By Nancy Colasurdo
I tend to admire people who are bilingual, probably because I’m not, so I’m delighted that the driver who has been tasked with getting me from Naples Airport to the Amalfi Coast is conversant in English.
I got that fun little zing! when I saw Tony holding a sign with my name on it as I emerged from baggage claim with my Elle Woods-esque rose gold luggage. From the moment I got in his swanky SUV and he maneuvered us out of the parking garage, I knew I was in for an adventure.
The ride is part highway and then it’s all windy mountain roads. Harrowing turns. Scenery that’s other-worldly. Tony is a pro at the curves, and I learn along the way that he is 63 (we were born the same year), that he is from Minori (the town I’ll be staying in), and that he does this drive five times a day.
He seems reluctant to talk at first, but I get him going. As we pass Mount Vesuvius, he becomes almost tour guide-like in his demeanor.
“The last time it erupted was 1944,” he says, the words tinged with his delicious Italian accent. “We have a plan in case it erupts again.”
I’m intrigued.
“But it won’t work,” he says. “There are three million people living around it. Many will die.”
Not funny, but I laugh because of his deadpan delivery.
In my mind I try to compare how something like this might be handled in the United States, but before long we’re talking again. I ask Tony what the best restaurant in Minori is.
“My house,” he says with a laugh.
I believe him. He talks about his pizza oven and the fact that his daughter loves wild asparagus. He goes foraging for it so he can make her wild asparagus risotto. I ask if it’s better than regular asparagus.
“Yes!” he says.
Tony tells me that one day early in his marriage he took his wife to dinner and told her he bought them a house. She was excited. Then he told her it had over 200 steps.
“She said, ‘I want a divorce,’” he says, laughing at his own joke.
(I didn’t fully appreciate this punchline until I started navigating the hills and steps in the region myself – wowza).
Along the way I also learned that Tony’s brother lives in the U.S.
“I told him, ‘Get the translator,’” he says. “And see if you can find the word ‘retirement’ there.”
A clear message about the American over-emphasis on work, he smiles again at his own humor.
I’m already enchanted in Italy.
****
Truth be told, I’m embarrassed I don’t know more Italian. It was not offered as a course at my Central Jersey high school, so I took French. Four years and then two semesters in college. Suffice to say I can navigate Paris better than my own homeland.
It’s almost tragic that my father spoke fluent Italian in his home in Jersey City, but the tenor of the country was such that it never occurred to him to teach his kids. Why would he? After being shamed upon entry to school for not speaking English, the focus became strictly adapting rather than simultaneously preserving his heritage.
****
One evening my hosts, Kathi and Doug, agree it might be nice to have a sort of charcuterie dinner with wine at the villa. Doug and I go to a tiny grocery store with hanging beads for a door to explore the possibilities.
I beeline to a case with salamis and cheeses and do my best to explain to the woman working it that I would like two kinds of salami. Hmmm, in the U.S. I know to ask for Genoa salami, but this stuff is from all over Italy. As I’m deciding, I get from her that she wants to know how much I’d like.
“Maybe half a pound …” I begin when I realize she’s looking for grams.
Ah, geez. I’m laughing. Oh, Doug?? Wherefore art thou?
He was looking for crackers in another aisle, but chimed in with the conversion.
Then I saw prosciutto and told her I’d like to instead have one salami and one prosciutto, but when we got back to the villa we wind up with a ton of one kind of salami. Not a big deal, but good for a laugh.
Even funnier, as we tried to find bread to go with our meal, I saw some on a high shelf. A man (the owner?) indicated this one bag of dry, hard bread pieces would be perfect with the salami and tomatoes we were planning. But when I say it was hard, I mean crouton level hard.
“You put in the water for two minutes,” he says. “Then it’s good.”
“Really?” I say skeptically.
But then the woman chimes in. I ask what temperature the water should be.
“Warm,” she says.
There is no other bread there and no other shops open, so we buy the bread that could be used as a weapon, figuring, what the heck?
When we return to the villa, Kathi looks at us like we’re nuts, but gamely soaks the bread pieces in water. It remains hard and quite unappealing. Three people are now doing internet searches on their phones to see if this is a thing. I do find suggestions for stale bread that call for soaking it in water and then baking it in the oven, but no, crackers it is.
I still laugh wondering if we bought into something crazy or if it was a language barrier issue.
****
Next to the beach and ferry promenade in Minori, there is a taxi stand. We hire Marcello to take us up, up, up to Ravello. More winding roads and mind-blowing views.
This guy is all energy and personality. He’s lit up. In November he’s going to be working in Las Vegas and he’s happy for the chance to work on his English. In my book, it is already pretty impressive. Again I’m inspired by people who love to learn.
The climate in my country is so scary in some places that we have human beings afraid to speak their native language for fear of inciting those intimidated by Spanish or Arabic or anything not English. This is what I think of several times in Italy when I am reaching for Italian words.
All I know is that almost every morning thereafter, when I see our ebullient driver hanging out at the taxi stand, I get a kick out of greeting him.
“Buongiorno, Marcello!”
His eyes flicker with recognition.
“Buongiorno, Miss!”
I smile big. Then off for a cappuccino to fuel the day.
****
I detest bathroom humor to the point that I often delete it from my social media feeds. So it’s kind of shocking that I’m going to share this, but I can’t stop thinking how funny it was.
Pizza, pastry, pasta = delicious and a treat but also … constipation.
Kathi, Doug and I are on a ferry coming back from Positano, but we must connect through Amalfi to get back to Minori. There will be a 30-minute wait in Amalfi. I wonder aloud if there is a pharmacy near the ferry terminal so I can buy a little relief.
Kathi checks her phone and says there’s one in the nearby square. We go, but it’s closed. We walk a bit and I step into a bodega, the kind that might have little packets of aspirin and such. I am trying to discreetly not alert the entire store of my issue, but the employee doesn’t understand what I’m asking for.
I pull out my phone and punch “laxative” into the translator app. The Italian term “lassativo” appears and I turn it to face the clerk.
“Ahhhhhh …” she smiles and nods.
When she begins speaking, I recognize the word “Farmacia” but explain it’s closed. Yes, the one on the square is closed, but out to the right there are steps up to another one, she tells me.
More steps. Of course. It’s the Amalfi Coast, after all.
The good sports I’m traveling with ascend with me and I see the big red cross sign indicating a pharmacy. I approach a woman in a lab coat and show her the translation still on my phone.
She nods. Takes me to two choices. One works overnight, the other immediately. But when she turns over the latter box, I see a diagram. It’s a suppository. Nope.
I grab the former, more grateful for that app than on any other day of the trip.
Language barriers can be frustrating. I had a friend that was in Italy with her 13 year old son in a school group. He came down with a bad case of jock itch and told his mother. She knew what to get at home but not in Italy. Off to the chemist and because of the language barrier had to act out his symptoms. Her embarrassment turned to laughter as the man figured it out and came to the rescue with the appropriate meds. You just do the best you can in most unfamiliar language situations.