FEASTING AND FIREWORKS

The festive season cannot end without my showing you what I ate on Christmas Day, can it?  I was very happy to be spending the day with friends and to partake of focacce, grilled meat, fruit and perfect crème caramel prepared by Neapolitan chef Pino Mainolfi [on the left in the pictue] whom I enjoyed meeting. His blog [in Romanian] is here.  I made and took along my second Christmas cake of the season:

I spent New Year's Eve at home because I was worried about the effect the inevitable fireworks would have on Bertie-Pierrine, whose first Christmas with me this was. She didn't seem overly peturbed - I was probably more frightened than she was, for Italians do not do things by halves - but I was glad I was here with her.

A lot of town councils all over Italy had banned New Year fireworks out of respect for the environment and animals and thus it was in Palermo, Catania, Siracusa and Ragusa, but not Modica. Nevertheless, a nine-year-old child in Palermo Province had to have his hand amputated after an accident with a firecracker and there were 190 firework-related injuries in Italy as a whole on New Year's Eve.  Is it worth it? 

If I sound like Scrooge here I would just like to say that I am outclassed in that respect by Telecom Italia, who managed to send their email bills out on Christmas Day. Now, that should be illegal as well!

SWEET INSPIRATION

There was lots of sweet inspiration in Siracusa last week, in the shape of a cassatina [little cassata] and the delights on offer in the chiller cabinet at the Pasticceria Leonardi. Later in the week a student brought me some torrone ideal from the Caffé dell'Arte in Modica. Made on the premises, this is lighter than the torrone mostly eaten at Christmas and my student told me that, in times gone by and before refrigeration, people used to make this type of torrone as a summer treat for their children. Thus it also goes by the name of gelato di campagna [countryside ice cream].

Now here's a sweet oldie for you:

Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon - Sweet Inspiration

A TEAR IN SIRACUSA

Yesterday in Siracusa I found myself near the Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime [Shrine of Our Lady of Tears] and took the opportunity to revisit it. The Shrine is built on the site where a statue of the Madonna is believed to have shed real tears in 1953, hence its teardrop shape. I remember that, when I first visited the Shrine, shortly after its completion in 1994, I wasn't sure if I liked it. Now I rather think I do.

A copy of the Turin Shroud is displayed in the Shrine.

SUMMER TIDES, 2015 - 3

The world's attention may now be centred on Greece but that other tragedy in the Mediterranean goes on and, as more and more migrant boats attempt the dangerous crossing, heartbreaking stories continue to emerge:

Last Tuesday an interfaith funeral was held in Catania for the first 13 bodies to have been recovered from the wreck of the boat involved in the 18th April tragedy, in which up to 850 people are estimated to have lost their lives.  The wreck is lying on the seabed 85 miles northeast of the Libyan coast and the Italian Navy is painstakingly carrying out the recovery operation, which is likely to take many months. Premier Renzi has promised that all the bodies will be recovered and that the victims will receive a dignified funeral.

While this was happening two young Nigerian men were being treated for horrific arm and leg injuries in a hospital in Siracusa. They say that they were thrown from a fourth floor window in the Libyan building where they were being held prior to their departure because they were unable to find all the money that the people traffickers required for their journey. They were then forced aboard a dinghy.  Somehow they survived the journey but one of them nearly lost his leg and it is due to the skill of the surgeons in Siracusa that it was saved, 

Meanwhile the world seems to have forgotten the migrants of Ventimiglia, some 51 of whom continue to protest and camp out on the rocks there, with the French border closed to them.  All these migrants want to do, like Nonno Abdel in a story carried by several Italian newspapers, is to join relatives in Northern Europe. Nonno Abdel is a 92-year-old Syrian refugee who crossed the Mediterranean with some of his family. His one wish was to see his daughter or sister again [there are conflicting accounts] but once he got to Germany after being looked after by nuns in Siracusa, his relative was not there to welcome him. He now waits for official refugee status in a German reception centre. Nonno Abdel is the oldest migrant to have reached Italy and you would have to have a heart of stone to look at his picture and remain unmoved.  

