Early Weekend

For my class the weekend begins on Thursdays, because we have no lessons on Fridays. We grumble about our torturous hours for Mondays and Wednesdays, but implicitly we are thankful for the ‘’big squeeze’’, as it means we have Friday free –to visit nearby cities.

Today, I arrived about 45 minutes early for class, after finishing up work emails at the internet point (that’s what they call here as it’s hardly a café – it’s more like an awful grotto!)

It was bright glorious sunshine and I decided to join Halina, Agnieszka and Gregorio at the tables outside the bar. First, I went into the empty bar (it was 1.15 pm and I guess most students would be at lunch at the Mensa instead of at the bar) to get a Coke and a crocante arachidi. (peanut bar).

The guy at the counter must either be happy to get a visitor at this empty hour, or he was in his flirty mood. ‘’Buongiorno, come stai!’’ he greeted me cheerfully as I walked in. Normally he would have been so busy with the long queue of students needing a caffeine fix during our breaks that he hardly talks. I brought my purchases to the counter and when I gave him the exact change, he commented, ‘’bravissimma’’. Then he asked for my name, stuck out his hand to shake mine and introduced himself very politely, ‘’Sono Andrea, piacere.’’

The sun was so strong outside I had to put on my shades. But barely had I finished my snacks and it went into hiding behind the black clouds and strong wind. The weather in Perugia is as flirtatious as the Italian men.

Another Foreign Language Students’ Nightmare: Pronouns
This afternoon’s exercises were all on direct and indirect pronouns, and some prepositions. The usual problem we had with prepositions were ‘’meaning and context’’, according to my analysis at least. Many students like to ask if we could use ‘’di’’ instead of ‘’a’’; or in one case whether it should be “con” but the real matter is the meaning of the sentence. It may be grammatically correct to use either one but the meaning of the sentence changes completely and sometimes makes little or weird sense.

Santo had his moment again. There was a question: ‘’what have you prepared for us –pasta or rice’’ and the answer was ‘’I have prepared pasta for you ’’ The point was for us to learn “ci” (us) and “vi” (you) as indirect pronouns. (Ci hai preparato la pasta o il riso? Vi ho preparato la pasta)

“Why vi – why prepare for you and not us?’’ he jumped at Maria, eyebrows furrowed. She tried to explain that it was a common situation when, for example, kids go home hungry and ask ‘’mama, what have you cooked for us…’’ Guess what was Santo’s puzzled reply? ‘’Doesn’t the mother eat what she prepares for the kids? Why can’t she reply I have prepared for us…’’

Gosh! And I thought it was a simple exercise for students to identify ‘’us” and hence reply ‘’you’’ as appropriate, and not a platform to argue about whether the mother should be eating or not!

During break time Mirlan came over to give me a handphone pouch, a handicraft made by hand, from Kirghizstan, his homeland. It was sweet of him to let me choose one of the three he brought. He must have thought it was useful for me, since I have the habit of checking my phone and sending sms during break time.

Cosy Fireplace
The weather has grown colder since I arrived. Franca has started burning wood at her fireplace. The first time she started it she excitedly yelled, ‘’Jenny, hai visto il fuoco? Vieni…’’ and she asked me to sit nearer the fireplace.

Twice, she barbecued sausages for our dinner at the fireplace.

When the warm fire is burning, I would think, I don’t mind the cold after all, as long as I have the fire in front of me. So these days I would take out my laptop and sit with her as I work on it, near the fire.

Today, Roland visited again and asked about my work at the laptop. He spoke in his entertaining French-Italian mixture with Franca as usual but with me, he spoke in French. I noticed with some alarm that my French has become Italianised since we chatted barely a week ago, and that I had unconsciously added many Italian words into my French speech. I am not sure if this is due to his influence, or due to the endless arguments about Italian pronouns and prepositions.