The Russian T-Shirt - Turning Tuscan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Going Native - page 22

was very shy about speaking it. She was afflicted by the national phobia of making a mis-
take and, God forbid, appearing foolish. Nonetheless, she understood enough English to
compensate for our limited Italian, and with a bit of arm-twisting, we somehow convinced
her to work with us as a private tutor for Italian lessons twice a week.
Montesantini was only five kilometers from San Cosimo, but the first time Angela came
to tutor us, she asked for directions. Like most of the other people in her village, she had
never been to Montesantini. Can you imagine people in America spending a lifetime less
than five miles from a neighboring town—and never visiting it even once? When we asked
why no one ever went there, she shrugged and said it was because they had no reason to go
there.
Montesantini was near the western boundary of the province of Arezzo. From there people
went to Bucine for minor shopping, to Montevarchi for major shopping and to Arezzo for
things like marriage certificates and drivers licenses. San Cosimo, on the other hand, was
on the eastern boundary of the province of Siena, and Siena was its epicenter. The two vil-
lages were on opposite sides of the great provincial divide, facing in different directions
with their backs to each other, and, so, never the twain did meet.
As a foreigner you have a certain freedom to break the unwritten rules that Italians obey re-
flexively. We became regular visitors to San Cosimo. As the years went by, our Italian im-
proved and we became ever closer friends with Angela and with her family. We began buy-
ing our Chianti Classico wine from her father, Remo, whose cantina was in San Cosimo.
By '95 we had a lunch invitation; by '97 we were dinner guests at her family's home.
Like many young Italians Angela dreamed of visiting America, especially California, and
most especially San Francisco. Eventually Angela succumbed to our repeated invitations.
In June of '99 she was a guest at our home in Petaluma, and we showed her around the San
Francisco Bay Area. That was the fateful summer when our neighbor Lou approached us
and suggested buying a home together in Tuscany.
All the pieces had been moved into place. What a setup!