No one reading Saturday's Corriere della Sera online edition could be unmoved, either, by the image of a little girl clutching a teddy bear as she gazes at the sea from the Port of Palermo. She was brought there on Saturday by an Italian naval ship after being rescued from an overcrowded dinghy carrying around 130 people. The dinghy had almost sunk when the Italian Coast Guard reached it. Twelve bodies from the dinghy were also brought ashore at Palermo and among them was the little girl's mother.  The Italian Coast Guard saved 393 people from this dinghy and three others nearby on Friday. The ship carrying the little girl and the bodies brought a total of 717 rescued migrants to Palermo and 11 people traffickers have now been arrested in connection with these arrivals.

On Friday evening the Italian Mission to the UN tweeted that that the Italian Coast Guard had rescued 969 migrants in six operations on that day alone.

Apart from the rescues, is there any good news on migration this week? Yes, there is:  after reading about so much cruelty and sorrow, it was heartwarming to learn that, in the Veneto, where a tornado struck the Riviera del Brento on Wednesday, causing one death, several injuries and much structural damage, around 30 migrants from a reception centre in the area are voluntarily helping to clear up and rebuild homes. They say they are doing this to repay the kindness shown to them by locals. 

I'll end with some words from a perhaps unlikely source, namely Richard Gere, speaking in June at the Taormina Film Fest. [Rumour has it that he came to Modica, but nobody saw him!]

"The whole world is very aware of the problems of displaced people, and people running away from conflict, people running away from poverty. In Sicily you are in the epicentre of the problem....And it begs the question, 'What is our responsibility towards people?' Even from a selfish point of view, we should be providing homes and security to people who need it. It makes us more secure for other people to feel secure, for other people to not feel damaged. Those of us who have more should be giving more back. Europe is getting very serious about this. I think the U.S. should do more to help people out in these situations.  If we want security, we have to create a world where everyone has the minimum, in terms of food, shelter, opportunities, healthcare, all these things - 99% of the problems go away, right there.”

This may seem simplistic but solutions often are. They are words which the world would do well to heed, and not only with regard to migration.

TRAVELS WITH MY SISTER

I'm going to tell you the story of my reunion with my birth sister, Jill, little by little in several posts but first I want to share with you some of the things we did together over the past seven days.

We spent time at the Marina di Modica

and, as you see, I've got me a lovely brother-in-law as well!

We went for an evening walk in Ragusa Ibla with friends,

sat in the park

and ate ice cream in a crepe!

I must say, as we walked through the narrow, softly-lit streets, I felt completely surrounded by love and I hadn't felt like that for a long time.

On Sunday we took a guided tour around Catania. There is always something new to learn from a good guide and the city looked particularly elegant in the October sunshine:

Later, it was on to Militello in Val di Catania for the Sagra della Mostarda e del Fico d'India or Mostarda [made with prickly pears] and Prickly Pear Festival, where the highlight of the afternoon was the parade of Sicilian carts:

This last horse danced to the traditional music and was definitely the star of the show!

When I visited Militello for the same festival four years ago, I never imagined I'd be back there with my sister!

Then suddenly it was Wednesday, Jill and Paul's last full day in Sicily. We decided to spend most of it in Siracusa, for how could I let them go without taking them first to the magnificent Greek amphitheatre there?

The Roman Amphitheatre, Siracusa:

Sisters:

The Greek Amphitheatre, Siracusa:

The Ear of Dionysus, Siracusa:

We had fun calling to each other in the echoing cave where the tyrant Dionysus reportedly imprisoned dissidents and eavesdropped on them. 

Jill and Paul are safely home now and they have promised to come back to Sicily soon. I hope so because I'm already missing my wonderful, newfound sister!

