LIFE: My Italian Life

CHIAVARI, Italy - In the early days of my Italian life, I lived in Genova and taught English at a small private language school. They paid me under the table as I was only sort of legal, that is, I was in Italy on a tourist visa not a work visa.  

 

PIAZZA DEI FERRARI, GENOVA, ITALY 

Sometimes when I would come into school one of the owners would give me a sign, raise her eyebrows or roll her eyes, and I would understand the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian IRS, were in the office inspecting the school’s books. Her look was a warning for me not to say anything. As long as the police didn’t hear my accent, they would never suspect I was a fake Italian working without legal documents.

The Guardians of the Finances knew the language schools hired illegal aliens, especially English mother-tongue illegals, but stereotypes being what they are, they were on the lookout for blonde, California types and wispy English Roses, not someone who looks like me. Since I really am Italian, and I look Italian, I could stand there and smile and no one was the wiser.  

One of the Gates to the Old City,

We illegal mother-tongue English speakers were a hot commodity, a two for one. We actually spoke English, a huge plus, and we didn’t complain if the schools kept us off the books. Given a choice, the schools preferred to not pay all those niggling, nasty taxes governments like to collect like Social Security and contributions to the health care system.

I knew I was not being paid what Italian teachers, or foreigners who were here legally were paid, but I was happy to have a job. I had been out of work for six months and my bank balance was shrinking fast.  

Genova Nervi

So with the little bit of money I was earned at the school I started putting together my Italian life. I was living in a furnished apartment in Nervi, a small borgo about half an hour out of Genoa. With no car, my only means of transport to and from the center of the city was the bus. I would get off on Via XX Settembre, Genoa’s main street, and walk the few blocks to the language school passing a rather posh china and gift shop along the way. They had the most beautiful things in that store and I remember how I would stand and stare in the shop window and wonder if I would ever be able to afford anything they sold.

January and July are the State designated sales periods here in Italy and so shortly after Christmas my favorite shop filled their window with all the bits and bobs they were willing to part with at a discounted price. That’s when I spotted them – the gold rimmed Richard Ginori plates with the small roses. It was love at first sight.

My Beautiful Plates

Every afternoon, on my way to work, I would stop and stand with my nose pressed against the glass and look at them, dreaming about how nice they would look on my dinner table. I had no real idea how much they cost as I was still a bit shaky dealing in lira. If a newspaper cost 1,000 lire, and a cup of coffee cost 1,500, how many thousands or millions of lire would the dishes cost? And how much was that in real money? Dealing with such high numbers was not only confusing, it was downright overwhelming.

Then one day, fearful the plates would be snapped up and gone forever, I gathered my courage and went in the shop. In my halting Italian I told the young clerk I wanted six of the Richard Ginori plates in the window. She knew immediately which ones I was talking about.

“There are only ten plates left,” she said. “Why don’t you take them all?” 

“I wish I could,” I said, “but I am a poor English teacher and I don’t have enough money to buy all of them.”

I knew that Richard Ginori is the Giorgio Armani of the porcelain world. The company was founded in 1735 by the Florentine Marquis Carlo Ginori, and their early pieces were made for the court of the Medici family, the godfathers of the Florentine Renaissance. So whatever those dishes cost, it was surely more than I could afford. As it was I was convinced I would have to eat bread and onions for a month just to pay for the six plates I asked for.

The Sea Walk in Genova Nervi  

The clerk nodded. She went to the window, got the plates and then disappeared into the back room. A few minutes later she reappeared with a package all done up in brown paper and tied with heavy string. She put it on the counter and rang up the sale. I don’t remember what I paid for those plates, now that we’ve converted to Euros it’s hard to remember what things cost back in the day when Italy’s currency was the lira, but I remember thinking it wasn’t as much as I thought it was going to be. 

I carried the package to school that afternoon and it wasn’t until the next morning that I opened it and checked the receipt. That’s when I realized she had given me all ten plates at a deeply discounted price.  

 Via XX Settembre, Genova's Main Shopping Street

When I was in Genova on Saturday I looked for the shop where I bought the dishes, but I couldn’t find it. It made me sad, but time goes on and things change, including cities and Genova has changed a lot since I lived here last.

I’ve been very lucky these past twenty plus years, I’ve met a lot of nice people in my Italian life who have helped me more than they will ever know. I may not know all of their names, but like that clerk, they are not forgotten. Every time I use those beautiful dishes I think about her, and how much her kindness meant to me, a foolish woman living on her own in a foreign country. I have tried, over the years, to pass that kindness on and I hope that in some small way, I have.  

