PACE

Here's another photo of the Modican countryside to round off the week:

ADVICE REMEMBERED - 2

An ordinary Sicilian country road, perhaps.....

Then I remembered my old friend's good advice and looked up, to see these solar-powered streetlamps.  Who says we don't move with the times in Sicily?

THE VOICE OF THE EARTH

Photo:  Simone Aprile
Reproduced here with kind permission of Simone Aprile

Tonight I would like to introduce you to a new friend of mine, the photographer Simone Aprile and to his colleague the musician and video maker Giuseppe La Rosa.

Simone was born in Siracusa but moved to Milan with his family as a child.  There, he studied photography at the Istituto Riccardo Bauer but his greatest professional influence was Sandro Sciacca.  Simone has worked for several prestigious magazines, including Vogue.  Now he has returned to the South, where he is able to combine his two great loves, photography and Sicily, in the Lab House Studio in Modica. Simone says he feel close to Sicily wherever he is in the world.

Giuseppe La Rosa graduated in Film, Music and Theatre studies from the University of Pisa.  One of his first projects was a television programme called No Parking which was shown on over 50 channels and later he made a video on educational and social policy for Pisa City Council. He now works full-time as a video and documentary maker and his work has won prizes at both Italian and international festivals such as:  Hors Pistes 2010 [Centre Pompidou, Paris]; Sottodiciotto Film Festival 2009 [Turin]; Lampedusa Film Festival [ finalist]; Zone Video 7 [small] and Barilla Short Film Awards [special mention].  In 2009 Giuseppe founded Mojito Film Productions and began working with the Torinese director Daniele Segre.

Over the past few days people lucky enough to be in Modica have been able to see Simone and Giuseppe's exhibition, 'Nzuliddu.  The name is a dialect form of Vincenzo and the show chronicles, in photographs and sound, a year in the  life of 'Nzuliddu the countryman.  This is the story of "a man and his roots", roots that are in danger of being forgotten, for 'Nzuliddu's routines are determined by the land he works and its rhythms. We see him at work and at home, observe his energy and his tiredness, every day from sunrise to sunset. The show is an important memoir of a humanity that is disappearing and is intended as not only a "gift" to the next generation, but as a homage to Modica and the countryside that surrounds it.  It represents, quite simply, say Simone and Giuseppe, the "voice of the earth."

AN EXPERIMENT

I am not, as many of you know, a nature-lover: I'm scared of insects, am underwhelmed by the countryside and plants give up and keel over when they see me coming. Whilst I sometimes envy my Sicilian friends who have second homes in the country, especially in summer when a change of air must be pleasant, I could not, as they do, abandon the town for three to five months. I can admire the beauty of their rural surroundings for a few hours but then withdrawal symptoms set in and I yearn for the comforting sound of traffic, the illusory world of a perfumery and an internet connection. Like that heroine of mine, Germaine de Staël, I am "totally urban".

Be that as it may, I could not resist, on Friday, this pretty bougainvillea. So now it is on my bedroom balcony and I rather think it needs a little help. Please wish it good luck!

The hedgehog came from Britain and she's called Henriette Hérisson.

MOUNTAINGIRL'S PHOTO CHALLENGE - "WISDOM"

I can't believe it's Friday already and therefore time for my friend mountaingirl's Photo Challenge. This week's theme is "wisdom".

There are many different types of wisdom, just as there are many different types of intelligence [or "multiple intelligences" as I believe the jargon term is]. However, your intelligence cannot protect you from the force of your emotions and anyone who thinks it can has not yet acquired wisdom. Perhaps wisdom is knowing when and how to use our intelligence.

I am not religious but keep a framed copy of the famous Serenity Prayer by Nieburh:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

This is because it is the prayer of Gamblers Anonymous, an organisation which helped my wonderful, flamboyant, generous and kind gambling father.

Perhaps the wisest person I ever knew was my great aunt Mabel, who lived with us until her death in 1964. [I have written more about her here.] She had many wise sayings and I wish I'd taken more notice of these and talked to her more, but I thought that no one over 16 had any wisdom at all! One of her most comforting sayings was, "This, too, will pass...."

My Grandpa [on my mother's side] also lived with us and could do no wrong in my eyes. He had the wisdom of a countryman and many of what I used to think of as his peculiarities are deemed good habits today: separating different types of rubbish, squashing items so that they'd take up less room in the bins and never, ever, wasting anything.

Lastly, here's a touch of Italian wisdom for you:

Butta sulla terra e credi in Dio = "Throw [your seeds] onto the earth and believe in God."

