La Scuola

Heading for Bikes Bright and Early: School is Finally Here!

“Dad, we were supposed to bring our own snack,” Ingrid began. We were biking home from her first day at the local public elementary school in the middle of September. Hmm, I wondered, will this lead to crisis, parental guilt trip? “But the other girls shared theirs with me,” she finished. Phew. Back at home in the kitchen, only after she’d wolfed down her mozzarella, pepperoni and mustard sandwich, Ingrid expanded upon her first day. “The teacher had me tell where I was from and then all of the kids got a chance to ask me something.” Ingrid was talking to us and not yelling. What a relief. Everything would work out.  What had we to fear, really?

            We’d arrived at school that morning a little after eight, looking around nervously at the other parents and kids crowded into the lobby, waiting for each teacher to come and lead her students off to class. This would be the fourth year our daughter’s teacher worked with the same group of students so Ingrid really would stand out as the new student of the bunch—besides being the only foreigner in her class (and, presumably, the school). It seemed that indeed all parents were present, many snapping pictures just like me. Four and a half hours later the crowd was back, our energy palpable—practically bursting in fact—as we all waited inside the fence on the grass or the concrete walkway  at the school entrance, eagerly looking for our children. First the youngest classes came out, led by their teachers. The teacher would bend over and take the first kid forward, looking out into the sea of faces with him until the student pointed at his parent—upon which this student's body would be thrown into a spasm of excitement, being of the younger grades—the parent waved, and the teacher would then set him free to dash off to his mamma or  papa or to his nonno or nonna. Then the teacher swept forward the next student to search for his genitori. So it went with the next student. And the next. I thought that maybe it was a first day thing, but the next day was identical and now, several weeks later, it still works the same way.

Awaiting La Maestra 

            After dropping off Ingrid we biked a few blocks north to Nikolai’s school, a private preschool. We’d hoped to have him go to the local public preschool but, after calling several local options, all of which said he could be placed on the bottom of a very long wait list, we realized he wouldn’t have a spot, and probably only would have had we secured him one at sign up time. In March. We had bought his new Topolino (Mickey Mouse) school slippers, his white grembiule with Ninja Turtle patch (white button up smock worn every day over their street clothes), toothbrush and washcloth, extra set of clothes, sheets for the pisolino (nap), etc. etc. So we were prepared. We’d had several months together day in and day out . We were ready to finally have a little respite, some time to ourselves. So why were we so nervous?

            On this, the first day for new students at the preschool, after we'd donned Niko in his new slippers and smock, we were permitted to cross the red line on the floor just outside the coat and slipper room and see him off down a hallway and into a room where various other youngsters were sitting, standing and staring, playing with toys, crying, or holding onto the teacher’s hand. We’d done it before, elsewhere, but seeing our youngest off on his first day didn’t seem any easier this day at this school in this foreign land.

Ciao, mi chiamo Niko 

           

              We biked into town, wandered, stopped at a café for the first time together since we’d arrived in Italy. The conversation didn’t drift far from school and the kids. It threw us off a bit, this suddenly new routine, this four hours with no kids until we had to go back to pick up Ingrid. What would we do with this time?

            Soon the time was up and after bringing the kids back home and hearing about Ingrid’s day we tried to get some information from Niko. In a totally new school with twenty-eight classmates instead of eight, immersed in a totally different language, away from us for the first time since early June, he must have been stressed out. It turns out there was so much that he didn’t understand or that he tried to understand through his own interpretation of events, which, reported through his eyes, sounded off the alarm for us, created doubt, made us wonder if we’d made the right decision, but after a couple of meetings with his teacher and the director of the school we felt better enough to try to stick it out.

            Unfortunately we haven’t yet gotten into a routine with Niko there because he began getting sick. Usually it was a fever that lasted a couple of days that kept him out of school. Then we’d send him back and after a few more days he’d have a chest infection, or just seem pale and very, very tired or especially cranky. He'd stay home for awhile before returning to school. Then he’d get another fever. One doctor we were finally able to see gave him antibiotics and cortisone and eventually whatever he had that time was cured, but then he got sick again, most recently, and we found a pediatrician who was not very happy we didn’t have an appointment or insurance but agreed to take our cash and pronounced that he now had tonsillitis and should spend two full weeks at home. Later we found out that extended time at home was a common prescription for children here in Italy when sick, and it does make some sense. Every time Niko went back to school he’d get sick again, so by keeping him out long enough to recover and building back up before returning we’d assure he wouldn’t get sick right away again. Hopefully. But two weeks! Now one week after that appointment he seems fine but okay, we’ll try to go with the advice—pretty much—keep him home another few days and try to sneak him back in at least on Friday, get one day down before the weekend so starting up a full week next week won’t be too much of an overload on his little system. Hopefully.

            The girls who shared their snack with Ingrid have continued to be nice to her. She attended a double birthday two of the girls had together at a bowling alley. After arriving by bike on a rainy day, drenched, the girls gathered around her in sympathy and tried drying her hair. Talk to Ingrid about school and she’d say, “I like it but why do we have to go Saturdays and why is their so much homework?”

