica from Milan) has resulted in her essentially “brokering” relationships with the adults as well. Thanks to Jenna, we’ve not only been invited to several dinners and sailboat rides, but we’ve also made some wonderful new friends.
Jenna loves going to Sara’s house. It’s a child’s paradise--horses and rabbits, chickens and kittens. There are jump ropes and Barbies and movies and even a big brother who loves to irritate little girls. Every day is a new adventure. The other day they found a live scorpion in a box of cards. Often, Jenna is invited to lunch, dinner or an occasional sleepover. Sometimes the cousins visit--little Eletra, who has a shy smile and likes to sit on Jenna’s lap, and Zeno a pudgy boy who likes to taunt the others but ends up spending a lot of time by himself, in Italian “time-out”, pouting and crying.
The fact that the household speaks virtually no English doesn’t bother Jenna. In fact, she loves coming home with fun new Italian slang words. Our current favorite is the word “DAI” (DYE-EEE) which translates (loosely) to “Oh COME on!”—so Jenna says to me,”MaMA, daiiiiiii” when she’s begging for gelato. Or Jeff says, “Jenna, daiiiiiii” when she’s not doing her chores. The word is best spoken in very dramatic fashion, with a long “ee” sound.
Jenna says it’s really not that hard to communicate in Italian. “You only have to say a few short words to get them to understand what you mean.” she says, “Even though I only know short Italian words, I combine them to say bigger things. Plus, I use a lot of hand motions”. She says that the hardest part is understanding what people are saying. “They could be saying something as simple as, ‘Hey, could you come over to my house?’ but you don’t know, and it takes about an hour to figure out what they mean’”.
Jenna is experiencing what Jeff and I have come to realize: when you don’t know the language very well, a person has to really WANT to make the effort to overcome the language barrier in order to communicate. It’s a unique filtering system, because it weeds out all those people who really aren’t interested.
Sara and Jenna often go to church on Sundays. Not being church-goers ourselves, I think Jenna is intrigued by the ritual and ceremony of the Italian Catholic Church, but also enjoys the social factor. All the kids sit in the front pews, and from Jenna’s reports, they do lots of singing and some “prayering”. Jenna loves collecting the beautiful “offering cards” she gets at church, with the lovely picture of the Madonna. A few weeks ago, she saw her first baptism. She described how the baby girl was dressed in a long white christening gown, and was gently handed over to the priest by her parents. The priest then dipped an ornate spoon into the water and dribbled it over her tiny head. Jenna said the little girl looked pretty grumpy about the whole affair, but when the priest then held her up and the little girl saw the whole congregation smiling at her, her face broke into a big smile.
After church, all the children run down to the local gelatoria, where they each get one scoop of free gelato, an ingenious incentive for church attendance.
Living in Italy with Jenna has been lovely and challenging.
Of course, we try to make this experience enjoyable, but just as we’re always trying to make LIFE enjoyable for our daughter, it doesn’t always turn out that way. And the funny thing is, while as parents we never actually want our children to suffer, it is precisely in those moments that they learn important things—like how to be flexible, patient, independent, brave, have a sense of humor, laugh at your mistakes. Adversity is a good teacher.
Jenna has been forced to sit through endless hours of air, ferry, bus and auto travel, waiting in lines and the inevitable delays. She’s been stuffed into back seats crammed with luggage, and ridden cramped smelly buses that whip around winding hairpin turns next to sheer cliffs. She’s survived dangerous bouncy boat rides, sunburns and painful swimmer’s ear. She’s slept on couches and floors and in tiny attic spaces. She’s had to handle cold showers and filthy toilets and terrible food. She’s had to battle bees and mosquitos, jellyfish and scorpions. She’s lugged her suitcase across bumpy streets, and up multiple flights of stairs. She’s been so hot and tired she can barely stand up. She’s had to listen to her parents judge each others driving skills, and bicker over maps, directions, who’s right and who’s working harder.
But despite all these challenges and frustrations, Jenna keeps waking up fresh every morning, asking us what we’re going to do today.
We see her looks of wonder and excitement as she experiences this very different culture. We watch her emerging independence, as she walks to the village by herself, meets new friends. We feel proud to hear her speak confidently in Italian, ordering gelato and candy and cheese. We remark on her bravery, as she hikes down a steep rocky mountainside, or rides her boogie board in crashing waves, or jumps off a cliff into the water.
She somehow talks us into carnival rides that turn out to be thrilling, and desserts that turn out to be delicious and movies that we end up actually enjoying.
The thing about being in Italy with a child is that children have that wonderful ability to pull you into their kid world, and make you see things differently (if you’re willing). Time is different in the Italian kid world—“Abbiamo tempo”: we have plenty of time to play, plenty of time to stop and notice all the tiniest details, the brightly colored insect, or the lizard scurrying across the hot stones, the colors of the buildings, or the intricate pattern in the cobblestones. We have time to sit and watch the daily life of a village, to learn a new language together, to frolic on the beach or read or just float in an ocean that is actually warm. We have time to learn new card games and make picnics and look at the stars.
We have time.

NEXT UP: All this TIME has got to lead up to something…transitions