The Cava d'Ispica, Sicily.

A VISIT TO DONNAFUGATA

The last time I visited Donnafugata the Castle was being restored and the grounds were also a mess so I was very happy to spend some time there today with Rosa and her husband.

I should explain that this is not the Donnafugata made famous by the film Il Gattopardo - that is in the Province of Agrigento. "Our" Donnafugata is here in the Province of Ragusa.

Disappointingly, perhaps, the Castle's name does not mean "The woman who fled" but is the result of a linguistic corruption: the 10th - 11th century Arabs, finding a fresh water fountain on the site, first built there and named it "Ayn As Jafat" ["Fountain of health"] and this became "Ronnafuata" in dialect and later "Donnafugata." However, there are romantics who still insist that Queen Blanche of Navarre ran away from a loveless marriage and was later imprisoned there, so you may believe whichever version you prefer.

The Castle that we see today is largely due to the work and imagination of the 19th century politician, Barone Corrado Arezzo de Spuches [1824-95] and, with its mixture of architectural and landscaping styles, is a fine example of that era's eclecticism. I think Corrado must have been rather a jolly baron!

Visitors are understandably not allowed to take photographs inside the Castle but you can see some images of the rooms here while this model gives an idea of the overall structure:



Now I'll let you enjoy some of the exterior views and some shots of the grounds [and us!]




The leaves from the fig tree above were used as postcards in the Baron's time!


Above: views of the "French garden". The scent of rosemary here is sublime.

Above: terrace views. I think Rosa should have appeared in yesterday's "finery" post, don't you? The picture immediately above was taken from the terrace.

Above: Rosa and hubby on the steps.

Immediately above: a "coffee house" in the grounds for the Baron's guests.
Below: grotto and behind it a small "temple" in the grounds.

Below: side and rear views of the Castle.

I hope you have enjoyed this first visit to Donnafugata. There will be more photos later today or tomorrow.

SPATULIDDA

The wild gladioli that grow in Sicily.
Gladioli dei campi.
Gladiolus italicus Miller.

I had never seen one before today.

FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW

I wrote this for the What I See Out My Window feature at StumbleUpon, forgot about it and today saw that it was published on February 22nd . I thought I'd share it here as well this evening:

What I See Out My Window - Modica, Sicily

From my sitting room window, I can see the house opposite, the street, the Post Office with people hurrying to it and the same people hurrying even more when they come out at least an hour later, for that is a place which you enter and abandon all hope. Unfortunately, neither the house nor the street are very interesting and I cannot take a photo of people's expressions from my second-floor balcony.

Therefore I have decided to share with you the view from my bedroom window. This is completely different and I think you will agree that it doesn't seem like town at all. Only the modern apartment buildings and the cranes in the distance hint at an urban setting.

The fields belong to neighbours and are divided by typically Sicilian drystone walls. These are everywhere in Sicily and there are various theories as to their original purpose: part of an irrigation system, an attempt to lessen the effect of landslides or simply to fence land off. Who knows? To me they have a beauty all of their own. You never see anyone working on them, yet they are nearly all well maintained. This is one of the joys of living in Sicily: traditions are respected and valued whilst we are very much a part of modern Italy.

To the left, you can just see a clump of what look like cacti: these are the fichi d'India or prickly pear plants, as much a feature of the Sicilian landscape as the drystone walls. The leaves grow into enormous plants from wherever the wind drops them and in October they produce their wonderful fruit. It is sold by the crate and can be eaten raw, used to make ice cream or in liqueurs. You have to be careful not to let your hands have any contact with the thorns and it is best to get a Sicilian to give you a lesson in how to prepare them for eating. I love them!

The sky is not always blue like this: in fact it is dull and raining as I write but only very rarely does it become dark in the daytime. It is never grey as in Britain, even when we have a thunderstorm. So on most days, I can look out of my bedroom window and see exactly what you are seeing now. It is a view which brings me peace.

SICILY IN BLOOM

At this time of year some of the countryside looks dried out, as in the first photograph, though it can take on that lovely golden colour that you see in some shots of the film version of Il Gattopardo. But if you look up. as I chanced to do this morning, strolling back from a different supermarket to my usual one, there is still a riot of colour to behold.

FIORI DI MAI

I wanted to show you the lovely, yellow carpet of fiori di mai which covers Sicily in April and May. These photos were taken some years ago at Camarina and for me, the exuberant, inexorable bursting forth of new life represented by the flowers among these ancient tombs evokes both sadness and hope.