SABATO MUSICALE

When Aida, directed by Enrico Castiglione, opened at the Greek Theatre in Siracusa last Saturday, the production received a ten-minute standing ovation. There is also a performance tonight and next Saturday, so let's take a peek:

Teatro greco, Siracusa, luglio 2014

Aida - Marcia trionfale  

SUMMER TIDES - 3

In reporting what has become an almost daily toll of migrant deaths at sea, I am reminded of this quote from Camus in La Peste:

"Mais qu'est-ce que cent millions de morts?" ["What are 100 million deaths?"]

What he meant, I believe, was that in war, epidemic and other such catastrophes the deaths become so many that we stop being able to imagine their meaning.

In the early hours of yesterday 104 migrants, all male, were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard from a dinghy about 54 miles off Lampedusa. Another 302 migrants were rescued in two separate operations in the Sicilian Channel and have been taken to the Port of Augusta. On board the rescue ship there was also a body, already decomposing, which had been found off the Maltese coast. This poor soul probably lost his or her life on one of the many other migrant boats that had got into trouble in the past few weeks.  Today four alleged people traffickers have been arrested by Italian police in connection with this death.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, visiting Pozzallo last week, promised help to Sicily's prefects and mayors in dealing with the migrants and said that a task force on the implications for public health will be set up. He also said, rightly, that all of Europe should recognise the sterling work being done by Italy in saving migrant lives.

Matteo Salvini of the Lega Nord, however, wants Operazione Mare Nostrum stopped immediately and says the money spent on it should be diverted to Africa to stop migrants leaving in the first place. This sounds eminently reasonable until you start to wonder exactly how this could be done and how, in certain unstable states, one could be sure of where the funds would be directed and how they would be used.

On 20th June, World Refugee Day, Laura Boldrini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, said in Siracusa, on board the naval ship the San Giorgio, which has been involved in many rescue operations, that Mare Nostrum operatives should be proud because nothing is more important than saving lives. She also said that other EU states are taking in refugees but are not helping in rescuing people at sea. She thanked Sicilians and their local councils for the work they are doing, proving, she added, that

"Italy is a great country which has not allowed itself to be devoured by selfishness in the face of the economic crisis."

SPRING TIDES - 5

More "boatloads of sorrow" unsurprisingly arrived over the Easter weekend, when at least 2,000 desperate souls were brought to safety as part of Operazione Mare Nostrum, and it is estimated that a similar number arrived last weekend.

Among these were 395 migrants, including 12 newborn babies, who were rescued by the Italian military and Coast Guard and brought to Pozzallo on Friday. The reception centre at Pozzallo is full, despite the fact that transfer flights to other parts of Italy for some of the migrants have been operating. The centre remains full because others just keep coming. The Mayor of Pozzallo has expressed his exasperation at the lack of response from central government and has called upon Premier Renzi to intervene.

Also on Friday, a pregnant woman who was taken from one of the boats to hospital in Siracusa, where she gave birth to a baby girl, found care, kindness and solidarity:  realising that she had no baby clothes or other necessities for her daughter, the staff decided to collect what they could. Another mother on the ward immediately gave the woman the blankets she had brought for her own baby and, inspired by this gesture, all the other mothers gave the little one sheets, clothing, shoes and other items. I am happy to be able to tell you that both mother and baby are now fine and they have been discharged from hospital.

In a statement issued a few minutes ago by the Viminale, the seat of the Italian Interior Ministry, it is estimated that 800,000 migrants are now waiting to sail for Sicily from Libya. One solution that was put forward by concerned agencies on Tuesday was the idea of sending a European task force to Libya, to stop the departures in the first place. I am no politician so I do not know what the chances would be of obtaining agreement for such a project from inside Libya, but I should have thought they were slight. The second problem is one I have mentioned before: people will always attempt to flee hunger, war and persecution and their right to do so is surely enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which talks about its "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family." 

At the moment I am reading Claude Lanzmann's memoir, The Patagonian Hare. His chapters about the Second World War are a timely reminder of the kind of régimes people might be fleeing.

