Ciao, I don't have the time/energy to post about my whole weekend and such, so just know that nothing exciting happened, except a visit to the San Callisto Catacombs. Basically there were a bunch of holes in the walls of an underground cave. Thats the gist of it. They don't even have bodies in them anymore. More importantly, I started doing service at the school today... It was interesting....
So I was told that I would be working in the nursery school instead of one-on-one with the French girl. I was excited, because I love working with that age group. I really do. I have lots and lots and lots of experience with that age group, and I understand their thought processes and know how to communicate with them.... in english, that is.
So I woke up early this morning, and actually felt a little nervous. My Italian is choppy at best (although it could be so much better if my mind would work at its normal pace!!), and I knew the kids didn't speak English. The director of the St. John's study abroad program walked me over and introduced me to the nun whose class I would be helping in. She speaks some English, which is great, but she has far too much faith in my Italian ability and immediately started speaking to me in Italian-- very quickly and with crazy vocabulary that I couldn't follow. I smiled and nodded a lot. She asked if I spoke French... I told her I speak some, and she immediately brought me over to a set of twins from France, who speak no Italian and are basically off in their own little world all day because of the language barrier. I was not expecting to be speaking French, so it took me a minute for the shock to disappear and the french words to start flowing from my mouth, but I'm glad that I'm there to help them, because the teacher just speaks italian at them and uses hand signals. They were/are so lost. Apparently the nun expected me to be TEACHING the class... I'm not sure what exactly she wanted of me. They're like 3 years old; I'm not sure what you teach 3 year olds. So we gave them colored pencils and paper and they drew pictures. I tried my hardest to communicate with the italian children and the french children, but my Italian was TERRIBLE. I couldn't say hardly anything. Mostly it was nerves, because when I left, I could remember all sorts of things that I had tried to say. It's also nearly impossible to switch back and forth from Italian to French without completely butchering both languages. I was using Italian words to speak French and French words to speak Italian. After we drew for a while, we took the children out to the "giardino" or playground. This was when the nun gave me a little less direction and some space, and I was more able to speak to the kids without being paranoid about messing up. It was still really hard. I forgot the italian word for feet... "i piedi" That was rough. And the kids don't understand that I don't understand them, so they just talk and talk and talk assuming I know what they're saying.
The kids are great though. There was only 8 of them today (I don't know how many there usually are). They mostly all warmed up to me pretty quickly. Only two of them wouldn't talk to me at all (one warmed up by the end and was singing some sort of italian song and bossing the other kids around). It's definitely something that I want to keep doing, and I'm sure it will get better/easier the more I do it. It's just really really difficult right now. And pretty overwhelming. I don't go back until next Monday, so I'll definitely keep you posted on that.
Sorry for the lack of pictures today; I haven't uploaded any in a few days. Maybe I'll add some to this post when I have more time. Ciao!
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