By Sarah Bommer, Editor.
A stranger in Italy offered my sister, Jenn, and me a ride and we took it. Of course this was not our first choice of transportation, but it did end up being our best option. We had a 2am Mega Bus booked to Rome, so rather than pay for a hotel room for the night we decided to stay out all night and sleep on the bus. Being out at 2am in Europe is not considered late the way it is in the United States, so it seemed like a cheap and safe option.
After more searching than initially planned, we found the only restaurant open past 12pm on a Thursday night; an English pub, which we made our home for the evening. The pub was dead, our waiter was an older man and it was obvious his English was limited to the dishes on the menu. However, we still needed help finding the location of our bus stop and he was our only hope. Jenn asked him calmly, in her best Italian, how to get to our bus stop. He stared back at her puzzled. She repeated it again in English. Still puzzled, he gestured for us to wait a moment and walked away.
He returned with a younger man, who we later learned was his son, and gestured at us to repeat ourselves. We explained our situation to the son and pointed to the general location of our bus stop on the map. The son looked carefully at the map and said, “not safe place.”
“Grazie,” Jenn and I uttered in unison.
I shot a panicked look at Jenn, but she assured me we would just call a cab when it was time to leave.
The son hung around our table and we explained to him in a mix of Italian and English that we were trying to kill time before our bus. He then brought us the game Jenga and some Italian food books and told us to stay. We spent the next couple hours eating food, playing Jenga, and exchanging broken English and Italian with the son. We learned that son was stationed in England briefly and that’s where his dream of opening an English pub originated.
It was obvious the father was eager to join in on our conversations too, but he couldn’t do so verbally. Sometimes he would have his son translate his Italian into broken English for us; however, there’s only so much to talk about with such limited vocabulary. Eventually the conversation wore thin, but the father quickly spiced it up. He left us briefly and then returned with a literal spice collection. He opened each of the spice bottles slowly and invited us, with a wave of his hand, to smell them. Then he would wait for our reaction and tell us their names in Italian. This was perhaps the most bizarre form of communication I have ever encountered, but it was entertaining to say the least.
When the night grew late we asked if they had a number for cab to call. The son explained a cab might not come so late on a Thursday. The father and son preceded to exchange words beyond our comprehension. Then, to our surprise, the son offered to drive us to the bus stop.
I shot another panicked look at Jenn. We went to the bathroom to consult and it became clear to me that there really was not a better option. We returned to our table, took a leap of faith, accepted the ride, and arrived to our bus stop safely.
When Jenn and I first set out on this crazy backpacking adventure across Europe I was under the impression that English would get us anywhere we needed to go. I had grown accustom to being greeted and responded to in English everywhere we went because my American accent is obvious and many people in Europe speak English as a second language. The literacy barrier did not become apparent until that night in the English pub. However, through broken English/Italian, hand gestures, and spices we were able to connect with these strangers and build a genuine sense of trust based on their hospitality. Encountering this literacy barrier has taught me to seek out alternate means of communication in order to form new connections with people who might otherwise remain strangers.
THE SOJOURNAL 