#80: Maleducata!
Ciao Nonni,
How are you? I am very sorry for how long it's been between letters. We have had a very busy last few weeks.
Luckily, this means I have a lot of updates for you!
We can officially declare now that shorts season is open. The weather has finally changed, and the last few days have been beautifully warm and sunny. It's been funny these last few weeks. The tourist crowds have exploded, like a crop of poisonous mushrooms after the rain, and May is a time when they are hilariously easy to distinguish from the locals.
Anyone in shorts, wearing sandals, a sundress, or linen anything? Tourist.
Still wearing a light puffer jacket, or even better a classic trench coat? Local.
There was no in between.
The trench coats were amazing. They are seasonally appropriate for about three days a year, but everyone seems to own one. They were all whipped out with great enthusiasm in mid-May, and already have been retired for another year. Not owning one, I felt very left out.
Last week was a special one for Raffaella, as it was her graduation ceremony from kindergarten. After the (neverending) summer break, she will start primary school. All the students worked hard for weeks to prepare for a big recital (recita) for the parents on Friday afternoon. The three and four year old kids were given small paper medals to congratulate them for finishing the year and moving up a grade.
The five year olds were dressed in tiny little academic gowns and mortarboards, and each received a diploma from their teachers. The graduation ceremony took place in the large garden at the front of the school, on a beautiful sunny afternoon.
One by one, the children were called forward. They were cheered by the parents, and had a photo taken with their teachers. Raffy was the last to be called. She stood shyly by herself on the stage, and when her turn finally came she received the biggest cheer of all, and huge hugs from her teachers. She could not have been more pleased. It was a beautiful moment.
The lead up to the graduation did come with one hilarious interaction...
While the teachers absolutely adore Raffaella, they also are completely perplexed by us. And I occasionally suspect they think we are complete savages. I try to curb the worst of our casual Australian behaviours, but occasionally it can't be helped.
The tiny academic gowns I mentioned? They were sent home with the children a week before the graduation, with instructions for them to be washed and returned to school with a label for each child.
I duly washed the gown, and hung it so that it would dry nicely. This was my first grave error.
The second was that I forgot to take it back in the morning of the day it was due to be returned. No matter, I thought, Dave can take it when he picks the kids up in the afternoon. I handed it to him when I got home and asked for him to drop it off.
I gave no further instructions. Third error.
So of course, he duly complied. He folded the gown and put it in his backpack.
By the time the gown reached the school, it was quite crumpled.
The next morning at drop off, Raffy's teacher called out and asked me to wait. She returned to the front door, holding the offending gown. This is no good, she said. Raffaella can't graduation in a gown that is so creased. All the other children have perfectly pressed gowns.
She gave it back to me and instructed me to try again. Explaining, as if to an alien who has only landed on Earth in the last 24 hours, that it needs to be ironed and brought back on a coat hanger. Oops...
One day we might learn! Or, I suspect, our children who are more Italian by the day will start to tell us when we are being embarrassing foreigners.
The Italianisation of the kids continues in a myriad of ways. I am entertained every time we receive a document from either of their schools, and the weird and wonderful ways in which their surname is spelled.
The graduation diploma... Argile.
A recent sports certificate... Archile. What?
The consistent element is the removal of the non-existent Y. And the pronunciation is always fantastic. Arrrr-jeeee-leh.
Whenever we try to help by providing the correct pronunciation, you can almost see the Italian brain shut down. The eyes glaze over, and the ears fill with white noise. You just know they're writing it off as impossible, and that you may as well get used to how they're going to say it forevermore.
I guess it is exactly how all pre and post-war Italian migrants felt in Australia. You can keep insisting on the correct pronunciation of Fantasia (to use the recent Carlton Football Club example) or at some point you can just accept the inevitable.
I'm not sure which is correct. Of course in a perfectly multicultural world, everyone should have the right to the correct pronunciation of their name - but how many times in a day can you fight against a lifetime of phonetic learning in a country that speaks a completely different language? Maybe on the day that I finally produce a perfectly rolled R, I'll go back to insisting on Arr-gyle, said in the proper pirate accent.
Which brings me to my last little topic for today. My Italian lessons continue, and I am having a lot of fun with my false friends. My teacher, who is a self-confessed language nerd, loves this topic too.
Last week, I asked about something I hear a lot. Every time I do I am completely shocked.
Maleducato/a.
You hear it a lot used to describe someone. Usually behind their back, but alarmingly often it is said within earshot, or even directly to their face.
I genuinely thought these Italians were running around accusing each other of being poorly educated. What snobs!
It happens a lot if someone pushes in to a queue, or speaks over the top of someone else. They are maleducato. It is always said with venom, and the other person will nod in agreement, narrowing their eyes at the offending individual.
Patricia laughed. Not quite, she explained. The actual translation is 'rude'.
So now I have been happily running around referring to cheeky people trying to take advantage of me (assuming that I'm a tourist) as maleducato. It's fantastic.
All my love,
Kate