A TRUE ART LOVER

Here is a heartwarming tale of honesty:

One day in 1975, a Sicilian man who had moved to Turin to work for Fiat attended a lost property auction at a railway workers' recreational club. As the man was an art lover, his eye was drawn to two particularly attractive paintings, a still life and a portrait of a young woman in a garden. He bought the two paintings for 45,000 Italian lire, worth £19 or $31 in today's values and, until a few weeks ago, both paintings hung in his kitchens, first in Turin and then back in Sicily following his retirement. There, in the heart of the home, he could gaze at them to his own heart's content.

Recently the man's son, an architecture student in Siracusa, happened to be looking through a catalogue of paintings by Gauguin and noticed some similarities with one of the paintings on his father's kitchen wall. After further research by his son, our honest Sicilian pensioner alerted the police and an extraordinary story came to light:

The paintings, now verified as a Gauguin from 1889 and an undated Bonnard, had been stolen from a London collector in 1970 and he, in turn, had bought them at a rather more prestigious auction in 1961. No one knows exactly how they ended up in the lost property office of the Ferrovie dello Stato but it is thought that the thieves were carrying them on the Paris to Turin train when they realised that there was to be a check at the border, so they abandoned them. They are now, obviously, worth a lot more than £19!

Having made enquiries in London, the Italian police have discovered that the art collector was a relative of the Marks and Spencer family and had no direct heirs. At the moment the paintings are still in police custody but, if there are no claims, it is possible that our Sicilian pensioner will be able to continue to enjoy them if he so wishes.

"A FORGOTTEN VILLAGE"

Do you ever wonder how talk show presenters prepare their programmes? You might think that they would read everything they can about people they are going to interview, bone up on geographical locations that are going to feature or, at the very least, make sure they are well-briefed by people who can do this for them. 

Miss Barbara d'Urso, the presenter of the Sunday afternoon programme Domenica Live on Canale 5, appears to have done none of these things this week and has caused a Sicilian storm by referring to Siracusa as "a forgotten village in southern Italy" whilst interviewing the teacher who arranged a school concert to welcome new Premier Matteo Renzi to the city.

Siracusa: 2,700 years old, the birthplace of Archimedes and the most important city in Magna Graecia. Siracusa: UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city has a Greek amphitheatre to rival those in Greece itself and classical plays are performed there to this day. It also has a Roman amphitheatre and Cicero described Siracusa as "the greatest and most beautiful" of Greek cities.  

Teatro greco, Siracusa being prepared for the performance of a Greek play

Mayor of Siracusa Giancarlo Garozzo is understandably appalled and points out that the city is ranked fourth in Italy [after Rome, Venice and Florence] for its artistic and architectural heritage. He also thinks that Miss d'Urso should have glanced at Wikipedia before the programme went on air. This morning his administration sent a written protest to Mediaset [Silvio Berlusconi's group of television channels, which includes Canale 5]. Both the city council and the tourist board are now likely to invite Miss d'Urso to visit the city. 

Ironically Miss d'Urso is from Naples and changed her name from Maria Carmela - judged "too southern" by her bosses at Tele Milano, a precursor of Canale 5 - to Barbara in 1977. What a pity she didn't change her reading habits too.

MIGRATION UPDATE - A PROPOSAL AND A QUESTION

Darkness is falling earlier and it's the end of October but there seems no end in sight to the "boatloads of sorrow" arriving on Sicily's shores: on Sunday the Italian navy saved  408 migrants, including 80 children and 40 women, from a boat in trouble off Augusta [Siracusa] and yesterday a Coast Guard patrol rescued 41 migrants whose boat got into difficulty 70 miles off Lampedusa. Another naval vessel went to the aid of a boat carrying 97 migrants, among them ten children.

Yesterday was also the day when the Comitato 3 ottobre - formed after the migrant tragedy on that date this year - presented its proposal for a law making 3rd October a day of remembrance to groups in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.  Under the proposed law, the text of which, most unusually for an Italian bill, contains only two articles, 3rd October every year would become a day to remember all migrants who have died fleeing persecution, oppression, poverty and war together with all who have risked their lives trying to save them. Members of the Committee have asked for meetings with President Napolitano and the presidents of both houses.

