Outcast

The other typing teachers at the American Business School on Via XX Settembre - Joe, Daniela, Louise, and Christina - are all highly fluent in English, some native speakers even. I am so happy to have found this linguistic sanctuary for myself.

On our half-hour lunch break, we gather around a table in the classroom where Mrs. Latini teaches shorthand. I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone, as I open my bag lunch and pull out my yogurt and plastic spoon.

Italian swiftly dominates the conversation, though, with just a few shreds of English. I experience that familiar left-out feeling. Even here I'm the foreigner - an Italian straniera rather than a Persian gharibeh.

With the isolation of being “there but not there,” I respectfully excuse myself, doing my cheerful best to mask my injured feelings.

With her honey-brown eyes full of concern, Daniela asks, “Where are you going?”

Hesitantly, I put it out there: “Well you guys speak Italian, and I don’t understand well enough, so I’m just going to read my book.”

“Come back, come back,” Daniela says. “We’ll only speak English from now on!”

I rejoin them at our teacher table. Christina seems bothered. And it isn’t long before Italian rules again.