Signora Sheila

One by one they filed in and sat around the smoky fire in the dark, dingy room. The whole village, it seemed, wanted a look at the Americans. While I, in turn, studied them through teary, smoke-filled eyes. Our new townspeople, for this little village was our new home.

A village from another era

Life in that isolated village seemed to be from another era. Shut in, not only by the surrounding mountains, but by time that seemed to stand still. Everything from the wrinkled grannies to thick-walled ancient houses, spoke of the past. 

Quaint and picturesque

A long, winding cobblestone staircase climbed the mountainside to the ancestral home, quaint and picturesque in every way. 

A poetic way, I’ve read, to say crude and primitive.

Electricity often failed. Water was lacking most of the day. The houses were dark, gloomy, and grimy, heated only by flickering fires.

Quaint and picturesque? Perhaps crude and primitive would have been more appropriate adjectives.

“This was 20th century Europe? 1989? Maybe we had gotten on the wrong plane!” Like snapshots from an old album, they returned from country gardens. Kerchief-covered women, bundles of kindling wood balanced on their heads.

Their husbands, stooped with age and labor, led equally old, produce-ladened donkeys. Heading home after working the land. Which was, as it always had been, their life and sustenance.

A medieval life, flowing with the rhythm of the seasons and the weather, belied only by modern electric wires and the few passing cars. Little educated, they lived much as their grandparents had before them. Locked away in the past, and the memory of time.

Yet somehow, we were strangely one with these enchanting, colorful folk.

Many of them remembered the mischievous little boy who had emigrated to America long ago. And so, like aunties and uncles, they came to call and welcome home one of their own.

Charming and colorful

Charming and colorful, or critical and bound by tradition? We used too much water, they said. (Nobody needs to bathe every day!) I did too much laundry. (Why did we change so often?) And I did laundry on the wrong day. (Laundry day was only on Tuesday!)

These was a Latin culture? Hospitable, happy, and generous? OK, no doubt about it, I thought. We had taken the wrong plane! And I just wanted to go home!

The unexpected

Life is filled with the unexpected. Things we’re not prepared for and don’t know how to handle. But nothing surprises the Lord! And He helped us adapt to all those unexpected ‘quaint and charming’ surprises.

He taught us how to make this nation home. How to love the people. And how to reach their searching hearts with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

We learned to accept, and even be thankful for all the quaintness. And little by little, we fell in love with this picturesque country and its colorful people.

It’s home in every sense of the word! And I’m glad we didn’t catch the wrong plane!

📷 Images are mine