Meanwhile yesterday a group of around 100 migrants blocked the road to San Vito Lo Capo [Trapani] in protest at shortages in the reception centre at Bonagia and at delays in the processing of documents which would allow them to remain in Italy.

I have a concern which no one, to my knowledge has yet raised and it is this:  if in Italy there are groups of migrants who are not being assisted and whose cases are not being heard urgently, they will surely become depressed, disillusioned and angry.  How will the experience change them and who is lying in wait to take advantage of their situation?

MARE

I took this photo at Eloro in Siracusa Province many years ago. I found it by chance last night and thought it would be a nice image to end the week with.

A SAD TALE OF THE SEA

The world may have pulled back from the brink but, as diplomats continue to negotiate and politicians continue with their sparring and rhetoric, there has been no ceasefire in the civil wars which are causing so much suffering. Thus the "boatloads of sorrow" carrying desperate migrants towards Europe continue to arrive in Sicily's ports.

As many as 1,000 migrants arrived at the weekend and of these, 634 landed at Siracusa or on the Island of Lampedusa. One inadequate, 20-metre fishing boat which was letting in water was signalled to the Sicilian Coast Guard by the Red Cross on Friday and was then spotted, 140 miles off Siracusa, by a Coast Guard plane. A Romanian patrol boat working for the European external border agency Frontex went to the aid of the passengers and was quickly joined by two Sicilian Coast Guard motorboats. Between them, they brought the boat to safety at Siracusa. On board were 299 people, all believed to be Egyptian or Syrian, including 114 minors - among them an eight-year-old and a newborn baby - 54 women and a man who was cradling the body of his 22-year-old daughter in his arms.

Izdihar Maham Abdulla was travelling towards what she and her father believed would be a better life. They had set out on the boat from Egypt a week before but the journey proved too much for Izdihar, who was diabetic and had no insulin with her. She died two days before reaching Sicilian waters and her father had held her body, covered with a few jumpers to accord her what dignity he could, for all that time. A doctor called to the scene as the boat landed was able to confirm the cause and approximate time of death.

Unless her family indicate that they have other wishes, Izdihar's funeral and burial will take place on Wednesday, according to Muslim rites, in the churchyard of Siracusa Cathedral and in the presence of the Archbishop and Mayor of Siracusa.

One Egyptian man has been arrested on suspicion of people-trafficking in connection with this case.

It is estimated that 9,000 migrants have arrived on Sicily's shores since the beginning of this year.

THE REFUGEE'S GIFT

As the "boatloads of sorrow" continue to arrive more frequently than ever on Sicily's shores, a tale of a family who remembered others even as their own hearts were breaking emerges from Siracusa:

A 49-year-old Syrian woman who arrived at Siracusa on a migrant boat with her husband and two children on 28th August was transferred to hospital in the city immediately after landing as she had suffered a cardiac arrest. Her condition could have been caused by the rigours of her journey or by emotion upon landing in a place where she felt she would be safe.  Sadly, the woman died shortly afterwards.

Her husband, as a gesture of gratitude to the community that had welcomed the family, did not hesitate to give permission for the woman's liver and kidneys to be used for transplant.  The transplants have been carried out on three patients in Palermo and Catania and all are said to be doing well.  

So that is how one refugee unknowingly brought to Sicily the gift of life.

MONDO IN ATTESA

Today the world waits:  with the USA, UK and France seemingly ready to launch missile strikes on Syria, the Italian government said yesterday that they will not allow Italian bases to be used in connection with this plan without UN agreement.  Even in this unlikely event, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino has added today, Italy will not automatically lend its support to any strikes. Meanwhile NAS Sigonella in Sicily is on standby.

I can only quote Churchill:

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war."

Quite what you do when one party refuses to "jaw-jaw" or, as it appears in this case, has crossed a humanitarian red line, no one has yet worked out, though a solution short of war ought not to be beyond our power in the 21st century.

