Their First Look at the Americans

One by one they filed in, sitting around the smoky fire in the dark, dingy room. The entire village, it seemed, wanted a look at us — the Americans. While I in turn, through teary, smoke-filled eyes, examined them. Our new town folk, for this was our new home.

A village from another era

Life in that isolated village seemed of another era. Shut in, not only by the surrounding mountains, but by time, which seemed to stand still. Everything, from wrinkled grannies to the thick-walled ancient homes, 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 poetical way, I’ve read, to describe crude and primitive.) Electricity often failed. The water supply was cut off for most of the day. Dim, gloomy, grimy homes were heated by nothing but flickering fires. Quaint and picturesque indeed!

“This was 1989, in 20th century Europe? Perhaps we’d caught the wrong plane!” Like snapshots from an ancient photo album, they returned from their country gardens. Kerchief-covered women, with bundles of kindling wood balanced on their heads.

Their husbands, stooped from age as well as labor, leading equally ancient, produce-laden donkeys. Going home from working their land. The land which was, as it always had been, their life and sustenance.

It seemed a Medieval life, flowing with the rhythm of the seasons and the changing weather, belied only by the sight of electric wires and a few passing cars. Sparsely educated, these elderly folk lived much as their grandparents before them had. Locked away in the past, and the memory of time.

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

Many of whom remembered the mischievous little boy who had migrated to America so long ago. Like aunties and uncles they came to call, welcoming back home one of their own.

Enchanting and colorful

People from the Mediterrean cultures are often described as enchanting and colorful. Colorful: another way of saying interesting, eccentric, or unconventional. Their unusual, sometimes amusing, definitely were undoubtedly colorful — in more ways than one!

I couldn’t help but think, though, that critical and tradition-bound would have been better adjectives. We used too much water. (No one 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 was to washed only on Tuesdays!)

These were gregarious, easy-going Italians? Hospitable, cheerful, and generous? OK, no doubt about it — I decided — we’d taken the wrong plane! And I just wanted to go home!

The unexpected

Life is full of the unexpected. Stuff we’re not ready for, and don’t know how to handle. But nothing takes the Lord by surprise! And he helped us adapt to all the unexpected ‘quaint’ surprises.

He enabled us to stay, make this nation home, and reach out to the searching hearts all around us with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

We learned to accept, and even be grateful for all the quaintness. And little by little, we fell in love with this picturesque land and it’s colorful people.

It’s home! And I’m glad we didn’t catch the wrong plane!

Images are mine.