Motor Scooters

I absolutely LOVE riding on the backs of motor scooters in Italy. (Some of the delirious joy and novelty is lost if one rides on a scooter outside of an Italian context.)

Having ridden multiple times on the backs of no less than two different motor scooters in the (and again, this is important) Italian context, I consider myself to be quite the accomplished American visitor. Ever since watching that Mary-Kate and Ashley film in Italy the desire to try this for myself was planted within me. Upon arriving to Italy and realizing that this desire was shared with an American friend of mine who had gotten the privilege of this tourist rite of passage before me and assured me it was worth it, I set out to experience this for myself.

Opportunity struck when I had to meet a student for English and we decided he should pick me up at a meeting point. I was woefully unprepared for a scooter ride, but after picking up a pair of 5€ pants from a street vendor and classily putting them on in the middle of the sidewalk, I was ready to ride. He went easy on me and didn't go too fast, and my first ride on a motor scooter in Italy finally happened! This student of mine went to the same cell group as me the year before, and so ride number two was to the train station after one of our Bible studies.
Rides number three to roughly six occurred in Loano, and here I had the experience of riding with an actual Italian (my student is Brazilian). Awesome, and much more frightening. We were chugging along on high mountainous roads with no railings and once the scooter swiveled and I freaked before bursting into hysterical frightened laughter. My Italian friend promptly responded with, "What's so funny?! We almost died!"

Ride number seven was an exhilarating dash through city streets on the way to a birthday party. That ride is by far my favorite. I had gotten abandoned by one car ride and had to abandon another because we were going to different destinations, when my student pulled up on his motor scooter. Yaaaaay. All ill will against the first ride who had abandoned me flew out the window as I hopped on the back of my super-hot-holds-my-wrist-too-long-in-public student's motor scooter while artfully hiding the hole in the crotch of my jeggings. Helmet in place and jacket secured against the eventual cold, we took off.

I realized there were six of us in total whizzing along, dipping and swerving and breaking suddenly, and at one point one of the other guys drove up behind us, then beside us, and his passenger held onto the back of the scooter I was on. After praying for our safety for what must have been the tenth time, I let the speed fiend in me enjoy the ride. It was fabulous. Here are some pics of the action.

A Sense of Adventure

One day as I was walking home from something (probably work), I went a slightly different route. As I was moving along, on impulse I asked God for a little bit of adventure. "My life feels a little boring right now", I thought. "Why not spice things up a bit?" So I asked, and I immediately started looking for what the adventure would be. When I saw the homeless woman I had made friends with a week or so ago in church, it was as if I had known all along that that's all my adventure ever could have been in this moment. I went over to talk with her and see how she was doing. The time before when I had seen her I had been rushing off to catch the metro to work and we hadn't had time to stop and chat. Now, however, I was able to stay and we talked for a bit. She told me about her struggles and her joys, and I promised to keep her in my prayers.
 I wanted to leave my number with her but I didn't have a pen! At first she didn't believe that a teacher coming home from work wouldn't have a pen (I don't blame her...) but my sincerity and generally open nature in the end convinced her. Anyone who gets to know me in any depth knows that going to work without a pen is just the sort of thing I'm capable of doing. But then, God covers us and any writing I needed to do, a pen always showed up from somewhere.

But not this time. We expect however, that the next time we run into each other I will have a pen and we will be able to exchange numbers. (Her phone wasn't working at that moment, if you're wondering why we didn't just exchange numbers using our phones.)

So, for those reading this blog, please pray for my new friend Nancy. She is a refugee of the conflict in Libya, though she is originally from Nigeria. She has refugee status and all the legal documentation that goes along with it, but she has found life in Italy to be incredibly difficult, and would really love to be able to start over in France. She left the refugee camps because of the horrible way the refugees were treated. In her own words she says, "They treated us like animals!" Please, let us ask God for a miracle for her. She needs to find work, a place to stay, an affordable way to get back in contact with her family in Nigeria, and a supportive Christian community to help her on her walk with God.

I have offended her, I think, by always offering to get her something to eat or trying to give her things. She seems to me to be a person for whom independence is important, and she struggles a lot with adjusting to living on the streets. In Libya, she says, life was good. If things continue like this for much longer increased consumption of alcohol may inhibit her from moving forward.

I believe that miracles happen around us each and every day, even in our own lives, and so often we don't even realize or thank God for them. So I thank God in advance that Nancy will be taken care of, that alcohol won't become a problem, and that God will bring her where she needs to be in the way and time she needs to get there. Amen.

Vanity, thy name is Italian male

It is said that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps, perhaps not. I do know that my return to Italy allowed me to better know this population God has given me a heart for. As the title suggests, I had a rather shocking discovery: women, after all, are not the vainest creatures on the planet. No, that covetous standing in society is reserved for the Italian male.

Now I make this observation with the utmost fondness. I myself have my fair share of vanities, and while I adore my waistline and rear end I equally loathe each day I have to face the fact that my acne didn't miraculously disappear after my teen years.

I have to be fair here. I mean, what person doesn't take a quick peek when they pass a mirror? Everyone stops to adjust their gelled and carefully coiffed hair every time they pass any reflective surface, be that a shop window, an ipad screen, a mirror, or the spoon they've lifted up from the table in front of them. And let's not forget the vainglorious profile picture with the simpering half pout and sultry bedroom eyes. Ah. Perhaps we should.

Now the grooming practices of the well-kept Italian male extend beyond head hair. Let me clarify. I was surprised to find out that certain younger male members of society here pluck their eyebrows, and they're straight (Sorry Bryn Mawr, but gender stereotypes are not so easily escaped, it seems. ). I never expected straight males to pluck their eyebrows, and I honestly thought that for two of my friends, their eyebrows just grew that way. Needless to say, the disdain with which they glanced upon my bush brows had me running to my tweezers in record time. It also had me diligently checking on any new beard growth that needed plucking. 

When one of my male students told me he waxed his legs it didn't exactly send me running to the esthetician, but perhaps that's because it's easier to hide hairy legs than it is to hide bush brows. So you see, the shadow theory (or whatever it's called) is reconfirmed. You really dislike or notice most in others what you dislike or notice a lot in yourself. However, having moved past any guilt in my self grooming and beautification practices it makes it much easier to accept Italian men for theirs.

I must admit that allowances should be made for cultural differences. I mean, one of my friends, his girlfriend does his brows for him. And really, Italian men as a lot are generally stylish and easy on the eyes, so I don't particularly care if they pluck their eyebrows and wax their legs to achieve the desired effect on the lady folk. (And trust me, the effect is desire(d)...) I mean, while in Poland our boys stood out for the clear anointing of God upon them, and their clearly superior style. Clearly no one was complaining, perfectly arched brows and all ;).