[I know when writing a blog, it’s important to keep it brief but every detail of this adventure is worth telling, so bear with me because I have quite the story to tell.]
Today started like a normal day as we headed to the special needs home that we have been working at this week. After a difficult experience on Monday, we weren’t sure what to expect today but we figured we would continue the intense cleaning and had mentally prepared ourselves for a long day ahead. We arrived around 9:00 am and began to mop the courtyard floor. Denika, Nancy, Skylar, and myself were sweeping and mopping the tiled floor when we heard a booming personality coming toward us. Then from around the corner appeared…. Gabriel the Angel. He was a large, charismatic, spanish-speaking Italian-Canadian who really did introduce himself as Gabriel the Angel. He looked at us and spoke in Spanish until he realized our blank stares meant we couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying. He quickly switched to English and excitedly asked if we were American. Within 30 seconds of talking to him, we were invited to have coffee with him and his friends at the house at the top of the mountain. He left and we joined Cali and Dot and told them that we had a coffee date at noon, with a man we had just met, on the top of the mountain. Their confused faces made us question whether or not we really had just met Gabriel the Angel. Before we could doubt ourselves too long, we heard him come around the corner. Excited to meet our other Americans, he quickly ushered us around the building to meet his friends. What were his friends names? Mario & Luigi of course.
Before we knew it, we were inside his house where he stayed with six other Italian-Canadians who spend one month out the year, every year, serving the home and the patients. Next thing we knew, we were sitting at a table with a Salvadorian priest, two Brazilian nuns, and seven Italian-Canadians. In a small period of time, we heard five different languages (Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese and French) being yelled across the room as they joked and laughed with one another. Our necks started to cramp after watching them interact with one another- it was as if we were living in a scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. We left to continue cleaning after making a lunch date for later that afternoon.
When we arrived for lunch, we had a few minutes to chat with Gabriel about his life and his works with the home. He had been visiting the home, once a year, for the past 23 years through the United Italian Canadian Cultural Club. He gave us the simple secret to happiness, “Happiness is sharing”, and told us that as long as we don’t call him late to supper, we could call him anything we wanted to. When it came time for lunch, we pulled out our peanut butter sandwiches we had made and sat down with our new friends. Before we could thank them for the generous hospitality, they had already handed us bowls of vegetable soup that they had made for themselves… and it was delicious! They quickly cleaned the kitchen and handed out home made banana bread and tiny mugs of Italian espresso. We were able to laugh with them for quite a while before going back to mopping the floors of the home.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times I burst out into laughter at the absurdity of the situation. I am thankful for new friends and unplanned adventures… and I am also thankful for our lunch date on Friday with them and their homemade spaghetti.
