Well the holidays are certainly here! What a fun time we have been having. Strangely enough, Italians don't celebrate Thanksgiving - go figure ;). So the Bible School decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner of our own and invite some of our Italian friends along with our American friends here. What a party!
We had it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, seeing as most Italians work on Thursdays, but the preparations began on Thanksgiving day proper - lots of cleaning, shopping, and cooking! Thursday we cleaned the dining room from top to bottom, moving couches, wardrobes, and other furniture. We also made a trip to the Metro (kind of like a Sam's), bringing home two over-sized shopping carts full of supplies. The next day we fired up the ovens, producing mass quantities of.....desserts mostly. The most important element in any Thanksgiving dinner! Also on Friday, our friend from language school, Tracey, arrived to spend the weekend with us. What a guest! She helped us cook, clean, wash dishes, and decorate. She was so willing and such a great help to us. Mom has requested her presence next year in advance. :) We made cherry/pear crisp, a huge pumpkin pie, clam and spinach dip, and the beginnings of dressing. We woke up Saturday morning and finished the checklist of dishes - chocolate pies, sweet potato casserole, sweet tea (very important - this is the only thing Tracey couldn't help with, seeing as she is from the north ;) ), corn, peas, mashed potatoes, fruit jello salad, and of course the three turkeys. Whew!
It was a great night - we had 32 diners including ourselves, and it was so much fun to spend time with our Italian friends and to introduce them (or re-expose them) to an American cultural tradition. It was worth every minute of preparation, and I wish we could do it again tomorrow!
29 November 2009
15 November 2009
Non COSI giovane -Not THAT young....
I didn't realize how much I missed being around kids! Jillian and I have started teaching at an "asilo nido" (daycare) down the street, and it is simply a blast! Here in Italy, kids start going to daycare early - this one has ages 3-5. I had met Gabriella, the maestra, only once before - she had stopped by the bible school when I was the only one here, and she requested that we come to her class once a week to teach the 18 5 yr olds English. That sounded like fun to me. After all, I have taught that age group before in a bible class at College Church. (Good memories, right Ali? ;) ) So we agreed that we would.
So, our first week.
We worked on teaching materials the week leading up to the first session - just basic colors and animals for the first time. We really didn't know what to expect, or how much material we needed to fill up an hour and a half. Jill came up with teaching them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" in case we needed something a little more active to keep their attention. We reached the gate the first day, were buzzed in and greeted by Gabriella, and entered the classroom. So many little faces! I don't know if you are aware of this, but all Italian children are born adorable. It is impossible for them to be otherwise. We were introduced as "le belle ragazze che non parlano italiano" - "the beautiful girls that don't speak italian". I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to take this as a compliment. I began by teaching them the colors and holding up corresponding sheets of colored paper. They were very thorough when I asked them to find things in the room that were a certain color - down to their neighbors shoelaces or my yellow hair. They picked things up so quickly and seemed to be having so much fun! But asking a five year old to memorize things for a long period of time is never a good idea. I could tell they were starting to get restless, so next Jill taught them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". And they LOVED it. Please take a moment right now to watch the video attached to this post, and feel free to laugh out loud. Well, we did it about 3 times just to learn the words, and then we repeated it 3 or 4 more times. It was so cute. (Side note: the next day I was walking to a friend's apartment and couldn't figure out why my knee muscles were sore...then I realized it was because of a children's song...please see title of post) And that pretty much took up our hour. The teacher had them all sit down and color a circle in their favorite color, and then we came around and helped them right the name of the color in Italian and English. If you don't already know, teaching is hard work! I don't know if I could do it all day like they do. It takes a lot of patience and repetition.
We made some noise, obviously, and the other teachers of the younger classes apparently noticed. As we were leaving, they stopped us at the door and asked us to come to their classes for 30 minutes every week after the 5 yr old class. So the week after, Jill went to the 4 yr old and I went to the 3 yr olds - we didn't have quite the same effect there. They are a tad bit too small to appreciate English. My class had only just learned the colors "red" and "yellow" in Italian, so it was a little hard getting them to say them in English too. Just a lot of big-eyed staring faces. And one little girl who talked the whole time, babbling but not really saying anything, laughing at herself when she apparently said something funny, nodding at me as if I understood - the teacher didn't even understand. Oh well. They are fun to be with. :)
Fun times in an Italian daycare!
So, our first week.
