Ask most people what really helped them settle into their new home in Italy and they are likely to mention finding their “fixer”, the one essential helper who smoothed their path, untangled knots and resolved complicated bureaucratic tangles, all of which are baffling to an outsider. You can’t set out to find your fixer. You may not even recognise them for what they are when you first meet them. Maybe your neighbour will introduce you to someone, who lives next door to someone, whose cousin speaks a little of your language. They offer to help with something and gradually they become the person you turn to when things get tricky.
What makes a good fixer?
Most importantly this person will probably have been born in the area and grown up there so the boy they sat next to in class is now a plumber, the girl their mother taught to sew is now their hairdresser, their cousin is a doctor, their aunt the local pharmacist and their ex boyfriend is on the town council. Through their network of contacts they will ease your path into the community. That letter from the council threatening you with fines for an unpaid tax you didn’t know about? You need a number for your house so you can receive mail? Need a haircut but your language lessons didn’t cover highlights, layering or hair straighteners? Whatever the query your fixer will scroll through their phone contacts until they find someone who will know or someone who is related to someone who will know. A phone call here, a meeting arranged there, an introduction whenever someone useful is encountered.
And don’t think you can strike out on your own. You must be introduced to everyone you might ever need from the cheese seller to the priest, the rubbish collector to the Mayor. Because in Italy it is not what you know but who you know that counts. And along the way you become firm friends and an honorary member of their family and before you know it you are not just the stranieri but a part of your new community.
Note from the team at ITS Journal:
We did not add a single word to Rosemary’s, but the picture and the idea of linking it to Pulp Fiction…