About two weeks ago I sent my campers from Casteldaccia in Sicily a facebook message letting them know I’d be back and asking if they wanted to meet up for a gelato. This is the only group I’ve ever added on Facebook, because they were awesome and my oldest group (12-15). One of them took charge and invited the other older class that another tutor and I team-taught. They decided where we’d go and offered to meet me at the train station and drive my Mom and I there.
We emerged from the path beneath the tracks and four of them were there to greet us. Two more came a few minutes later. It was amazing to see them again, and we were all really excited to see each other. Two of them were from my class of five, and the other four were from the other class. I introduced them all to my Mom and a couple parents were there too, who remembered me but I didn’t remember them.
At the gelateria we caught up, and I was really impressed with their English and especially with their questions. It’s rare that you find a group of Italian kids who want to speak English, and these ones all love to practice (they have an incredible English teacher who also serves as Camp Director). They asked about my job, which is really hard to explain in basic English or basic Italian, but I told them I helped people with no home find a home and I helped in other ways, too, which is pretty close, but I much prefer to talk about working with them than helping them. And sometimes I say it’s an “anno di serizio” which I think makes sense but I hate referring to it as a “year of service.” They asked my Mom a lot of questions, too, and they asked if my brother still worked in politics. One remembered he was 27, which I only told them once on the first morning of camp.
A couple times conversation lagged, and at one point to keep it going I asked what the tall towers were way down the shore. They struggled to explain in English, until one girl said, “Homer Simpson works in it. But it’s not nuclear.” Pretty creative explanation for a power plant.
Before we left the gelateria to walk along the beach one of them (the sassy one) told me I couldn’t leave because there was a surprise coming. I was kept in suspense for about 10 minutes before she left for a couple minutes and returned with a pillow. It had a picture of the oldest classes, us tutors, and the director, and said “You remember us forever.” I was pretty overwhelmed. My Mom brought them key chains from San Francisco, which they liked a lot, but they didn’t compare. When picture time came around they told me to sit down in the chair and we did a little photo shoot where they kept changing poses behind me. It took me a little too long to catch on.
My host mom, Rosanna, and brother, Lorenzo, came to the beach to pick my real mom and me up. It was an equally memorable reunion. They brought us back to their house and she and her husband, Salvo, gave us a tour of their garden, which I don’t think I got last year. My Mom really enjoyed trying to figure out what each vegetable and spice was in English. Later on Salvo was trying to explain “pepperoncino.” He brought out a bowl of them and my Mom said: “Oh, chili peppers!” He smiled with recognition and asked, “Band?” 
They remembered that I like pesce spada (swordfish). So Rosanna and Salvo made 11 dishes, 4 of which were variations of swordfish. First was Salvo’s pasta, casecce (pasta shaped like scrolls) with swordfish and lemon. He grated the lemon peel into invisibility and it was perfect. We had grilled swordfish, swordfish skewers, and caponata with swordfish (my new favorite).
Their English is not as good as my campers’, so we spoke in Italian and I translated what my Mom couldn’t understand or her English that they couldn’t understand. To finish off the meal we had some of the limoncello Salvo’s dad made, which was 50% alcohol.
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