June 3, 2012
It’s the annual insanity that Sicilians call festa.
The village aristocrats overlook the piazza from the comfort of their balconi, watching us wait for San Giorgio the Dragon Slayer.
Inside the church, the young men chew their fingers, get pep talks from the old guys, and send up lionesque roars. This is how they get psyched up to haul Saint George and his rearing steed around town on their shoulders.
The frisky altar boys horse around.
Then with a roar, my dragon-slayer is hoisted into the evening air amid wild applause, tears, and a squall of confetti. Even I–a non-Catholic who barely knows one saint from another–have a pounding heart. (Saint George belongs to me!)
He prances around town for a while and then the pyromaniacs get to work.
They light the fuses for the gran finale con artistico e fantasmagorico spettacolo piromusicale. Balconies are jammed with people and kids are stacked on top of parents and grandparents. The whole village feels like it’s blowing up.
Cinders land in your hair and singe your arms; babies wail in fright. You stumble out of the piazza choking on the thick stench of gunpowder, rush home thinking “Sicilians are nuts!” and watch the rest of the show from the relative safety of your house.
The next day they’re at it again.
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January 1, 2012
After days of chilly wind and rain, 2012 started just purrfectly.
There was bright white sun on the piazza.
And a gigantic, baroque Kiss-Fest.
I smooched with my newspaper-tobacco man. I don’t know his name, but he held me in a tight embrace.
I pecked the pink cheeks of the myopic, eccentric composer who once invited me and my husband into his house to show off his antique objets, family coat of arms, and pianos.
I kissed the village aristocrat, who towers head and shoulders above all the other little men of his WW II generation.
My husband, a rather shy and undemonstrative sort, had to embrace these same men. Their abrasive stubble unnerved him, and he got his sunglasses tangled up in the specs of the myopic composer. “I’d only let Sicilians get away with this,” he said.
I did not get photos of him cringing and doing the Sicilian Smooch-Smooch Ritual (darn), but here are others from New Year’s morning on the piazza:
 brioscia integrale con miele 
 
***
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September 3, 2011
Pazienza. A Sicilian mantra.
For one full year, I had the patience of a saint.
My favorite al fresco coffee bar sat at the foot of this scaffolding.
Each morning the sandblasted stone let loose an angry flurry of grit, turning my laptop a dusty gray.
Eyes stung, ears hurt.
Paradiso lost.
But now the church of San Giuseppe has been unveiled. Life is back to normal. Splendor in the morning sun.
Dustless coffee. Noiseless pastry.
Paradiso regained.
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August 9, 2011
Water runs again in our village fountains.
How many years were they dry? I’m not sure, actually, but this year the village coughed up around 250,000 euro to make them gush again.
These antiques now have a modern twist. See for yourself.
 Restoring Ibla's Fountains A large, wide basin at the foot of Ragusa Ibla where donkeys drank and women did the laundry is also under reconstruction.
Ragusa Ibla is lucky to have money for things like this, thanks to its status as a World Heritage Site. In the poor village of Cassaro about an hour away, a wall mural has replaced the old village fountain. It sort of breaks my heart.
 Casaro, Sicily ***
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May 12, 2011
An anonymous, solitary hour.
Lured by the promise of coffee, I step through vacant emptiness.
But what is this?
A dozing cowboy?
What crazy hope lured him here?
I sip a strong coffee.
Was he just a dream from that other life of mine?
When I go that way again, he’s gone.
***
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All photos and text on BaroqueSicily are Copyright of Jann Huizenga ©2009-2015, unless otherwise noted. Material may not be copied or re-published without written permission. All rights reserved.
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