Beyond These Skies....Part 5....Sicilia!!

Sicily with its dreadful poverty; real life is never far from anyone’s mind. The mafia has been the only successful business in Sicily for centuries and it still continues to keep a hand in everyone’s lives. Palermo, a city which Goethe once claimed was possessed of an indescribable beauty may now be the only city in Western Europe where you can still find yourself picking your steps through World War II rubble, just to give you a sense of development there. The town has been systematically uglified beyond description by the hideous and unsafe apartment blocks the Mafia constructed in the 1980’s as money laundering operations. Asked if these buildings were cheap to construct, a Sicilian man says “Oh no, this is very expensive concrete. In each batch, there are a few bodies of people who were killed by the mafia, and that costs money. But it does make the concrete stronger to be reinforced by all their bones!”

Sicily is a jumbled mass of human existence finding space where ever it can; there is no sense of zoning, no order. People stand on street corners and watch the cars simply go by. Old men sit in groups outside the bars and watch the women go by. Young boys call out to their friends on the other side of the street while young girls check their reflections in the shop windows. Car horns blast incessantly. What an utterly intoxicating yet impossible place all at the same time!

Yes it is beautiful on the outside but on the inside it is like a prison. Sicilians both love and hate their island in equal measure. So beloved and so reviled. On the surface everything is perfect and beautiful. But underneath lays a hard life. The Mafia is everywhere, in every aspect of life. Mafia is the simplest of things. Paying the guy at the car park to look after your car, the rubbish collecting on the streets, the merchants wondering the streets with their bags of fake Gucci glasses, that’s Mafia! Yet ask a Sicilian what is wrong with Sicily and they will declare “It’s not the Mafia that’s the problem with Sicily, it’s the Sicilians!”

In Sicily, the only people you can trust are your family, if you’re lucky! Your husband, your wife, your children and your parents. And that’s it! Everyone else is out to stab you in the back and ruin you, given half a chance. People live in jealousy. There is very little work and not enough money, so as soon as you have something, others automatically want to take it away from you. The only good thing about having to deal with Sicilians is that it makes you hard. If you can live in Sicily, you can live anywhere. If you can deal with Sicilians you can deal with anyone!