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.
Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
May 30, 2012
People often talk about how poor Sicily is. The New York Times just ran an article featuring Sicily and referred to its “scruffy charm.”
“It’s Africa!” Northern Italians will scoff.
But I’ve just returned from Africa, and to me “scruffy” old Sicily looks like the land of milk and honey.
Indeed, everything’s relative.
I saw such poverty in northern Tanzania that I walked around dazed for two weeks, a perpetual lump in my throat. Homeless kids sleep in the middle of intersections because they’re the “safest” place to be. Rivers of sewage run through the marketplace, and flies swarm raw meat and fish. You have to hold your nose while you shop.
Homes without water.
Heat. Humidity.
Mosquitoes galore.
Malaria.
Dysentery.
Typhoid.
AIDS.
I worked with teachers and went into schools, where 150 kids cram into a classroom much smaller than the average U.S. classroom. Fewer than half the kids get a desk; the others sit in the dirt. There are no books. Teachers are heroic, and completely overwhelmed.
 Primary school classroom in Tanzania The children are beautiful, with a dignity and endurance that defies imagination.
They stole my heart and taught me more than any book ever could.
Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
May 23, 2012
You asked for some more snippets of my New Life.
Here they are, with my compliments of the day…
 Storage space in limited in the New Life, so pots and pans and bowls are stacked high on shelves.  My fridge is just a waist-high pull-out drawer. Love it! Nothing bulky to block the view from the kitchen.  My dishes are either flea-market finds (chipped & cracked) or from the remainder bin at the local supermarket. My motto: no dish or cup or glass over 1 euro.  I splurged on a few pots from Caltagirone, Sicily's ceramics center.  My heat source. (Sicily can get raw in the winter.) Dryers are not used in Sicily, so the radiators function as my dryer when it rains.  I couldn't believe when the electrician showed up with a huge box of outlet covers--I had my choice of about 35 gorgeous colors, and of course I chose green.
 A hand with a menorah--found in the Moroccan desert--dangles from my closet door.  My narrow balcony holds a spindly olive and a puny orange tree.
Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
May 17, 2012
In Italy I find myself whispering—for I haven’t stopped talking to my mother—”Are you living this too, madre mia?”
It feels as if I’m picking up where she left off. A leitmotif of my life has been actually doing the things she talked about doing but didn’t because she was saddled with four kids. My mother deposited her dreams into me, like moms always do to daughters.
Gradually the house has become a home. The decision was long, and so far it seems right. Je ne regrette rien. Non mi pento di nulla.
Here are snippets from my new world (yes, I have a thing about green):
 
Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
May 13, 2012
“It’s happened,” I emailed family and close friends when I finally bought my dream home in Sicily. “The deed is done!”
My euphoria was the kind of helium-filled joy that you recognize much later as one of those few moments in life when every star in the firmament aligns perfectly and glitters with a rare intensity.
A few days later, in response, an old friend forwarded an email from one of his buddies, a British diplomat in Milan. It read: Anyone buying property in Italy needs psychological counseling. I send my deepest sympathies to the lady. If it is not too late, she should withdraw and run—not walk—as far away as she can from this country.
Talk about bursting my balloon…
***
Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
|
Subscribe to Baroque Sicily
Copyright reserved -
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.
|
