Too big to cry

May 23, 2015

You would think that two previous appointments to overseas countries as a Columban missionary priest would have toughened me up for the struggles that lay ahead when I arrived in Florence, Italy, to attend language school. The feelings of loneliness and frustration that confronted me on arrival were as raw the third time around.

Too big to cry

It all began at age 28, when I started Japanese language school in Tokyo as a Columban priest. Then at age 41, it was the Fijian language programme in Suva. And at age 52, now I was on my way to the first day of Italian studies in Florence, Italy. I had been assigned as the Superior of the Columban residence in Rome and Italian was a must.

I had scouted the classroom at the Istituto Michelangelo and saw the need to arrive early on the first day. Some seats would be too near the radiator, others in front of a drafty window. Some chairs, quite frankly, looked pretty uncomfortable. I certainly did not want to be late the first day and have the last pick.

Fr Charles Duster The city bus, that first morning, was jammed beyond belief with school kids and adults on their way to work. In Italy you board the bus from the front or the rear doors and exit through the middle doors. I was wedged into a corner and was somewhat unclear about which was the closest stop to alight. When I saw the famous Cathedral (or Duomo) disappearing in the far distance through the back window, I knew I was in big trouble because the school was close to it. It took me another two stops to eventually squeeze myself out of the central exit. At this point, I was not too sure of the way back because the bus had made several turns into the narrow streets. I did not want to be late and started to run, but quickly realized that this was not in the best interest of someone who had a cardiac bypass. I really wanted to cry in frustration, but figured that at age 52 I was too big to cry.

I ended up with the last vacant seat in the classroom, right up near the radiator, and it was pretty uncomfortable.

The next crisis occurred three mornings later. I was staying with an Italian couple. The husband ran his plumbing business from the back of his motor scooter. Whilst shaving, I cut my finger rather deeply on the edge of the door of the cabinet. It was bleeding! My plumber host went to his bag of tools, and produced a wad of not very sanitary looking steel wool which he wrapped around the cut. Since I didn’t understand one word of what he was saying, I could only assume that he was telling me this is how he handled such situations.

At the morning coffee break, at school, my cut finger began to throb and was turning a strange shade of black. The teacher told me (in English) to head over to the hospital (which was about four blocks away). My Italian at this point consisted of, "This is a desk. This is a book. Where is the toilet?"

When I arrived at the emergency room no one seemed to speak a word of English. The doctor took a look at my finger and exploded in a tirade of Italian. There was one word he kept repeating, as he extracted with tweezers the individual strands of the steel wool from the cut: “Mai, Mai, Mai". He must have repeated it a dozen times. I gathered that the word “Mai” means “Never". I assumed the rest of the sentence meant “Never do such a stupid thing like this again". This is a bit of medical advice I have had no trouble in following since, and I never will forget the word for “never".

Columban Fr Charles Duster lives and works in St Columbans, Nebraska, United States.