The Italian boy who captured my heart

My thanksgiving was indescribable. I would never have even known it was Thanksgiving if I hadn’t been looking at the calendar and had we not had a dinner with our school. Even though I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in America or in any conventional way, yesterday gave me so much to be thankful for.

Each of us have been given a place to do volunteer work this year and yesterday was my first day going to Villa Lorenzi, a place where middle to high school kids from troubled families can go after school so they don’t have to go home to a bad environment or to an empty apartment. I was told I would be helping kids with their homework and playing with them, my shift said it was from 1:30-6 p.m. every Thursday, other than that I had no idea what to expect.

I took the bus about twenty minutes out of the center of Florence and found the address I was looking for—as the name describes it was a huge villa on top of a hill. I walked in the front door and introduced myself to the first person I encountered, who looked back at me completely confused, and it took a good five minutes of panicked broken Italian conversation until I finally found the right person, who immediately called someone else to sweep me away through the winding halls of V. Lorenzi. I was introduced to about ten different people on the way to the lunch room but I don’t remember any of their names, they all spoke so fast and I felt like I had forgotten every day of my two and a half years of Italian. I was finally introduced to the leader of the group I would be working with. She shook my hand and smiled “Piacere,” at the same time as herding a group of ten 11-13 year old boys into the lunch room. The smallest boy stood on tippy toes to see over the rest of the group asking loudly, “Chi è lei?!” Who is she!? The leader of the group told him to wait a minute and he could introduce himself.

We walked into the lunch room where the boys were already sitting and the same little boy was sitting at the end of a table with an empty seat next to him. “Bella! Bella! Sedi qui!” Beautiful! Sit here! He was told again that it would be more polite to introduce himself to me and ask me my name. He immediately pulled all four feet of himself up from his seat and offered me his hand, “Ciao, Mi chiamo Ivan. Come ti chiami?” Hello, my name is Ivan. What’s your name? I smiled back and said “Ciao Ivan, Mi chiamo Margherita.” Hi Ivan, I’m Margherita. “Margherita!” he screamed “Sedi qui.”

The other boys I’m afraid where more typical middle school boys, afraid to look me in the eyes, and mumbled their names to their plates of pasta when I asked for them. Ivan kept me occupied throughout the meal however, first asking me for my hand so he could show me a handshake, then asking me if I could understand what he was saying, since I was slow to respond to his extremely fast words. Finally Ivan tugged on my sleeve and asked “Margherita, hai un fidanzato?” Do you have a boyfriend? “Sì,” I responded, “Ho un fidanzato.” Yes, I have a boyfriend. “E come si chiamo?” And what’s his name? “Si chiamo Sean.” (Keep in mind that it is pretty much impossible to pronounce Sean in Italian) “Sean?” he repeated, “hmmmm…oh sì! Penso di Conoscere lui dalla televisione!” Hmmm..Oh yes! I think I know him from tv! After a few moments Ivan tugged my sleeve again, “Quanti anni ha il tuo fidanzato?” How old is your boyfriend? “Lui ha venti anni.” He’s twenty. “Venti anni! Ma ho solo dieci anni!” Twenty! But I’m only ten years old! “Mi dispiace Ivan, ma anch’io ho venti anni.” I’m sorry Ivan, but I’m 20 too. Ivan looked a bit sad for a few minutes, but it seems as though he wasn’t too upset by the ten year age difference after all, or intimidated by Sean as competition, because it didn’t stop him from kissing me on the cheek at the end of lunch and then asking me to hold hands with him for the rest of the day.

After my lunchtime romance we all put our jackets on and went outside to play a game of calcio. They had already asked me the most important question, if I knew how to play soccer, and when I told them I had played for a long time I was recruited to even out a three on three game, (though I think they were still dubious of my ability, and after not having touched a soccer ball in almost 3 years now, so was I). When I finally was passed the ball and took a shot, the boys cried “Mamma mia!” “Che forza Margherita!” And after the game they all asked if I would play on their team next time. It was hard to tell through a language, culture, and age barrier whether they were poking fun at me or genuinely impressed, but either way they seemed to warm up to me after the game.

I was assigned to help Alessio with his English homework, during study time. And I quickly discovered how difficult it is to explain grammar rules that I barely know in a foreign language, then we moved onto math. I was blown away by the speed that Alessio could do algebra in his head, and I enjoyed listening to him rattle off numbers in Italian as he added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Each of the boys needed individual attention and Alessio was off in another room every fifteen seconds he didn’t have a set task in front of him.

Finally, after a few rounds of Uno with the boys after homework, and an afternoon snack, we were back out on the soccer field when it was time for me to leave. “Ok,” I said, “Devo partire.” Mohammed, one of the boys on my soccer team, looked at the other adult outside with us and laughed. “Devo partire?” he mocked me. The man urged him to tell me the right way to say it instead of laughing. Mohammed looked at me, “Devo andare via.”

“Grazie,” I said my cheeks burning, because of course I messed up one of the only things I had said out loud all day, “Devo andare via. Ci vediamo ragazzi.” Thank you. I have to go. I’ll see you later boys. When I arrived twenty minutes late to my Thanksgiving dinner at my director’s house I felt as if I had just had the longest day of my life, but when she asked how it had gone at Villa Lorenzi I could only smile and say “Bellino.”