Get Thee to a Nunnery: Letters from Italy, Part II

Santa Sofia
Finally, I’m buzzed in by a nun in a habit—Alleluia! Sister Tiziana, dressed all in white, speaks in a chirpy whisper. Her Italian accent sounds foreign and I find out these nuns are Ukranian—a Russian Orthodox order. The five of them all wear gold wire-rimmed glasses and float around in soft sandals, going about their business with a reserved, humble style. I gather from flyers lying around that they run counseling programs to help immigrant women who are new to Rome get set up with respectable jobs and stay out of trouble.

It’s good to be in this Monti neighborhood, just a few blocks from the Collisseum, that’s surprisingly not overrun by tourists. The convent sits on a square with a fountain where old women with thinning hair gossip while boys kick soccer balls around. There’s a caffe in the center of it, a grocery store, gelateria, and restaurant. Real Roman life.

The hallways and lobby areas are decorated with Russian religious art—fancy chalices in dark wood cabinets, large intricate paintings of bearded saints.

My fellow guests are a group of German senior citizens. On my way to my room, I pass a hunchbacked Herr with his pants belted up to his chest, being helped along by a large Frau in a flowery spring shift.

A sweet Madonna painting sits over my desk in my rectangle of a room. There’s a twin bed and tiny bathroom with shower. It smells faintly of disinfectant, cleaned everyday by Russian women who I see scrubbing all morning long. I leave the window open at night and get lulled to sleep by a steady soft snore from a neighbor’s room … the Frau or Herr I wonder?

I won’t mince words about the food here: pitiful. Lunch and dinner are served buffet style: a crock-pot of straight-from-a-can vegetable soup, gray roast beef, a colander of spaghetti with a bowl of lukewarm ragu placed to its side. At breakfast, a metal pitcher of hot water and an envelope of Nescafe are set before me along with a plastic jug of something that tastes like Tang.