The honeymoon stage is over.
Scenario #1: You are surrounded by no one who speaks your language, in a place where even street signs are obscure. Dogs don’t even respond to your English! Everything, down to the clock and calendar, price tags and bus stop hours are written differently. Even your landlord throws rapid fire Italian your way and you try to understand by using English. Both of you are at a total standstill when it comes to working out apartment issues because of the language barrier.
Scenario #2: You are in a supermarket, surrounded by isles and isles of Italian labeled foods and prices in Euros, measurements in Kilograms and quantities in Liters. Even the simplest recipe becomes a search throughout the store to find an equivalent to what you’re looking for. You are looking for sugar but have no idea what its Italian name is. You approach a worker only to realize you have no idea how to describe sugar’s characteristics in Italian. Even the simplest things back home are a challenge here.
Scenario #3: You hop on a train to Milano Bergamo but the train you walked onto stops at Milano Centrale which is 30 minutes north of where you want to be. You rush off with the other passengers and find yourself standing against a crowd of people pushing by who know where they’re going and what they’re doing. They know which of the nine trains in this station is the connecting link to Bergamo...but you have no clue.
These situations have a common theme: You are alone. You are out of your comfort zone, brought into situations where nothing is easy and challenges await you every time you step out of your apartment.
You are alone.
As I sat amongst hundreds of immigrants in a huge cemented warehouse room waiting to apply for my permit to stay, it hit me. For the first time in my life, I was one of the outgroups, one the minorities. I simply blended into hundreds of people who have uprooted their lives to face the daunting challenge of living in a new country, a new culture. Here I am struggling to make it through a semester knowing I can run to a school coordinator for answers and direction. These people are coming here to spend the rest of their lives with no help from anybody. I go home in 2 months. They are accepting the challenge that they will not go home, but instead assimilate into the Italian culture in order to make a living and survive.
A woman from Iran was speaking of her travels to America, China, and Italy. She remembers being on a boat going from America back to visit her home country and looking around at the Iranians who were headed back home as well. But unlike her, these people weren’t going home to visit, they were going back home because they couldn’t survive in America. Why? Her answer was simple. They wouldn’t allow themselves to integrate into the culture. They closed off, falling back from the challenge to learn English, understandably daunted by the culture shock and homesickness. They stayed in their comfort zones because it was the last thing they could cling to. They failed to adjust.
I understand now what it’s like to be a bystander, simply an observer. I am alone here and I have every opportunity to close myself off in my room, not willing to face the daily challenges. But unlike those returning home on the ship, I understand that I am alone in the best way possible.
I am learning what it means to stand in the background, soak up an environment and culture, truly learn from people who have so much to offer.
Somewhere along the line growing up, I somehow learned that a “good day” meant that everything had to be going my way. How often do I grumble when it rains or become discontented if I have to wake up super early to finish a paper that I waited last minute to do. One thing goes “wrong” and my attitude plunders into “bad day” mode. I become miserable and irritated just wishing that today would end sooner so that tomorrow can be better. When did I learn that my way was the right way? That easy meant good and challenging meant bad? Don’t we know as Christians that true joy isn’t dependent on circumstances? Why do I know this, yet let one spilled coffee cause me to have a negative attitude as if it’s some sort of omen of a bad day to come?
Nothing here is perfect or easy. Nothing is my way. But that’s the beauty in it.
Every single day I learn from mistakes. I have seriously offended waiters thinking I was complimenting the meal by giving them the “ok” sign, I have ruined many dinners and desserts because I failed to correctly translate a recipe. I have missed trains, got caught in train strikes, gotten lost walking around Torino, stood over my Italian stove struggling to figure out how to even get a flame with the stove lighter (not an easy task), got caught in a rainstorm in the Alps. I have to adjust to having no heat in the apartment at night due to government regulation and I have to be sure that I make no loud noises from 10pm until 8am.
But that's just it! Half the fun in life is made up of the challenges and the unexpected! How boring would life be if we really did control everything like we want to? We are often impacted most by those who have a good attitude in the midst of struggles, and these Italians do it every day.
Nothing is easy here. But let me tell you, I wouldn't have it any other way.
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