"The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 

Pro patria mori",

wrote Wilfred Owen.  What worries me is that new lie of modern warfare, the idea that war, once unleashed, can somehow be contained and sanitised;  that civilians will not be hurt;  and that terrified people will not attempt to flee. War creates injuries, it creates widows and orphans and it creates refugees.

At dawn this morning a migrant boat containing 191 desperate souls, all of whom declared themsleves to be Syrian, was intercepted by the Italian Coast Guard 60 - 70 miles south of Siracusa.  Among the 51 women, 48 children and 92 men the coastguards found a newborn baby girl with part of her umbilical cord still attached.  She and her mother were immediately transferred to hospital, where both are said to be doing well.  

The baby girl, said the captain of the Siracusa Coast Guard, is "more proof that life always triumphs."  Let us hope so as the world continues to wait.

THE WORLD NEEDS MORE......

Today is World Humanitarian Day, when the United Nations remembers aid workers who have lost their lives whilst trying to help other people. This year the United Nations would like us all to answer a simple question:

"What do you think the world needs more of?"

You can find out how to answer the question publicly here and you can sponsor a word either by donating money or by using the word with twitter hashtags as explained in the link.  My word is "empathy".

This day also celebrates "the spirit which inspires humanitarian work around the globe" and I think that this spirit was demonstrated last Thursday [the Ferragosto holiday] in Sicily, when beachgoers formed a human chain to help 160 migrants, including several pregnant women and around 50 children, to reach the shore after their boat got into trouble near Morghella beach in Siracusa Province. You can see what happened in this video.

President Napolitano said that the beachgoers had brought honour to Italy because they had shown that Italians' sense of humanity and solidarity is stronger than any prejudice or fear.

Dionne Warwick - What the World Needs Now

STRANDED AT SEA

Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa

Last Sunday a Liberian-registered oil tanker, the MT Salamis, rescued 102 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants from a boat off the Libyan coast and sailed towards Malta. The Maltese authorities, however, refused to let the migrants land and say that the captain ignored their orders to take them back into Libyan waters. The Maltese authorities contacted their Italian and Greek counterparts regarding the situation but are believed to have ignored pleas and, later, admonitions from the EU.

Thus it was that the migrants were stranded in the Mediterranean Sea from Sunday night until early on Wednesday morning, while intense negotiations regarding their fate were being held. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said that Malta had a humanitarian duty to allow the migrants to disembark as the priority was to save their lives. She also said that sending them back to Libya was contrary to international law. At last, Italian Premier Enrico Letta gave permission for the tanker to dock at Siracusa, where the Italian Red Cross was standing by. Mr Letta is said to understand that, because of the sheer number of migrant boats that have arrived at Maltese ports this summer, the island's reception facilities are at breaking point.

Among the migrants were four pregnant women and a five-month-old baby now known as "Sam", who has become the group's mascot. All are said to be doing well.

Commissioner Malmström has thanked Italy on behalf of the EU and tweeted that it would be great if all 28 EU countries would help in such situations. Francesco Rocca, the president of the Italian Red Cross, has said that there needs to be a European strategy so that such an impasse does not happen again. The International Organisation for Migration and UNHCR have also thanked Italy.

On a sadder note, 103 Somali migrants, including 29 women, one of whom is pregnant, were rescued by a fishing boat and the Italian Navy from a dinghy in the Sicilian Channel on Wednesday night. Two other migrants had died during the journey and their bodies had been thrown into the sea. One of these was a seven-year-old child and his shocked and distraught mother is among the survivors, who have been taken to Lampedusa. My thoughts are with this sad lady this weekend.

IN BOCCA AL LUPO ALLA "NERINA"!

Ortigia, Siracusa

Today a sailing boat left Ortigia in Siracusa for Ancona, from where her very unusual crew will sail her in the ORC International World Championships which will be held there from 21st - 29th June. The crew, made up of 18 young people who have been in prison or have been addicted to drugs, have been trained to sail as part of a social inclusion programme called "Liberi di... liberi da" [Free of.... free from"] which is funded by the Sicilian Regional Government.

