Caos, confusione, bordello, casino

The above words all refer to a very Italian range of situations.  The rough translation is chaos, but that doesn't quite capture it.  It is not a very complex linguistic theory that a language has words that correspond to aspects of its culture, so in this case Italian has at least four words to refer to something that English can't properly capture.  The words can refer to general disorganisation of a person or group, or to a big traffic jam, or to an argument, or other things.  Well, literally 'bordello' and 'casino' actually mean 'brothel', so literally speaking they're going round saying 'what brothel!'.  Looking at the colloquial use, though, there seems to be a kind of essence in all of these situations that is so quintessentially Italian, at least to my foreign and stereotypical eyes.

People seem to take some pleasure in it, and I must admit that I'm thinking and writing about it with some fondness: much as I don't particularly think it's the way to live your life it is kind of endearing when it's a feature of your host culture.  A good example was when I was in the car in Catania.  My friend was driving, and despite moaning about 'what bordello, what confusione', he sounded his horn at every, and i mean every opportunity.  When I asked why, he said 'because we're in Catania'.  He explained that in theory you're not meant to sound your horn in the centre, but in practice people often actually break their horns from overuse.

Another example was my students talking excitedly about a school trip, again to Catania, that we went on this Tuesday.  They were trying to say that they're going to go and 'make confusione… Laura how do we say that in English?'.  They meant they were going to hang out and mess about and be silly… maybe I'm not that articulate, or maybe I'm right that it's difficult to quite capture.  They were right though - we went to the theatre, and I've never known such a participative audience.  It was only 'Waiting for Godot', hardly a lively and participative play, but they were shouting out and clapping along absolutely whenever they could.

For a Brit, every sense of these words is counter-intuitive, but although I do on occasion want them to shush (in lessons would be nice), it is quite fun.

The Sweetest Students

I shouldn’t have favourite classes, but there are definitely ones that I look forward to.  5A on a Tuesday morning is very firmly in that category, they are a bright, conscientious and enthusiastic class who I love teaching.  Today I was around 3 minutes late to their lesson because I’d been disorganised photocopying worksheets, and the other teacher had gone ahead of me to the classroom.  In her presence and my absence the students had got antsy, and when I came in they actually cheered a bit, and laughed and smiled.  It was one of the nicest welcomes into a room I’ve had in my life.

I have a bit of a sniffly cold at the moment and my voice was cracking a little through the lesson and I was feeling a bit grotty and sorry for myself, so I asked them to not make me raise my voice, and they were absolutely wonderful to me.  I just stood at the front and looked at them when I wanted them to stop their activity, and they shushed each other and listened to me.

Though this is a particularly extreme example, I realise more than ever that I am incredibly lucky to have polite and kind students.  It’s a two-way process of course, and they would have none of this respect for me if I didn’t think they were fairly wonderful in return, but I came out of that lesson feeling like I’ve been landed, through no merit of my own, into the best school ever.