Everyday Challenges

Living in a foreign country has its challenges. Some are monumental: the language barrier, the separation from friends and family, the cultural differences. Yet these challenges are to be expected. My Italian is competent. I keep in touch with people back home as much as possible. A Western country like Italy does not present that extreme of a culture shock. Despite the constant presence of various difficulties, I am not overwhelmed. 

These kinds of challenges remind me of the imperfetto, one of the past tenses in Italian. The imperfetto can, among other things, describe a habitual action or set a scene. The larger challenges of living abroad exist in the background. At the same time, there are distinct moments of difficulty as well. These are the unexpected (and usually embarrassing) ones. Like another Italian past tense, the passato prossimo, the everyday challenges happen in an instant and have an exact finish. They occur at a specific point in time.

But I am not here to give a grammar lesson. Simple tasks such as grocery shopping have proven to be a source of stress and humiliation. The other day I went to the COOP (a supermarket). To avoid human interaction, I went through the self-checkout. The computer screen gave me a choice between Italian and English, and I figured I should choose English in case there were any important steps. Well, apparently “English” also means “incredibly loud and conspicuous,” because the machine immediately started speaking to me. “WELCOME TO THE COOP SELF-CHECKOUT,” it screamed. Everyone in the store whipped around to locate the foreigner as she shoved money into the machine, grabbed her cinnamon, and escaped. The next day, I needed to go back to the COOP for some juice. I brought ten euro with me, figuring I would buy some bread and pesto as well. The produce section is at the entrance to the store, and when I walked in, I thought, “Huh, fruit would be nice.” So I grabbed a bag of plums and a bag of clementines. Then I walked by the dairy: “Huh…haven’t had milk in a while…” Pesto area: “Oooooh, I’ve been meaning to get balsamic vinegar…” When I arrived at the self-checkout, I picked Italian. Nothing. The English version is much friendlier than the Italian one, I guess. There was a long line waiting to checkout, so I tried to hurry. Grand total: 15 euro. I was five euro short…and since it was a self-checkout, there was no way to cancel the items! Feeling extremely anxious and self-conscious, I asked a COOP employee for help. I reluctantly gave up one carton of juice and the clementines, bringing the bill to 11.66 euro. I scrounged around in my wallet for change. I was flustered as I handed her cent after cent, unable to do the simple math. After an eternity of embarrassment, I thanked her profusely and left.

I suppose the only true difference (quality of food aside) between grocery shopping in the US and grocery shopping in Italy is the currency. My lack of familiarity with the euro was a minor impediment; in reality, the source of my embarrassment at the COOP was me. At the same time, there are potential challenges within any social interaction, so I should not dwell too much on my mistakes.

That said, it should not take an hour to borrow a library book. This next anecdotal challenge occurred as a result of difference, rather than personal error. Tuesday, I went to the library at the Department of Archaeology to find a book on the Etruscans. There were three separate rooms, so I picked the one with books that were not behind glass doors. I casually scanned the shelves, very aware of the room’s silence. They were labeled ARCH, MED, R, etc. Definitely not the Dewey Decimal System. After a tour of the entire room, I decided that my books were not there. I checked the computer and saw that two were checked out, and one was at the Department of Ancient History. I went upstairs to the Department of History library. As I strolled in and marched up to a shelf, both librarians stopped their work, heads turned toward me. “You have to leave your bag at the front,” they said, as I wilted into world of wrongdoing, resigned to my new fate as a criminal. I put my bag down and explained that I was looking for a book and that I didn’t know how to use the library. One of the librarians sat down at the computer with me to find my textbooks. Apparently, I was in the wrong library. There was a copy of another book in the Archaeology library, so I asked him how to find a book. He explained it, but I understood nothing. I went back downstairs to the other library and asked a different librarian the same question. I left my bag at her desk and descended underground into the stacks, which were surrounded by medieval walls. I found the book after consulting a map (it was under ETR for Etruscans…). Then, the student librarian asked me for some form of ID. Since my Unibo student ID apparently was not enough to prove that I am an existent human being, I gave her my driver’s license. She asked me for my date of birth and my nationality…which should have been pretty obvious considering the official state document in her hands. I didn’t know if it was a test or if she didn’t know how to read my license. Finally, after giving her every detail of my life, I was able to walk away with the book and my bag. Moral of the story: stealing a library book in Italy is probably a more significant crime than anything the Mafia could ever conceive of doing.

At the end of my year abroad, I will have learned how to overcome those monumental challenges. My Italian will have improved dramatically. A shorter period of time will stand between me and my loved ones. I will have broken into the Italian culture and immersed myself. In short, they will become a part of that imperfect past.

The same cannot be said for everyday challenges.