'Upon meeting Francesco' by Carmen

I'm sitting here in the kitchen, with my little microscopic cup of coffee at my side and thinking over this evening's encounter with Francesco. Esther, Beti, and I decided that if we wanted to be warm and cozy at our house tonight we had better walk to the other side of Bisegna to keep our fire burning which was started around noon and which probably burned out a long time ago. Still it was worth a try. Yes, I wrote "was" because we never quite made it all that way. Francesco is one of the old men here in town who wander about all day doing not a whole of anything, or so it seems to us outsiders. They stroll about slowly, greet each other and pass the time of day catching up on the most recent events or reminiscing as the culture is. It's no wonder that they all know each other so well. In the evenings they meet at the local bar to socialize in the evenings. Who can blame them, they are old, they worked the ground here in these mountains all their lives, and are now retired.

We were rushing quickly across town when we saw him afar off smoking his cigarette like he always does. We have yet to see him without one. He stopped us as we were passing by and started to converse with us in Italian. We tried and tried and tried to explain with hand motions and facial expressions that we could not speak or understand the language, but this did not deter him one bit! He continued to try to explain the same thing for a very long time. I was glad when his cigarette finally burned out and that he didn't light another one. The smoke was more than we could take. Among all the things that we did not understand we picked up that Rodica has earned herself the accolades here of "bellisima" and "bravissima", the "excellent and beautiful" one for all her hard and good work taking care of Assunta, the elderly lady in her care. The thing that amused me the most was his frustrated expressions, it almost looked like he wanted to cry at times, then at other times it looked like he was mad, but a raspy chuckle relieved my fear. I couldn't predict where the conversation was going and that was the most helpless feeling for someone who loves to meet and greet people. He couldn't comprehend how we couldn't understand what he saying, and we couldn't comprehend how he didn't get that we couldn't. It was all very amusing. Then he started to walk with us and we weren't sure quite how far that was going to go so we stopped, he talked some more, and then we turned around and came back, but not after he raised his hands in exasperation and bid us Ciao! Ciao! Ciao! with a toothless smile. In the middle of our awkward dialogue, however, he was glad that I understood something he was saying and planted a big, smokey kiss on my cheek.

On coming back, we all rushed into the kitchen to tell Rodica about our little meeting. She was amused and said that he actually had very accomplished and well-off children who had made quite a good life for themselves in Rome. Who would've thought such of a seemingly lonely old man who was always smoking, and who's skin looked like it's seen the sun every time it shone. The raspy, thick voice, dark brown leathery skin with deep furrows which time and hard work ingrained therein, a beer belly, shortness of height, and all white hair made up his person. His wife, we were informed is still young at heart, she still wears flowers in her hair. It was a very intriguing experience.

It is a warm and generous culture here, a breath of fresh air and great learning experience to us coming from a techno-consumed culture where the majority of our interactions come via chats, texts, photos, etc. We tend to get so narrow-minded so much of time and this is a valuable experience.