Sicily (cont.)

8:19 PM Wednesday, August 6, 2008 Sicilia

Hello again,


Here in Sicily things are going quite nice. Yesterday we had a really nice dinner with Giuseppe’s family… they made pastefritte which are basically like the bread for elephant ears and we put salt or sugar or honey on them. Good stuff. We stayed at the table for a long time discussing many different things from the differences between the US and Italy as well as the differences between Sicily and the rest of Italy. I learned a lot last night and its very interesting the situation here. For instance, the Sicilians (most importantly the Mafiosi) subscribe to a code of conduct called the “Omertá”. Basically what it consists of minding your own business. Despite all of the criminal activities that “may or may not” go on around here, everybody knows about them and keeps their mouth shut because if they were to speak, they won’t have a mouth to speak from much longer.  

I found out that the mafia here is very well organized and they basically have their “mani in pasta” (literally: hands in pasta; symbolically: some type of influences) in basically every operation down here. I asked if it would be possible to live here and still remain honest and out of the mafia’s eye and I was told yes, but if I were to start a business or any type of work, sooner or later someone will come knocking on my door.

We talked about how different the people are in the US and those here in Italy. A prime example – one that has come to mind before but never this potent – was the simple fact that in the US people agree with the statement: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Putting this in a political context, it makes much more sense to me now when Italians ask me “If Bush has done all of these bad things, why don’t you get rid of him?” and my only response before this was “It’s not that easy”. Here in Italy, things are the complete opposite. Over here they elect representatives that have switched parties multiple times even from the Left and Right. Can you imagine a candidate running in the US that has gone from the Democrats to the Republicans to the Libertarians and STILL won the seat?

Perhaps we are more stubborn in our ways, but what I see also stems from the fact that we take our political gestures and thoughts personally. Here if you talk politics it is not as if you are offending someone by disagreeing with them – in fact it is oftentimes welcomed because then it makes for a heated discussion (if you’ve ever met an Italian you might have noticed they get excited quickly). Instead, we DON’T talk politics at all because if someone disagrees with us and or one party doesn’t know how to defend their belief we think of it as a personal attack on who we are and what we believe. Here it’s assumed that both parties are right from the start and they litigate just to litigate, if someone changes their mind – it happens, if not both go away satisfied with a good argument under their belt.

This I like, but it also means that very little actually gets done here in Italy because people are always changing their mind. How can you build a bridge from Sicily to Calabria with 7 different plans (I’m making this up) for bridges – each from a different party, each with it’s own pros and cons? At the end, who gets to decide this? On top of that, what if the land where you want to build on is under the hands of the mafia? (That part is true from what I understand – I hope I don’t get a knock on my door anytime soon.)

As you can see Italy is a beautiful place with many problems, though the problems are different from ours back home. It doesn’t take away, either, from the fact that no matter where you go here in Italy you are bound to find an absolutely beautiful view.
Speaking of beautiful views, I went to a waterpark today called Etnaland where you could see a beautiful view of the smoking mountain (Etna). I went with Giuseppe’s friends while Beppe and Marco slept. Haha I was the “American Boy” all day long. Giuseppe’s friends were basically all from Sicily and there was one girl from Napoli. They could not have been nicer to me. They really took care of me and thought to include me in everything they did. OK it’s time for dinner.