When I lived in England I used to teach several classes a week of Italian and also Yoga classes for adults. The courses used to start in September with ten to fifteen students per class, but by mid November they were reduced to three to four students per class. This wasn’t due, as I thought at first, to my poor teaching skills, but was a trend common to all adult classes, no matter what the subject. The explanation? Well, Christmas!!! “Sorry, next week we are having the office Christmas party”, was the typical excuse I was given for a student not coming to a class, followed the week after by the “spouse’s Christmas party”, the “children’s Christmas party”, the “school outing to the Christmas pantomime”, and so on. Then, of course, there was Christmas shopping: “This week I’m taking my mother for Christmas shopping, next week it’s my mother’s in law turn, then it’s late night shopping and I’m going with my friends, …”

When I moved here to Pontremoli I started a small local Yoga class and with it came a culture shock: Christmas is never an issue, rather it’s the opposite, in fact my ladies are very pleased to carry on with the class until a couple of days just before Natale. On the other hand, Pontremoli is a small rural town with very strong family bonds, an aging population, and almost every family has a bit of land where they grow their own vegetables, olive trees for making oil, and vineyards for making wine. Therefore le loro scuse (their excuses) are of a very different nature, some of them quite surprising and amusing when you’re not used to this country culture. Here are a few of the typical reasons I’m given for not being able to attend a class:

Italian family traditions:

la settimana prossima vado a Londra a trovare mio figlio. Devo preparare i sughi per la pasta da portargli (next week I’m going to London to visit my son. I need to prepare the pasta sauces that I must take to him)

lunedì torna mio figlio dalla Nuova Zelanda e mi ha chiesto di preparargli i tortelli e la torta di verdure, perché dice che là ha mangiato tanto male (on Monday my son is coming back from New Zealand, and he asked me to prepare stuffed pasta and vegetable pie, because he says that he ate very badly there)

c’è il funerale della mamma del mio vicino di casa (there’s the funeral of my next door neighbour’s mother)

Seasonal related reasons:

c’è da fare la vendemmia (there’s the grape harvest to be done)

dobbiamo raccogliere le olive (we have to pick the olives)

devo fare la passata (I have to make tomato passata)

viene mio cugino con la motozappa a preparare il terreno per le patate (my cousin is coming with the rotovator to prepare the land for the potatoes)

dobbiamo finire di seminare le patate prima che cambi la luna (we must finish plant the potatoes before the moon changes)

mio padre ha ammazzato il maiale. Devo aiutarlo a fare salsicce e prosciutti (my father killed the pig. I must help him to make sausages and ham)

sono arrivate le arance dalla Sicilia e dobbiamo aiutare Anita a dividerle e fare le cassette per tutti (the oranges from Sicily have arrived and we have to help Anita to divide them up in boxes for everyone)