Britt and I are currently in our midterm week! We sure have come a long way. I have gotten so excited about writing up summaries from our amazing weekend trips that I haven't made time to share our plethora of patient stories! So, that is what I will attempt to do today.
Right now, Britt and I are at a coffee shop/bar in the neighboring town of Campo Tizzoro. They have Internet here so we have been able to work on some of our assignments for school. (See, I told you we were working and not just having fun!) We drove our Smart car down here to take advantage of the free Wifi for a few hours while enjoying a few cappuccinos :) We rented the car on Sunday from the Pisa airport when I got back from Paris (post about that exciting weekend next!). While we have really been enjoying navigating the bus and train schedules *cough*, we wanted to take advantage of visiting some of the smaller Tuscan towns that are close by and going by car is the best option.
Anyway, yay for exciting patient stories! Ah, where to begin. I guess I can start with today! Britt has been working with a particularly difficult man who seems to have an unending supply of comments, good and bad. If you will recall a previous post, this is the same man who said "Mi Questa bamba", which means "This is my baby" after Britt had worked hard with him. In the days to follow, he has called me the black devil ???, said the exercises were stupid, and tried to kiss me on the head. Today he said a phrase in Italian to Britt, and when we asked another therapist what he was saying, he said it meant "I kill you". This guy!! He will be hitting on Britt and me one minute and then saying stuff like that the next. Several times he will say a lot to us and when we ask someone to interpret they say "No sense, no sense and no sense"! So we don't really pay attention to what he says unless when know it has to do specifically with PT. Also today, we were in the assisted living facility taking patients for quick strolls around the halls to get them up and moving. One woman we were walking with kept going on and on about something in Italian and looking to us for a response. (If they don't look at us, most of the time we just let them talk). Since she was looking at me so eagerly, I had to respond, "Non capisco Italiano. Americano, solo Inglese. Mi dispiace." Well, for whatever reason she did not like my response and got really upset and started talking furiously at us. We asked a therapist to translate and he said she was telling us that if we are in Italy we should speak Italian and if we only speak English, we need to go back to America. Woah! That's the first time we have gotten a response like that from anyone! In my defense, I was speaking Italian to her, I just didn't understand what she was saying to me.
We had to say goodbye to two of our favorite patients today. Our little English lady who has helped us get through the difficult days, and we have helped her get through her rough days, and the man who bought us coffee and told us he would be our Dad while he was here. We searched for them both today after worked and said goodbye :( There may have been tears in all of our eyes. But we are very happy for them to be able to return home with their families.
Since we are living one floor above the therapy room, we are constantly seeing our patients and others with whom we haven't worked with, but have come to know just through proximity. One night we went downstairs to the main room and had ice cream with two of our patients, another night we watched a soccer game with two other patients and then one of them, who is younger and speaks some English, bought a pizza and we shared it a 10pm that night when all of the older patients had
gone to bed.
Never a dull moment! By the way, this area is definitely living up to the name of my blog. The sunsets have been gorgeous almost every night. I've been taking lots of pictures! One day I promise you will see them, too.
We have made several friends from our meal crew, whom we see around the facility as we are walking around. One day we were walking outside past a corridor that connects two buildings where a lot of the residents hang out and have coffee. One man, who is probably our favorite from the dining hall, opened a window and shouted out "Buongiorno!" at us as we walked by. He had the biggest toothless smile on his face. Haha, we had a hearty laugh about that encounter.
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