Peter van der Needle
Despite inventions such as car navigation, it is possible to get nowhere. Getting lost is a big word. Not knowing the way for a while and having to drive back halfway up a mountain is always possible, isn't it?
Navis will always get you where you need to be. But if people close the street for a few days along the way because of a renovation of a house, then it becomes a problem. Narrow streets in (mountain) villages are not suitable for every car. And the market we want to go to is just on the other side of town and this street really seems to be the only one through which we can get there. But just now this is – since when has it been the case again? – temporarily a one-way street.
Asking directions in an Italian village. As we have been forced to do. Listen and shiver.
Helpful squared
Italians are helpful. Squared. If you ask a passerby on the street where you can park and where that one shop is, you get a monologue that you can turn into a play. A one-act play, of course. Because whether you can understand them or not, of course you can't intervene. They explain it 'just' exactly. Because the brother-in-law of their wife's brother (so let's say the brother-in-law of their own brother-in-law) lives right next to that one shop.
So it happened to us that we lost our way in the middle of a village. We stopped with a group of people in front of a small cafe. Yes, in this case a cafe on the harbour. So it could just have been played in Olanda. Only not when it comes to the way in which the way was explained to us.
The scooter boy
The first didn't understand our well-meaning Italian and didn't speak English either. But don't worry, there were plenty inside who spoke English! The rest of the cafe-goers came out and spontaneously switched to Italian. We nodded vigorously together, had to get out of the car and see where it was pointed.
When it became clear that we had not understood, there were shouts here and there and yes, one took the phone and started chatting violently into the device. Within five minutes the remaining coffee drinkers from the cafe had gathered on the sidewalk, a scooter and a car pulled up.
The scooter boy turned out to be the one who had been called and explained extensively in English why we should not do what the others said. The street we were supposed to have had meanwhile been blocked by a large truck with construction material and there was a large pile of sand. The words capito and capire were the only words we caught and understood. That is to say: we understood that we had not understood anything.
Behind us, a car window went down and a darling daughter asked, 'Are you still following it, Dad? Or will we soon be somewhere at the end of the road on the mountain?'
Follow me
Not going into anything and just pretending we all understood seemed best. The men on the sidewalk bustled about the best exit at the end of the village. The lady in the car had a quick look and tore away from the cafe and the scooter boy came to the rescue.
"You follow me?" was what we suddenly understood perfectly. The lady who had called him gave him a big kiss on the cheek and we thanked just about the entire cafe.
over the mountain
Scooterboy drove at least ten kilometers for us. At the risk of his own life. Constantly winding the scooter, he looked back to make sure we were following. Up the mountain, a bit down the mountain again and then we passed a crossroads behind the village.
He stopt. Show us the way, said goodbye as if we were old friends with an embrace and tore down the mountain on his Vespaa. And we ended up on the right track.
Comments