Grandmother Tales
As days passed Franca started to tell me stories of the other students who had stayed with her.
I am not sure if it is because I have become more communicative (with my slightly more fluent Italian), or because she has learnt to understand my accent, or learnt to guess what I say and hence able to at times even correct my verb conjugation(rather than shake her head and not catch what I was trying to say). Maybe it’s because we are more familiar with each other and she felt chattier. Maybe it’s a combination of all factors.
Her tales are pretty interesting. She said all the Japanese girls who stayed with her seem to love Italian food. One of them put on 6 kg within three months – eating desserts, pasta, ravioli and as many as five sausages for dinner.
She mentioned about an English girl who cried frequently at first because of the death of her boyfriend two months before her arrival. And about how she finally felt better and started taking singing classes at the Uni and how beautifully she sang in the house.
She chuckled over another girl who got completely lost while driving to another city because of miscommunication with Franca, who had given her instructions to another place instead.
She told me that she has removed her alarm system when I told her I was going home late one night. This is because, when she had the alarm system once, after a late and drunken night, no matter how much the girl had been reminded to ‘’deactivate’’ the alarm system, she had forgotten everything and had set off the loud alarm at 1.00 am, waking the neighbourhood.
Franca also told me gleefully about how she helped a Japanese girl. According to her the Uni’s housing agency is rigid and unsympathetic and once refused to let the girl extend her stay with her. So she told the agency that her room is no longer available because her niece was staying with her and secretly rented the room directly to the girl (and hence by-passing the agency), and refused to answer their follow up call! When the agency rang again, the girl picked up the call and they insisted on speaking to Franca. They asked her, ‘’is your niece a foreigner? She does not sound Italian,’’ and Franca’s reply was, ‘’that was my niece’s classmate who is visiting!’’
Some students who have stayed with her and who subsequently returned to Perugia for further studies requested through the agency to stay with Franca again, causing the agency to ask her, ‘’why is it that everyone wants to stay with you?’’
I am not sure why the other students wanted to stay with her. But I have my own reasons. First, before we got familiar with each other, I was attracted to her cheerfulness. She is elderly and certainly not agile but she is always cheerful and loving. And active – actively knitting, actively hand-making pasta, cooking, doing housework, chatting with friends and writing letters to students who had stayed with her.
After staying with her for a while, I was moved by her concern whenever I mentioned I felt cold. She would lend me her scarves, ask if I needed extra blankets, took my laundry to wash in her machine. She would always be asking me to dress warmly and getting me to sit at the fire to warm myself. She even asked if I was going to be home late so that she could leave some dinner for me. All this is not part of the ‘’package’’ I paid for at the housing agency.
These days she would look forward to my return and barely have I settled into my room and she would ask me to join her at the fire to warm my icy hands. She would hold them to check how cold they are and urge me to put them nearer the fire.
Then she would tell me what happened in the day. For example, once she was mad with her beloved granddaughter Beatrice who had visited her for lunch. They had bisticciare (to bicker – a new vocab I had to look up the dictionary when she used it!) over the boyfriend. Franca met him once and decided she did not like him; she felt he is not the serious and sincere type. Beatrice defended his ‘’long disappearance’’ and absence of regular contacts and insisted they love each other. In the end both lost their appetite - Franca still had a small appetite during dinner! I secretly heaved a sigh of relief for not joining them for lunch – Franca had invited me that morning.
More jig-saw puzzles pieced
I felt the urge to want to know her better and picked up courage to ask about the friends who often visited her and about her personal life.
For example, why does ‘’il francese’’ (‘’the French’’ - that’s what she calls Roland) always give her fresh vegetables? Where does he get them from? Apparently he has some land and grows them!
What are the names of the two ladies who always visited? The “pedicure woman”? Oh – Adele. And the one with white hair? Giselle. Both are widowed and live nearby, according to her.
And Marlene is actually her part time maid, not friend, who comes every Tuesdays and Thursdays.
And at what age did she marry? How did she meet her husband? What did he do? She married at 21, met him at her aunt’s house and he worked as muratore (bricklayer). He even went to work in France for three years when times in Italy were bad and he could not find a job. Those years, he returned home twice a year while she remained behind to raise their only daughter.
During dinner we would watch the news on TV and she would add her comments and explain some of the news in her own words to me.
During my final weekly soap-serial last Friday, I asked her to explain about the lady protagonist’s actions. She had been saying in previous weeks that the woman was involved with her lover’s brother and I didn’t quite understand why. Maybe I had not understood the entire story, or I had not been concentrating (since I tend to work on my laptop while in front of the TV), but it had not occurred me to ask.
Finally I did. And she did a good job explaining, patiently!
