We have a teenager living in our house once again as, two weeks ago, through CIEE, we welcomed a foreign exchange student into our home for the school year and it is proving to be an adventure for both him and us.
Riccardo is from Italy and will be attending the local high school; graduating next May.
Being from a large city, this is his first experience with living in a rural area, not to mention the fact that, until now, he had never set foot on a farm. Luckily, the young man speaks pretty good English, since I only know two words in Italian. And I say two very loosely, because ciao translates as both hello and goodbye.
Even though Riccardo’s English is very good, he sometimes doesn’t know the right word (especially relating to farm terminology), so he will occasionally use the Italian word(s) if he doesn’t know the proper English translation. This was evident on our trip home from the airport when, as we passed farm after farm, he kept saying, “Balle di fieno!” Trying to be the good host parent, I would simply nod and smile.
I was amused because it reminded me of my one and only visit to a real Italian restaurant a few years ago in a large American city. Reading from a menu written in Italian, and speaking to a waiter who seemed to be Italian, I ordered an item that I’m pretty sure sounded like, “Blah, blah, blah,” to him.
The patient and courteous waiter wrote down my order on his pad, as he smiled and nodded. Sometime later, he returned with a dish that looked like glorified macaroni and cheese and said, “Signore, here is your blah, blah, blah. Enjoy!” It was delicious.
On day two of Riccardo’s time here, I received a call from one of my hay customers who wanted to come over and purchase a pickup load of small, square bales. I told her I would meet her at the barn in a few minutes and I’d get her loaded. I asked Riccardo if he wanted to go along with me and help load hay bales. He was eager to go, but I could tell that he might not have understood what we were going to do, because he smiled and nodded much like I had those many years ago at the Italian restaurant.
When we arrived at the barn on the UTV (Riccardo loves to drive the vehicle, since he is not old enough to drive in his native country), the hay customer was backing up to the barn. When we stepped inside, he looked at the stack of hay and pointed to a bale and said, “Ah, Balle di fieno!” Now, both he and I knew what he had been saying on the trip home.
When the lady’s truck was even with the stack of hay and ready to load, I looked at Riccardo and said, “Balle di fieno, times 30, on the truck. Enjoy!”
