Throughout orientation, our time was somewhat punctuated by Italians (in a nice comic relief-style way). There was the company director who, though passionate, was a little annoying, but did give Jack someone to talk to... However, by far the most [unintentionally] entertaining person was the sweeper.
Obviously being July and being Italy it was sweltering, so we'd often go outside for our workshops. The result of that was that we came into contact with quite a few locals. There was the man in the Apecar that seemed to take pleasure in scattering our game of 'Captain's Coming' so that he could drive round in a circle before disappearing. This also happened with people on Vespas, but they took up less space and to be honest in a competition between a Vespa and 150 tutors-in-training I know who I'd bet on.
But the sweeper.
Someone told me he may have been an olive or two short of a pizza, either that or he was horrendously socially awkward. He used to sweep the grounds, making sure all the Vespas had a clear road (until they ran into us, that is). He had a yellow-handled brush with a green plastic sweep-y bit (technical term), no shirt (it was tucked into his trousers), and a rather unpleasant smell. But we collectively kept our distances and no more was said on the matter. Well until that fateful workshop on pre-school children...
I was a couple of minutes late due to a large queue in the toilets and when I found the group, they were sitting on some steps in a lovely shady spot. I duly joined and started learning how to teach English to 4 and 5 year-olds. About halfway through over comes our friend, the Sweeper, wanting very much to sweep the area we were all sitting in. He mumbles in Italian and gets a little shirty with the lady running the workshop, but she smiles, says 'cinque minuti' and he wanders off, brush in tow.
Two minutes later he's back, trying to express earnestly how much he needs to sweep this particular area. We do the whole 'cinque minuti' thing and off he trundles.
Two minutes later he's back again, but really quite agitated. This poor girl with her even poorer Italian tells him that we'll only be 'cinque minuti', but this time, instead of wandering off, he stands there, seemingly staring us all out - just having a good look at all these peculiar people sat upon the things he desperately needs to brush away.
He stands there for about two minutes more and we manage to ignore him, on the whole, then he decides to remind our workshop leader he's here and we repeat the whole 'cinque minuti' saga, which is now becoming slightly tiresome. Really wanting to make his presence felt, he stands even closer to our workshop leader who is, by now, halfway through the story of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. Now he really starts to become a distraction - we're listening intently to how the caterpillar eats more and more and m... Oh my goodness, he's standing practically on top of this poor girl and, oh no, he's scratching himself.
I confess I don't know how the story ended - whether it held true to the original, or whether the caterpillar was set upon by aliens, because the other show was far more captivating. But then, regardless of the caterpillar, the Sweeper decided he would wait no longer and proceeded to sweep around us which, when you're sitting on the floor at the extremities of the group, it is by no means the best place to be...
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