Italy: the good and the bad

I have been living in Italy for a little while and getting a lay of the land, I feel like I did a pretty good job and perceiving some of the road bumps in my study, but I am still facing a lot that I did not expect. Meeting people seems like a pretty difficult thing to do, unfortunately. I have met a lot of young adults through church activities, but they live all around Rome and the surrounding areas, so even if I did want to spend time with them and learn more about it, that is a very difficult thing to do. I really need to meet some young adults in this town. I was hoping that my host family would know a lot of people and be able to connect me to some friends, given that there were to young adults living in this house (only one other now) that are 24 and 26. Unfortunatly, they haven't lived here long, and don't know a lot of their surrounding neighbors. No one in the home I am staying in works in the town of Bracciano, so they don't have those connections either.

I was introduced, however, to a girl named Morgana, who lives in Bracciano, by my host mom, Mara. I was telling Mara about what I was trying to do with my study, and she was racking her brain trying to think of someone. Then she mentioned that she knew a girl named, Morgana. We were in the car when she was telling me this, and who would you guess we see walking just a few minutes later? Morgana! So she pulled over, I got out of the car, and she started to drive away. I realized it was only to park, but that still left me alone with a girl, and who seemed like her boyfriend, that I didn't know. They both spoke a little bit of English, and with my Italian we were able to introduce ourselves. She was really nice, and so was her boyfriend. She told me to get her number from my host brother and give her a call so that we could do something. Thank goodness! I really need to call her, not only for my study, but just for my sanity--I need a friend, one that I can go chat with for 30 minutes when I need a break, ya know?

I guess that is my biggest challenge so far here, just feeling alone. Not that I am always alone--which I guess I am at this point. I've realized though that, at least for me, it is easier to be alone, than to feel alone when you are with a big group of people. The language barrier is really getting to me. I can get my point across in some situations, but not all. And even though there are people here that speak English, I really want to be able to communicate with the people who don't and understand them. Basically none of the girls here speak English, so if I want to be friends with them, I need to really work on my Italian. There's a couple things that are really hard about it, 1) That I went from being one of the smartest people in all of my classes, to feeling like one of the least intelligent people here, just because I can't articulate or express what I want to. 2) Because I don't feel like I have a voice here, I guess it's kind of like what I've heard from other people, you kind of lose your personality a bit here with the language barriers. It was really embarrassing for me when my host mom, Mara, started explaining to everyone at church, what I was doing here--that I was in Italy to study people. Everyone kind of seemed put off by it--that it was weird. I wanted so badly to just express myself, because mainly, right now, I just want to make friends. It's hard now, my host Mom thinks that I am really quiet, mainly because I don't know how to express myself-especially to here (she speaks so quickly) , so I guess I just don't. That's definitely something I need to work on. Mistakes are the best teachers, that's what I hear! If only it was as easy to do.

YSA Group Last Saturday