A New Name

My elderly landlady Franca is such a cheerful person.

She lives alone and rents out a room to students like me. But she has such simple joie de vivre. She whistles (with her dentures on), sings and hums while pottering around the house. She chats on the phone.

Friends visit her. She opens her window to say a hearty buongiorno to her neighbours passing by. She does her laundry, knits, watches TV, and tells me to wear warm clothing.

Living alone, she takes care to cook for herself. And she plans/prepares her meals the day before. Simple meals of salad or minestrone. But the point is, she takes the trouble.

She asked me few times for my name. "Janet" is unheard of in Italian and she finds it hard to remember. There is no J in the Italian alphabet. I told her to call me Giovana - Joan, the closest to Janet. (G = J)

Somehow she decided to remember Jenny instead. This morning she sang out, "J-e-n-n-yeeee..." when Marlene, her part-time cleaner, managed to open my bottle of mineral water. (We've been struggling to open it since I bought it a few days ago.)

So I came out of my room to chat with them. Marlene asked for my name and I said, "Janet, but you can call me Giovana". "But Jenny is nice, can we call you that?" she asked. (Maybe I am not Italian enough to be called Giovana:-)

Marlene asked about me, my studies and if I’d learnt foul language. She was sure I would soon pick it up. Franca chimed in, "she has improved and started talking over the past two days. She barely spoke when she arrived." According to Marlene, who came from Costa Rica and had gone through the same language struggle herself, Franca speaks the Perugian dialect. No wonder I don’t understand her sometimes, I made the excuse for myself.

In the Countryside, My First Lessons
Class starts at 2.00 pm today in another building of the Uni. But I left the house at 12 noon, allowing ample time to get lost in this city of crazy maze, blind alleys and cryptic stairways.

Franca showed me the way from her bedroom window – the place is supposed to be very near the house. "Keep going down the steps and turn right," she said.

I made my way down scary narrow dark alleys, past semi deserted construction sites, underground tunnels, historical arches and asked at least five people on the way to make sure I was on the right track. "Si, giu, giu," they said. Perugian mantra - giu (down - steps or slopes). Maps are useless in this grotto like part of town.

The classrooms remind me of my primary school days. They are still using black board, chalk and OHP. And the school bell rings every hour!

My teacher Maria is full of enthusiasm, energy and humour. She spoke fast but it was easy to understand her. A really good teacher who would give additional info. I learnt so much within one hour. Then we took five minutes break when the bell rang. She then returned, more teaching and oral exercises. In three hours I'd learnt two tenses - passato imperfecto and tra passato. In Singapore, it took us more than a year to learn the present tense and the passato prossimo!

My 21-hour week seems so "punishing" and badly "spread-out". Mondays: 8.00 am – 4.00 pm with lunch break at 12 noon; Tuesdays: 10.00 am – 2.00 pm (no break); Wednesdays: 10.00 am – 6.00 pm (1 hour lunch at 2.00 pm); Thursdays: 2.00pm – 5.00 pm (no complaints here) and Fridays - absolutely no complaints, because I have no class!

Hidden Gems
After class today I decided it’s better to be laughed at than to be assaulted (just thinking of the French movie "Irreversible" sends me shuddering) and so I took the most roundabout way home, just to avoid the earlier route. It’s really like touching your nose by bending your arm round the back of your head. But I tell myself it provides an excellent work out - up and down those treacherous slopes and steps. Just make sure I don’t fall and add more scars to my already well decorated knees.

The dim and "crumbly" passages en route to my house have quaint restaurants, cafes and boutiques, even specialist doctors that can treat my IBS. I resist very hard from entering the beautiful fashion and jewellery stores.

These shops are like precious sparkling gems set in the dark walls.

Dinner Time
"J-e-n-n-yeeee... mangi-a-m-o!" Franca yelled. It was 8.00 pm and time to eat. She gave me a small plate of salad. She had figured out by now that I was a small eater.

"Take more food, whatever else you want from the fridge," she said after I'd finished it.

"No, grazie, basta," (it’s enough), I said. "Basta?! Ma tu mangi troppo pocchisimo, perche?" I just shrugged.

I know how to discuss SIM and phone tariffs in Italian, but just do not know how to explain why I eat "so too-little".