The Bits of Sicily that we know

      
      We have been surrounded by Sicilian culture ever since we came to live in Brazil in 1977. My mother-in-law, Giovanna, was born in Catania in 1910. When she was two years old her family emigrated, moving her and her two older sisters, Tina and Fatima, to São Paulo. There another two girls, Rose and Renata, were born. Later she married Afredo Bonino from Napoli, and together they founded the first Galeria Bonino in Buenos Aires. They loved to travel to discover and purchase art, and on a long summer trip to Sicily in the mid-fifties - when Domenico Modugno came to fame with this sad song about a sword fish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoMH3T1zcLE - he later won the 1958 Eurovision song contest singing "Volare," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-DVi0ugelc - they did some serious shopping. They bought an entire antique Sicilian cart,

which they must have pulled apart to ship back to South America. The pieces that remain have found their places in our home, along with an expressive - and surprisingly heavy - bronze puppet and a huge tapestry depicting fierce battles. In fact, most of the things we have speak of tragedy, blood and gore - and illustrate what I have come to learn about Sicily's long and troubled history.

        As usual I have turned to the local literature to prepare for the trip, reading Andrea Camilleri's first Inspector Montalbano mystery, The Shape of Water, Marlena de Biasi's That Summer in Sicily, and am in the process of reading the best of the three, Giuseppe di Lampedusa's The Leopard.
       We leave tomorrow for a long trip to Palermo via Lisbon and Rome and will tour the island for two weeks. Our last day and night will be in Catania and it will be the first time Oswaldo has seen where his mother was born. Haja emoção.