Flipping Frogs

         Apparently at the school’s introductory meeting with the parents several others had similar questions about the latter. Lauren and I have gotten a lot of practice at trying to make sense of assignments half understood, or partially written down, even assignments where we understood the directions but could just barely understand enough of the Italian to figure it out. The Italian translation of a poem by Hermann Hesse with comprehension and expansion questions, for example, had me on my intellectual toes. And then there was the math. Geometrical figures of animals drawn carefully on graph paper on a Cartesian plane. Ingrid was to re-draw said animals, first flipping them mentally laterally, upside down, and laterally and upside down, then being careful to draw them neatly on the grid lines. When I’m focused I can have a decent eye for detail, but this one challenged me a bit. After a few night of this and lots of frustration on Ingrid’s part Lauren and I managed to explain it in a way she could understand. Or maybe she just got used to it. Now she says it's not that bad. I could go on with examples of novelty in school work compared with home, but suffice it to say that there is a lot of homework, much of it isn’t easy to understand, and we try to help Ingrid out as best we can. Luckily for us her main teacher speaks some English as well and occasionally translates instructions for Ingrid in class. She’s also very warm and caring about Ingrid and that, in addition to Ingrid’s acceptance amongst her peers makes it all worth it. It also doesn’t hurt that once or twice a week they have English class.

Ingrid gets ready for Pre-school and Niko for 4th grade

            We thought Niko would adapt to life over here more easily than the rest of us, but our assumptions have been challenged these first several months in many ways. He will get better, though, and he’ll stay healthy longer and he’ll probably be the family expert in Italian before we leave. In the meantime, he and all of us have been lucky to enjoy some family visits recently. Nonni play a big part in the lives of their grandchildren here in Italy. Ingrid and Niko notice that and have missed theirs, so they’ve especially enjoyed when their own grandparents have been able to visit.  Time with i nonni can be pretty good for a kid's immune system, too, and they don't ever seem to forget the snack.

Il Passaggio a Livello

Back in Minnesota where I grew up the Burlington Northern and other big freight lines crossed through my neighborhood about a half mile from our home. At night when all else was quiet I remember discerning the first perceptible train whistle—a rich, multiple-horn tone—then listening for the next one, even louder and accompanied with the deep rumbling coming from tons of corn and soybeans rolling down the track and the regular rhythm as each car seemed to press down the section of rail at the crossing.  Sometimes I’d hear a few in a night, and often my dreams would begin weaving from their sound.

            I’ve lived in New England for twenty years now and it’s been awhile since my nocturnal or diurnal soundscapes have featured trains. My daily twenty kilometer commute to work in New Hampshire included no stoplights, one turn, and no railroad tracks, the nearest one along my route having been turned into a recreation trail over the past couple of decades.

            We’re in Italy now, though. In Lucca and all over the country trains are a major part of life. On our particular line I’ve only seen one freight train in three months, and I’ve seen a lot of trains, so when I say trains I’m talking about the ones with windows and, usually, faces behind them. Trains are a very reliable—setting aside the occasional strike—common, and fairly economical mode of transportation here. Being without a car, we’ve used them ourselves for the occasional trip to a chestnut festival or the beach. But day to day we have a different relationship with trains. Specifically, crossing their tracks. Most of the time we head out, in fact, our route requires us to head toward the rail crossing, il passaggio a livello, two hundred meters from home.

         I invite you to take a trip with me to said crossing. Heading out from the house we take a left, enjoy a minute of calm bicycling and now we’re there. The crossing. Apply hand brakes, put your foot down. Stop.  The bell is lightly dinging. Red warning lights are on. The long white and red striped bar on each side of the tracks is closing. 

Then all is calm. We wait. Across the tracks we see a girl on a moped, a car with its engine already turned off. Three cars are next to us now and two more cyclists, a woman in high heels, nylons, dress, big sunglasses, lots of hair and makeup and a younger man in a dark sweat suit. We all wait. 

           Besides you and me, nobody really seems impatient. All engines are turned off. When another car rounds the bend and sees our growing waiting party, however, it backs up and turns around in search of another route. We look at our watches. Another woman pulls up on a bicycle, ducks it under the crossing bar, looks both ways, crosses, ducks under the next bar, and cruises towards her destination. We count the minutes. The rest of the group just waits.

Queue stretching back to our house from the tracks

 And then we think we hear it. Could it be? Yes, here it comes! Speeding by in glory and with purpose, full of passengers and off towards the next station the train zips by and we’re all secretly glad we didn’t get caught out there in front of it. And then it’s gone. Optimists start their engines. We yawn, fidget with our handlebars. 

Perhaps we’re trying to show we know the story and can wait yet we’re really anticipating it ourselves, salivating imagining the bars are about to move. Another minute ticks by. The optimists, no longer quite so much so, stop their engines.  Okay then, the two of us think, enough already. Another minute. Finally the second train passes—this one slower and slower as it anticipates the station a kilometer or two early—and everyone starts their engines, arranges one pedal up high with a foot on it ready to push—pessimists, realists, optimists alike—and twenty seconds later the long bars sweep up and we are allowed to go on our way. 

            Niko likes these trains. According to him, they’re worthy of his affections because “they go fast and far and when the gates ding and the chook-a-chooze go by it’s loud.” After Niko returns from a ride with his mom he’ll hop off her bike, come in the door and report what went down at the crossing. “We waited for two trains!” “The gates started to ding but we made it through!” “There was a double-decker!” And, to be fair, sometimes he’ll even be able to tell us, “There weren’t any trains today!” Niko relays this crucial information without fail. And with lots of enthusiasm!

            So for many the trains are practical and economical. For me the rumble of these light-weights isn’t like the heavy freight cars back in Minnesota and the horns—a quick and simple airy toot—are kind of boring in comparison, too. And then, of course, there’s the inevitable wait. But like many things that might be or become mundane the trains and their crossing are rendered fascinating to me through the eyes of our four year old. He hears these metal beasts, feels them, just stares intently or shoots up his arms or yells in glee. He doesn't mind the wait at all.