Mid January – Mid February

What a difference this month has made on my life. It seems utterly impossible that I have only been with this new family for one month because I feel so much closer and better with them. Morgana has made major efforts to be friends with me and we along beautifully. We joke and tease each other and we talk a lot and we have a lot of interests in common. We always go out on Saturday and Sunday evenings and usually at least once during the week as well.

I still miss my old friends a lot, but I’m slowly making new friends here. And they are wonderful as well. Morgana’s friends have all been very welcoming and kind to me and I really do want to be good friends with them but it’s going slowly for the most ironic or things. Morgana is very good in English. Too good. When I go to other classes I make them speak to me in Italian and they do and so we get along very well. But when I am in my normal class with Morgana or when we go out it’s hard to force myself to speak in Italian. And I’m getting better at forcing myself and so I’m making friends faster now which is good.

I think right now I’m taking three things away from this experience. The first is that is REALLY is the hardest experience of my life and the loneliest a lot. Even though everyone is friendly, they go on with their lives and it’s hard for them to always slow down everything for me. And while they do try a little, always pausing their lives for the exchange student that will leave in a few minutes isn’t realistic so I’m often isolated and usually there are other exchange students near by to spend time with but there simply aren’t in the area. And at times I just feel so alone and like no one understands me. And they don’t, but they do try and this whole experience has made me stronger. The second thing is that we are all people. We all want love and we all have people we are competitive with and people we don’t like and there is still the popular kids and the weird ones and in our free time we use the Internet or watch TV or play cards with friends and it’s just what we do. Italians have so many culture differences sometimes I feel like it’s a different world but I think how it’s really not. The words escape me, but it feels like even though I could tell you major differences in EVERY aspect of life, and the language is different, and all, I still don’t feel like I left the US because when you get rid of the superfluous details of our lives, you find that we are the same. And when you think about it, aren’t there major differences in life just in the areas of the US or even just between you and your next-door neighbor? The third is to smile and appreciate what you have. Smile because if you are not smiling then no one will ever want to really be friends with you and appreciate because you don’t know when you will lose all of it. Growing up, I always made my lack of enthusiasm for ABQ clear. I’d only started to realize the great things we have a little before I left and after arriving here I’m seeing it so much clearer. I went from a city with an area population of 750,000 people to a town with a population of 750. Now my small city is 13,000. It’s still small and there isn’t really very much to do, but we keep busy and have fun. But there are still small things that I grew up with which seems so impossible that even western countries such as Italy don’t have. Things such as a microwave in every house, for example, in America are not common in Italy. There is a quote that says, "One must fully immerse oneself in another environment in order to truly understand its own,” and it is so true.

I have learned a lot about Italian culture as well and over time I noticed several patterns and in this month I put together a major connection. If you asked the Americans in Italy about Italian mothers soon after they arrived they would probably have said that Italian moms are like Super Mom’s. Now don’t get me wrong, American parents do a great deal for their children. But Italian moms do literally everything. My mom does more than most, but even I gawk at Italian moms. They clean the entire house almost completely alone, cook 3 meals a day, do every bit of laundry, raise families, and hold done jobs, ALONE. Italian kids don’t do chores like Americans. My host sister never does laundry nor has EVER cooked in her life for herself or anyone else, and my host mom comes into my room each morning while we are at breakfast and make our beds for us. And most Italian teens don’t work as well. It’s rare to find a teen with a job where as in America it’s common. They tend to rely on parents for money. This has a major effect on the entire Italian life. Previously I commented on how Italian boys seem gay by American standards. I believe this is because of how they grow up so reliant on their mothers. They are therefore more sensitive, and concerned with how they look, and everything else. Whereas with girls we get the constant pattern of girls who often get what they want, they become very stubborn. They are wonderfully nice and I love them, but they are incredibly stubborn. With this, a great deal of the odd things about Italian life both other Americans and I have commented on makes a lot more sense.

This month has made a major difference in my attitude. I was honestly becoming very depressed in my old home and I thought maybe it my fault. But now I realize that it was just a bad situation and it wasn’t healthy. When I asked to be moved AFS asked me what I wanted from my new family and I just said that I wanted a family I could feel comfortable with. I wanted a sister that would laugh and joke with me like other host sister do, or even talk to me everyday. I have that now. And I have a little host brother who likes to joke with me by tossing little soft balls at me until I steal them and either hind them or throw them at him and parents who I am comfortable with. But making friends was very hard. I was still coming out of depression and feeling incredibly isolated. This past week has actually made a world of difference. And it came from the most ironic of situations. In Italy half of the tests are oral and my Italian teacher asked me to do one on the materials I’d been doing and so I prepared a short oral presentation that covered what I’d been doing, memorized it and thought that I would just speak it to her in private as I had always done before. Instead I had to do it with everyone listening silently and the teacher kept asking me questions about what I said making it difficult. But it was good. I’m not saying I did wonderful, I didn’t. But I did do alright with some help from friends. But this showed a great deal of my class that I could basically understand and speak Italian because most had never tried with me before. And it’s made such a difference in terms of making friends. So it’s all coming along.

There is much more that I want to right, but now that I really feel a part of the family and have things to do I just don’t have near as much as time to write a bunch so that will be it for now. Till next month.