By Roland LeBlanc, professor Russian and humanities
December 13, 2006

During our field trip to Sicily in mid-September, not long after the academic portion of the UNH-in-Italy study abroad program had started, Lynda and I were sitting around the table at a small, family-run 'trattoria' in the historic center of Palermo with some of our students, waiting for our orders of antipasto, pasta and risotto to arrive. To help pass the time, the students were going around the table, asking each other in turn what it was that they missed the most from back home. The answers ranged from peanut butter, cars, and reruns of “Friends” on television to the bar at Libby’s, late-night conversations with roommates in the dorm, and student life on the Durham campus in general.

In an effort to quell the rising tide of nostalgia that I feared was threatening to engulf these homesick students, some of whom had never before left their homes, their families, and their friends for an extended period of time to travel abroad, I suggested that we go around the table once more, but this time we should tell each other what it was that we liked best – and that surprised us the most – about Italy, Italians, and the Italian way of life. Despite the fact that some of them were greatly missing things that were familiarly American, all of the students had only highly positive comments to make about what they had observed and were experiencing thus far in 'la bella Italia': the friendliness of the people, the beauty of the art and architecture, the flavorful taste of the food, the elegance of the fashions, the slower pace of life, the wisdom of the early afternoon pisolino (the Italian version of siesta), etc.

Now that our semester-long stay here in Ascoli Piceno is rapidly coming to an end, I wonder how our students would respond to those same two questions today. I certainly hope that they are now thinking mainly about how much they will soon be missing Italy when they return home to America. One of the things that language teachers and study abroad advisors wish for when their students go to a foreign country to live and study for a while is that they will open themselves up – not just linguistically and culturally, but also emotionally and psychologically – to the new culture that will surround them abroad.

What we fear, of course, is that young American students, in an effort to find some emotional comfort when they are placed in an unfamiliar and alien setting that perhaps intimidates them a bit, will surround themselves with a protective cocoon of familiar items from back home.

Students who bypass cultural assimilation and integration by weaving a protective American web around themselves may well manage to enjoy themselves while studying abroad and may actually have quite a good time. But soon after they return home they invariably realize that they have wasted a golden opportunity to learn some valuable things about themselves and about another culture, as well as a unique chance to grow as a person.

Students, in any event, tend to react, adapt, and adjust very differently to the exigencies of the study abroad experience. But the provincial town of Ascoli Piceno certainly provides an optimal setting for those who truly wish to get a taste of authentic native life and culture while they are living here in Italy. Lynda and I have had the advantage of living downstairs in the house of Marcello and Rita Bonfini while we have been here the past few months. Marcello, a post office employee, speaks no English at all, while Rita, who works as the secretary to the president of the provincial tourism office, speaks a little English. Their son Luca speaks English quite fluently, but he is away at school in Ancona during the week.

Despite the obvious language barriers and communicative difficulties that have existed, we have managed nonetheless to discuss gardening, to describe our weekend travel excursions, and to negotiate brief daily exchanges with our Italian neighbors upstairs. We have also gone to a local county fair, shared roasted chestnuts and home-made baked wine at their kitchen table, and even attended a public seminar on Russian language and culture with one or both of them. Although we clearly have not been able to communicate as glibly or as effectively with them as we might have liked, I am convinced that we have learned quite a lot during our stay here – as a result of our regular interactions with them – about how a typical Italian family functions, what customs it observes, and what values it cherishes.

If we had to choose one Ascoli event that is likely to remain emblazoned in our memory for many years to come (as a truly Italian experience), it would have to be the weekend when Lynda and I attended “Tenera Ascoli” (“tenera” refers to the “tender” quality of the olives grown in the province of Ascoli).

This annual event, sponsored by the local chapter of the Slow Food movement, is designed to celebrate the local agricultural products – such as olives and wine – that help to give this region its distinctive culinary identity. An opening forum on "Oliva tenera ascolana: identità e territorio" was followed by a tour of the nearby Meletti distillery, small wine-tasting and olive-tasting workshops, a screening of several short international films on Slow Food (including the Sierra Club’s “The True Cost of Food”), and finally an afternoon-long “moveable feast” (colazione itinerante), where nearly 300 participants, wine glasses in tow, traveled from one architectural landmark in town to another, tasting successive courses – from antipasto, timballo (a pasta dish), and fritto misto (a selection of breaded entrees) to dolci (dessert), caffè, and anisetta (a liqueur) – consisting of some of the local food and drink that Ascoli cuisine is renowned for.

There are many visual images that we will carry away with us from Ascoli. These include not just the obvious architectural ones (bridges, churches, piazzas, palazzos, towers, etc.), but also the endearing human ones – a group of elderly men gesticulating with their hands, and laughing heartily as they chat together on Piazza del Popolo, a young mother holding her daughter’s hand and singing a folk song with her as they walk together to school down a narrow passageway, a fashionably dressed grandfather (sweater wrapped around his shoulders and smart-looking cap on his head) riding a bicycle with his young grandson sitting in the front basket over the handlebars, an elderly lady walking her dog down a deserted street before sunrise.

One image that is likely to linger for a long time in my memory is that of the portly gentleman who ran the olive-tasting workshop during “Tenera Ascoli.” He assured us that if we placed the olive firmly against the base of our lower front teeth and let it sit there a while, the flavor would soon run along nerves in our mouth up to our ears and, if we concentrated carefully enough, we would actually be able to “hear” the taste of these famous olive tenere ascolane. Maybe I was just a little bit too caught up in the whole Italian experience at the time, but I believe that I actually did hear the taste of a tender Ascoli olive that day. Arrivederci a tutti!