The young people were trained for two years and then given work experience placements in various shipyards in Siracusa. There, reports Corriere della Sera, their co-workers imparted to them their own love of the sea and boats. What is more, the experiment worked so well that the young people are now regarded as indispensable by their employers.

I am sure you will join me in wishing the Nerina and her crew good luck. 

THE MARCH WIND DOTH BLOW....

...and it certainly blew over the weekend in eastern Sicily!  Cyclone Athos liked Sicily so much that it stayed for over 48 hours, uprooting trees, blowing down road signs, destroying roofs and making the heck of a noise about it all.  It was pretty scary, actually, and the worst weather I've known in seven years in Sicily.

As for the rain, well, it wasn't enough to stop a Cardiff girl going out and about as usual but I got splashed so many times by cars in the process that by Saturday evening I was considering starting a new life as a duck. "You can't walk home in this", said my hairdresser in the afternoon.  "Why not? It's only a drop or two", said I, thus convincing him, if he needed further convincing, that I am going dotty in my old age.

The main problem here is not the amount of rain but the fact that houses are not built to withstand it so this was the scene in my bedroom by Saturday morning:

By this time Modica's mayor had ordered schools to remain closed - Saturday is a school day here -  as had the mayors of several other towns.  Power lines were down in the countryside, boat services to the smaller islands were suspended and the 19 crew members of a tanker which had run aground off Capo Santa Panagia [Siracusa] had to be airlifted to safety by coastguard.

And soon we'll all be grumbling about the heat....

DO YOU KNOW IT'S FEBRUARY?

Discussing the weather in a shop yesterday - Sicilians talk about this subject almost as much as the British - I was reminded that it was "really" January, not December.  As we agreed it was a beautiful day, the assistant added , "for January" and quoted the dialect proverb,

"Ri santa Lucia a Natali 'u juorrnu crisci quantu 'n passu ri cani" - "From St Lucy's Day to Christmas each day is longer by a dog's step".

At least, that is the Modican version.  The spelling and vocabulary in the proverb may vary slightly from town to town but the meaning is the same - that the days get longer.  This proverb dates back to the sixteenth century and over the years people came to believe that each day between the feast of Santa Lucia and Christmas represents a month, with Christmas Day representing December. Thus you will realise that it is already February as I write!  The weather on each of these days, it is believed, allows us to predict what the weather will be like in the month the day represents, so a sunny 15th December means we are going to have a sunny February.

Santa Lucia by Domenico Beccafumi
Source:  Wikipedia

The following information is from an earlier post of mine:

Santa Lucia [283 - 304] was martyred in Siracusa during the Persecution of Diocletian. She is one of my favourite saints, along with St Martin and St Francis, because a feminist reading of her story would bring one to conclude that she was partially condemned for her unconventionality [though I suppose all saints were unconventional].

Lucia consecrated her virginity to God and expressed a wish to give all her worldly goods to the poor. She refused to marry a pagan, but her spurned fiancé had his revenge after Lucia and her mother, Eutychia [or Eutychiaea], visited Catania in the hope that the martyred Sant'Agata of that city would cure Eutychia of a haemorrage. Eutychia was cured and Lucia distributed some of her wealth to the poor, thus incurring the further wrath of her would-be husband, who denounced her to Paschasius, the Governor of Sicily.

First sentenced to become a prostitute, Lucia literally could not be moved, so then her persecutors unsuccessfully tried to burn her. Finally she was decapitated with a sword and the story goes that her eyes were gouged out first. One legend has it that only her eyes remained of her, but there is also a story that her body lay undisturbed in Sicily for 400 years. 

In art, Santa Lucia is often represented with her eyes on a plate and church-goers in Italy are given tiny pieces of pasta representing her eyes on 13th December.  Other symbols of Santa Lucia are the sword and the palm and she is the protector of electricians, eye specialists and the blind.  She is the patron saint of Siracusa.

Mario Lanza - Santa Lucia