Perhaps the greatest challenge of this entire trip has been the language barrier that exists between our group from Second Baptist and our host church and the surrounding community. I for one drastically overestimated how much English our hosts would know. Other than Gabriela and two others from the church, Massimo and Evana, the rest of the congregation speaks almost no English. This has proved to be a difficult barrier to overcome in basic conversation, but our group and the congregation of Ariccia are both up to the tasks.
Conversation involves a lot of patience, a lot of repetition, and a lot of charades. Its amazing how much you can communicate with some improve acting. Our whole group has done a great job at stepping out of their comfort zones and meeting the challenge of communicating and building friendships in spite of the language difference.
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