We worked on teaching materials the week leading up to the first session - just basic colors and animals for the first time. We really didn't know what to expect, or how much material we needed to fill up an hour and a half. Jill came up with teaching them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" in case we needed something a little more active to keep their attention. We reached the gate the first day, were buzzed in and greeted by Gabriella, and entered the classroom. So many little faces! I don't know if you are aware of this, but all Italian children are born adorable. It is impossible for them to be otherwise. We were introduced as "le belle ragazze che non parlano italiano" - "the beautiful girls that don't speak italian". I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to take this as a compliment. I began by teaching them the colors and holding up corresponding sheets of colored paper. They were very thorough when I asked them to find things in the room that were a certain color - down to their neighbors shoelaces or my yellow hair. They picked things up so quickly and seemed to be having so much fun! But asking a five year old to memorize things for a long period of time is never a good idea. I could tell they were starting to get restless, so next Jill taught them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". And they LOVED it. Please take a moment right now to watch the video attached to this post, and feel free to laugh out loud. Well, we did it about 3 times just to learn the words, and then we repeated it 3 or 4 more times. It was so cute. (Side note: the next day I was walking to a friend's apartment and couldn't figure out why my knee muscles were sore...then I realized it was because of a children's song...please see title of post) And that pretty much took up our hour. The teacher had them all sit down and color a circle in their favorite color, and then we came around and helped them right the name of the color in Italian and English. If you don't already know, teaching is hard work! I don't know if I could do it all day like they do. It takes a lot of patience and repetition.
We made some noise, obviously, and the other teachers of the younger classes apparently noticed. As we were leaving, they stopped us at the door and asked us to come to their classes for 30 minutes every week after the 5 yr old class. So the week after, Jill went to the 4 yr old and I went to the 3 yr olds - we didn't have quite the same effect there. They are a tad bit too small to appreciate English. My class had only just learned the colors "red" and "yellow" in Italian, so it was a little hard getting them to say them in English too. Just a lot of big-eyed staring faces. And one little girl who talked the whole time, babbling but not really saying anything, laughing at herself when she apparently said something funny, nodding at me as if I understood - the teacher didn't even understand. Oh well. They are fun to be with. :)
Fun times in an Italian daycare!
04 November 2009
Yay! Sono ancora giovane!
Well, this last weekend was a trip! Jill and I headed to Aprilia for the weekend, which is a city about 40 minutes from Rome. The church in Aprilia hosted a youth convegno or retreat which included all the young people ages 16-25 from all the churches of Christ throughout Italy. Yes. I just barely made it.
Jillian and I were hosted by the di Pietro family - Donatello, Laura, and their son Riccardo. I had made met Riccardo at the regular annual church convegno in August, and it was nice to spend more time getting to know him. :) They have a lovely home, and we felt very welcomed by them.
We arrived on Friday evening at about 5 o'clock, and we were met by a member of the church named Valerio. Soon afterwards, Riccardo came to pick us up and take us to the church building. We were the first ones (besides the kids from Aprilia, of course) there! Riccardo was in charge of transporting people between the church and the train station, so we rode along with him for a while. By about 8pm, there was a pretty good number of people there, and we had a welcome service and ate pizza.
The whole next day is kind of one big blur! :) I didn't really know anybody there - Riccardo I knew the best - and it had been a while since I spent the entire day speaking Italian. And what a humbling experience that was! I do pretty well in Florence, speaking and understanding, but it was a whole different ball game with 35 young Italians speaking lightning fast and in all the different dialects. So between trying to meet and get to know people and trying to understand what they were saying....let's just say my brain has felt better. And my pride! :) The day was organized and run by the youth group at Aprilia, so they led songs and prayers and introduced the convegno. The main discussions were led by Titus Robinson, an American missionary living in Vicenza, who is acting as their unofficial youth minister. The theme was "Giovani Insieme: Siamo noi la futura" - "Youth Together: We are the future".
Sunday was great too, as we got to meet the church members and have a potluck lunch with them. I knew some of them also from the August convegno, so it was good to renew those acquaintances. Also, they have a chorus made up of members of the church! Laura and Donatello are part of the group, and they sang several hymns in Italian, which was beautiful! About halfway through the concert they broke out into the English rendition of "Go Down Moses", which made both of us very nostalgic. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that song performed by first my high school chorus and then the Harding University chorus by many, many of my good friends. I couldn't help but smile like a fool the whole way through.
After the potluck, we hopped back on a train and headed back to Florence. What a neat feeling, getting off the train at Santa Maria Novella and feeling like you're at home! So, all in all it was a great weekend, and we made lots of new friends and contacts with some young Italian Christians. Giovani Insieme!!
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