Gentiles in Rome

 

We’ve been in Italy for over a month and a half and we got our second piece of mail yesterday. It reminded me that Utah’s first non-Mormon governor, Simon Bamberger, was Jewish; and it was the only state in the Union where a Jew was also a gentile. That came to mind because the solitary piece of junk mail we got was addressed to “Gentile Famiglia living at…” While that would usually be translated as “kind family,” gentile is also a synonym for Gentile. I imagine that if a Jew in Utah qualifies as a gentile, Robyn and I qualify as a Gentile family in Rome.

Robyn’s on her own today at the nail salon. I went with her a couple of weeks ago to translate her requests. Today, she wanted to handle it on her own.  We worked on a few words before she left and I’m confident she’ll do fine. Better, in fact, than I’ve done in some unfamiliar circumstances. [Post Script on Robyn's ability to handle it on her own: I noted that she worked on a few words before leaving. I helped her put together a couple of sentences on a piece of paper that she could practice while she walked over to the salon. Her pronunciation is quite good and I had great confidence in her as she boldly walked out the door.  She said that when she arrived at the salon, she firmly handed them the note I had written with the two sentences on it. They read the note and everything went swimmingly.]  

We ended up buying a kitchen scale at the grocery store because my hearing isn’t what it used to be—especially through these dang surgical masks everyone’s required to wear.

At the checkout stand, the cashier always asks if you want a grocery bag. They’re required to charge for them—they’re about 40 cents apiece, so most people bring large tote bags to avoid the couple of bucks it would cost to have your groceries bagged in plastic.  The cashiers also have sale items that they suggest you buy while they’re ringing up your purchase. Well, I thought she asked me if I wanted a borsalino (grocery bag), and I said, “yes, two please.” It then occurred to me that she said, bilancio not borsalino. My mind started running through what the heck a “balance” was and what I’d do with one. I looked up to see she’d charged me for two kitchen scales and slid them over to my groceries. “Oh, those balances.”  I said, “No, I don’t want them.” She took one back and I couldn’t figure out how to say quickly enough, “No I don’t even want one, thank you,” and out of my mouth came, “va bene,”  which in that instance meant, “Oh, what the heck I’ll take one.” A few days later, I found we needed one anyway because Italian recipes call for ingredients by weight rather than volume. That instance helped me pay more attention to what the cashier says and I’ve avoided all kinds of unnecessary purchases since then.