Show me your culture and I'll show you mine

My boyfriend is Albanian. That is to say he was born in Albania and lived there until the age of 14, when he came to Italy. But he often says he doesn't feel Albanian, having done a lot of his growing up here in Italy. To his parents, who still live there he was, is, and always will be Albanian. That is to say, amongst other things, he must respect his culture and his family's will and meet and marry an Albanian girl who is muslim and from near his ancestral home, preferably before the age of 27. Before meeting and marrying that girl he must not have other relationships.

So it was with a heavy heart that he returned to Albania this summer holiday to stay with his parents and break the news that he was living in sin with a girl who wasn't muslim, Albanian, or even necessarily a prospective wife. Oh, and that he'd kept it from them for a year. Trooper that he is he broke the news, and it went down as well as a lead balloon might be expected. I didn't bother asking for the gory details on his return, but he assured me that they would get used to the idea 'in time'. And now? 'My mum is worried that we'll have children and then you'll run off and leave me with them'. Why? 'Because you're foreign and don't want to be a housewife'. Oh. So we're talking that sort of time to get used to the idea then.

Just recently E's Uncle, who has been in Italy for some years, has been joined by his family who had been waiting for the processing of documents to come over from Albania. In a transparent (but nice nonetheless) effort to make up for the fact that his parents think I am a child-hating witch I was bundled in the car to go and be introduced to this leg of more distant (and liberal) family. On arrival I shook hands with the wife and sons and was shown to a chair where I sat with a fixed smile on my face for a while they spoke in Albanian for a while. Then I was asked if I liked honey. 'Yes' I responded, eager to please, and a dish of honey with two spoons was brought out for me and E. 'Um, how am I supposed to eat this?' I muttered to E. He then translated my question into Albanian and everyone laughed. Almost a year to the day from when I arrived in Italy, I never would have predicted I'd end up eating honey from a bowl with my Albanian boyfriend whilst a roomful of his family watched us intently.

The eldest cousin is 18 and has been taken under E's wing immediately at the pizzeria. He doesn't speak much Italian yet and is almost painfully shy so E has taken it upon himself to be his official facilitator into the Italian Life. We went out for a shisha and had a mint tea, and he politely declined the shisha after two puffs and didn't drink any more tea, saying his stomach wasn't used to such things. He was bowled over when a girl came into the pizzeria with some facial piercings and couldn't stop staring. He was wowed when we went home via Via Salaria, a notorious Rome red light district. 'Look Toni' exclaimed E 'prostitutes!' and proceded to honk his horn at them enthusiastically ('oh for god's sake, stop showing off' I muttered at this point). The cousin reminds me a little bit of how I was this time last year- an almost silent participator in events that I was overwhelmed by; so overwhelmed that despite loving every minute of living them I was eqaully eager for them to be over so I could rest my tired brain and try to digest some of the things that had happened. I think it's going to be an interesting few months, and I'll make sure to keep you updated on the Albanian chapter of this saga.