In small Italian towns, anything can happen! Sometimes it doesn’t even matter if it’s true, as long as it makes for good gossip! Take the time they had my husband all but dead and buried for example! Or at best seriously ill.
We were away most of the summer, as we often are, staying at our summer home and visiting churches.
Our daughter and family were still living here at the time, and had gone out with some friends visiting from the north. They planned to have a slice of pizza and take a quiet stroll through the village in the cool of the evening.
Until one of the visitors had chest pains. What to do? Go to the guardia medica, of course!
Now, for those unfamiliar with it, the Guardia Medica (emergency care) in many small Italian towns is not actually a clinic. It’s more like an examination table crammed into an already crowded room, but with little medical equipment or medicine.
However, you will find a doctor. In our experience, the doctor usually prefers to send patients to the hospital emergency room. This time, though, the doctor decided that an ambulance was needed!
Village excitement
It doesn’t take much to create excitement in our village. Sirens! An ambulance! Doors flung open and people rushed out to see what was happening. Little old ladies leaned dangerously out of windows to look down the street. No matter if they risked serious injury as long as they got the latest news!
No one seemed to notice our friend lying on the stretcher. A few people must have noticed that it was a man, though. They did, however, see our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren gathered around the ambulance. And there was no sign of us!
So, they put two and two together. It made perfect sense, after all.
Rumors ran rampant
They decided that my husband had been taken to the hospital! As I said before, we were away for most of the summer, which only added fuel to the fire! He must have had a heart attack and was still in the hospital! All summer long people would ask our daughter, “How’s your dad? Tell him ciao for me.” No matter how hard she tried, she could not convince them that Papà was okay. The village gossip was stronger.
Even long after summer ended we could hardly walk down the street without being greeted by well-wishers. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better! You were in the hospital for so long.”
Or, if I ventured out alone… “How is your husband, Signora? I was so sorry to hear that he was sick.” I kept assuring them that my husband was fine, and had never been sick at all! But they just looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
What did I know anyway? They were the ones who knew! They had heard the village gossip!
📷 Image credits: man in window.
8 replies on “Village Gossip and Culture Shock”
It’s the tantalizing scent of something or someone that is greater than the normalcy of our day–news like that runs amok like wildfire. I’m glad you can appreciate that your hubby wasn’t sick even though everyone else believed him to be horribly bad off. But it seems sweet that people care enough to be kind and to remember what they thought was true. What a mess gossip is! Truth and humor here, my friend.
Yes, it was sweet of them. They did the same thing after my nasty fall down the stairs too. Our little town is like a big family. Which, more of the time is wonderful. But frustrating too at times!! 😂
The tension of too little or too much. I love that they show love to you by their presence, though. Maybe because it feels so few and far between here in the states. But I also get the frustration!
ha ha. Sounds like you have to go with the flow!
So true Bernice! And in some of the more isolated villages even regarding other things like phone and internet service. We’re home again and finally have internet! Sorry to take so long in answering all your comments.
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Your story proves: “Trying to dispel a rumor is like trying to unspread butter”–Unknown. I wonder why that is?!
That’s a good one Nancy! Never heard it before. I don’t know why that is, but obviously some people really believe that fiction is greater than truth!