A day I will NEVER forget...

I love their house. Really nice two story house. A country home feel. So I slept in today because I was exhausted but I went out in service with Maria Rita on a bible study and some return visits. It was in italian of course and I could actually understand the what she was saying because I knew that chapter in the bible teach book. I don't know a whole lot of theocratic terms. But her calls appeciated me coming and surprised that I speak italian well.

Overall everyone has been really impressed with my italian and give me compliments. They said there was a sister who come from the states or UK and served here for 3 years and never came close to speaking as well as I do. Kudos to me. But as I already prepared myself service in Italy requires alot of walking which I brown comfortable walking shoes and sandals especially here because the streets were cobblestone. No diva heels here. lol One thing that I learned is that they meet in service in the morning and then stop at about one people because italians go for lunch from 1pm to 3pm and so there is no point because people are busy eating lunch.

Now I still haven't gotten used to eating lunch and dinner here at all. They eat things in separate portions. First is primi which a lot of times is pasta or bread, proscuitto (ham) or some other appetizer then secondo, carne (meat),contorno (fries or something), vedurra (veggie). and with these different sections you eat each one and then proceed to the next section. So I would get a plate of pasta and eat and eat and eat thinking that is it but then they bring the meat and then veggies and then so on. Dessert is usually fresh fruit and gelato of course and my stomache is a complete capacity at that point. A lot of food no wonder why lunch is 3 hrs...i always need a nap for my stomach to deflate literally! All these sisters want to fattening me up thinking I don't eat but they know now I eat more than them. I clearED a whole pan of pasta a couple of nights. I had like 4ths...sooo good!

So after service they took me into the mountains which was beautiful. We had to go up this curvy windy street to the top and it was beautiful and crisp fresh air. I like the area lot, a nice change from the hustle and bustle of the city.

After the mountains we came home a rested and then got ready to go have dinner at another family's house. Graziella was cooking tonight my favorite...spaghetti...can never get tired of it. So we arrived and all was great there were two other families a total of 9 people at the table. One of the two teenage sisters i met at the assemblya and one just got baptized. There is only one congregation here with 34 publishers and so I met the entire congregation at the assembly actually. There are alot of hindi here and polish and so there are groups here serving.

So we began our "primi" of melone, bread, cheese and ham. And we had a nice time talking as we ate our first portion. One of the teenage sisters (the other one who was already baptized) had this pretty flower in her hair and looked like a beautiful doll just sitting there and we were all complimenting her because she is pretty. Then suddenly this sister started screaming and like ducking her head forward like there was a bee flying around her head. And I kept looking around for the bee because I didn't want to get stung either. And then I think it hit me at the exact moment as it hit everyone else. And I was like OMG SHE IS HAVING AN EPILECTIC SEIZURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never seen anything like it...it was like something out of an horror movie or something. Her eyes got really big, she clinched her teeth really hard, her muscles tensed, contracted very hard, her wrist curved over and fingers curved and she was just frozen in that positioned. IT looked sooo painful. Everyone jumped up all this commotion. My elder and another and her mother was getting her out of the chair and she was actually the same sitting down postions when they lifted her out of the seat and a rushed her into a bedroom and maria rita was apologizing and everyone yelling and freakin out and I was just shocked.

I wanted to cry to but I knew if I started crying then it would make matters worse. So there I was sitting at the kitchen table, alone because everyone needed to attend to her and I didn't know what to do so I just sat there and just prayed. Then the brothers came back and began to apologize I guess then felt bad because this dinner was for me. I told them don't worry about me but GO GO TAKE CARE OF HERE! CALL 911....

"911???" they said...Oh snap Im in italy and don't know the emergency number here italy! My bad! Well they didn't call amblance right away for some odd reason but then they did because something happened in the bed room but i couldn't see. The mother comes to the kitchen all crying and panicking because maybe something by the way she was acting.

Thank goodness I brought my italian dictionary because medical terms is in level 4 OF Rosetta Stone which i don't have yet. So what happend is 3 weeks ago this 19 yr old sister had her first attack. They don't know why and they went to two different hospitals. Well they put her on medicine. Well this sister is taking her final exam for graduation and this test here in italy is evidently hard and stressful. She didn't want to take her medicince today because she thinks if she takes it she will not remember the things she studied and not do well. So she didn't take it this morning and planned on taking it tomorrow. Well thats why she had the seizure. It took awhile for ambulance to get here but when they finally did they weren't even gonna take her to the hospital! Can you believe that! They did some stuff and gave her a medicince and told her to sleep and eat something in an hour. As they were getting ready to leave, the sister began to have another seizure because I could hear her make that weird noise again. So then they did some more shots and after an hour of ordeal they finally got her in the truck to take her to a hospital that was 30min away. I told the other siser that in america she would have been taking to the hospital immediately and the medics shouldn't have taken so long trying to do whatever at the house. So dinner was kinda cancelled because everyone but maria rita and the two kids left to go to the hospital with the mother because she wasn't doing well. So we had dinner just us 4.

After dinner we all slept at my house (marita rita and felizano elder) for the night. But I really couldn't sleep well because I couldn't get the image of the sister's face out of my head but finally I was able to go to sleep.

written by  ItalianaCinzia on July 6, 2010 from Amandola, Italy
from the travel blog: Serving in Italy 2010
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