LIFE: Table Talk

Guest blogger Elisa Scarton Detti recalls her first encounter with an Italian food critic. Of course the food critic was only three years old and the encounter took place in a nursery school (which in Australia are called kindergartens), but here in Italy food critics are born, not made.

 

Elisa Scarton Detti and the Tuscan Twenty

Table Talk

By: Elisa Scarton Detti

As I tucked into my second plate of beautifully dressed fennel with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, I knew this was the life. Content, I nudged my fellow diner, looking forward to sharing my delight over the salad greens. As I open my mouth to speak, my neighbour finished licking all the dressing off his last piece of fennel and dumped it unceremoniously onto his napkin along with the others.

“Finnochio fa schifo,” he said to me as he wiped his fingers on his smock. I didn’t agree that fennel was gross, but I couldn’t exactly start an argument about it. He was three years old and we were sitting in mini chairs around a mini table in the middle of a typical lunch at a country Tuscan kindergarten.

I was tempted to snort and tell this kid that down under in my home country of Australia, little brats weren’t served lunch at kindergarten, let alone the expertly prepared, hot two-course meal he just devoured. But then I remembered that an English-language aide teacher should have a certain level of graciousness and sophistication, so I just muttered ‘you evil little thing’ in English and left it at that.

In my years of teaching English to Italian kindergartners, I learnt a lot of things. I learnt that those under five show no interest in reciting numbers in another language when they could be covering themselves in paint. I learnt that you should never leave a four year old with a handful of plastic coins unless you expect her to eat them. And I learnt that Pingu the television penguin is not an effective language teaching aide when you consider that he only speaks in indistinguishable honks.

When I look back at my experience of the Italian education system, I look with the eyes of an expat who is about to become a parent. In a few years’ time my little brats will be attending an Italian kindergarten, elementary school and hopefully, if they don’t decide to pursue professional sport or super stardom in Hollywood, secondary school. Will I send them to an Italian school or an international school?

My strongest memories of the Italian state school system are wrapped up in school lunches. I still enviously and fondly remember the meals we were served every midday in the kindergarten parlour with its Post-it note yellow walls and scarred linoleum. Slices of tender veal cutlets, ricotta ravioli with sage butter and shaved parmesan, steamed long beans with a tomato ragu sauce! As creative as my mother could be back in Australia, her standard school lunch consisted of ham and bread.

Of course, the Italian children I taught were disadvantaged in other ways. No Australian teacher in her right mind would leave an inexperienced 18-year-old foreigner (me) with two dozen under-fives, while she went outside to have lengthy mobile phone chats. In my first year of teaching, I grew eyes in the back of my head just so I could keep two on the little boy who had a perchance for pulling down other kids’ pants.

When I moved to an Italian elementary school, the classes I observed were sometimes haphazard, the teachers weren’t always experts in their fields and the lack of extra-curricular activities was surprising to a young woman who had been forced to play tennis, dance in school plays and head a debate team throughout her schooling years.

There’s no doubt the Italian education ethos is different from its international schools, where everything is as pristine and polished as a couch that still has its plastic cover on. In the international school I taught at, there were no lovingly prepared school lunches, but the education was as proper as any private school in the U.S or the UK. But it was an utterly un-Italian education, devoid of the natural affection and passion the country is famous for and devoid of the almost subconscious appreciation and instruction of European art and culture.

Over the years, expat friends and parents have asked what school system I recommend. Their number one concern is always whether their children will suffer because they don’t speak the language. I honestly don’t know whether local or international schooling is best in Italy, so instead I tell my friends about the beautiful Romanian children I taught when I was at my Tuscan kindergarten.

On mini chairs on the other side of the mini table on that faithful day when were eating dressed fennel there sat four Romanian cousins. Three girls and a boy, they’d only be in Italy for a couple of months and were as shy as could be. But I remember as they watched Mr Brat discard his fennel, the little boy turned to me and said with perfect fluency, “Questo qua é piuttosto un rompipalle”. I couldn’t fault his Italian and I couldn’t fault his logic. That kid really was a pain in the butt.

About the author

Elisa Scarton Detti is an Australian journalist who came to Tuscany for a year, fell in love and decided to stick around. Not one to keep amazing holiday destinations to herself, she now writes a blog and travel guide (www.maremma-tuscany.com) about the infinitely beautiful Tuscan Maremma, so that others can get a taste of la dolce vita.