I am not sure if it is because I have become more communicative (with my slightly more fluent Italian), or because she has learnt to understand my accent, or learnt to guess what I say and hence able to at times even correct my verb conjugation(rather than shake her head and not catch what I was trying to say). Maybe it’s because we are more familiar with each other and she felt chattier. Maybe it’s a combination of all factors.
Her tales are pretty interesting. She said all the Japanese girls who stayed with her seem to love Italian food. One of them put on 6 kg within three months – eating desserts, pasta, ravioli and as many as five sausages for dinner.
She mentioned about an English girl who cried frequently at first because of the death of her boyfriend two months before her arrival. And about how she finally felt better and started taking singing classes at the Uni and how beautifully she sang in the house.
She chuckled over another girl who got completely lost while driving to another city because of miscommunication with Franca, who had given her instructions to another place instead.
She told me that she has removed her alarm system when I told her I was going home late one night. This is because, when she had the alarm system once, after a late and drunken night, no matter how much the girl had been reminded to ‘’deactivate’’ the alarm system, she had forgotten everything and had set off the loud alarm at 1.00 am, waking the neighbourhood.
Franca also told me gleefully about how she helped a Japanese girl. According to her the Uni’s housing agency is rigid and unsympathetic and once refused to let the girl extend her stay with her. So she told the agency that her room is no longer available because her niece was staying with her and secretly rented the room directly to the girl (and hence by-passing the agency), and refused to answer their follow up call! When the agency rang again, the girl picked up the call and they insisted on speaking to Franca. They asked her, ‘’is your niece a foreigner? She does not sound Italian,’’ and Franca’s reply was, ‘’that was my niece’s classmate who is visiting!’’
Some students who have stayed with her and who subsequently returned to Perugia for further studies requested through the agency to stay with Franca again, causing the agency to ask her, ‘’why is it that everyone wants to stay with you?’’
I am not sure why the other students wanted to stay with her. But I have my own reasons. First, before we got familiar with each other, I was attracted to her cheerfulness. She is elderly and certainly not agile but she is always cheerful and loving. And active – actively knitting, actively hand-making pasta, cooking, doing housework, chatting with friends and writing letters to students who had stayed with her.
After staying with her for a while, I was moved by her concern whenever I mentioned I felt cold. She would lend me her scarves, ask if I needed extra blankets, took my laundry to wash in her machine. She would always be asking me to dress warmly and getting me to sit at the fire to warm myself. She even asked if I was going to be home late so that she could leave some dinner for me. All this is not part of the ‘’package’’ I paid for at the housing agency.
These days she would look forward to my return and barely have I settled into my room and she would ask me to join her at the fire to warm my icy hands. She would hold them to check how cold they are and urge me to put them nearer the fire.
Then she would tell me what happened in the day. For example, once she was mad with her beloved granddaughter Beatrice who had visited her for lunch. They had bisticciare (to bicker – a new vocab I had to look up the dictionary when she used it!) over the boyfriend. Franca met him once and decided she did not like him; she felt he is not the serious and sincere type. Beatrice defended his ‘’long disappearance’’ and absence of regular contacts and insisted they love each other. In the end both lost their appetite - Franca still had a small appetite during dinner! I secretly heaved a sigh of relief for not joining them for lunch – Franca had invited me that morning.
More jig-saw puzzles pieced
I felt the urge to want to know her better and picked up courage to ask about the friends who often visited her and about her personal life.
For example, why does ‘’il francese’’ (‘’the French’’ - that’s what she calls Roland) always give her fresh vegetables? Where does he get them from? Apparently he has some land and grows them!
What are the names of the two ladies who always visited? The “pedicure woman”? Oh – Adele. And the one with white hair? Giselle. Both are widowed and live nearby, according to her.
And Marlene is actually her part time maid, not friend, who comes every Tuesdays and Thursdays.
And at what age did she marry? How did she meet her husband? What did he do? She married at 21, met him at her aunt’s house and he worked as muratore (bricklayer). He even went to work in France for three years when times in Italy were bad and he could not find a job. Those years, he returned home twice a year while she remained behind to raise their only daughter.
During dinner we would watch the news on TV and she would add her comments and explain some of the news in her own words to me.
During my final weekly soap-serial last Friday, I asked her to explain about the lady protagonist’s actions. She had been saying in previous weeks that the woman was involved with her lover’s brother and I didn’t quite understand why. Maybe I had not understood the entire story, or I had not been concentrating (since I tend to work on my laptop while in front of the TV), but it had not occurred me to ask.
Finally I did. And she did a good job explaining, patiently!
posted by "Jenny" at 8:53 AM
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