Pizzo!
Boy Petey
After a mosquito-bitten, interrupted sleep our first night in Catanzaro I awoke for the third time at 10:30. My ass was tired. I'm enjoying myself but also working my ass off. I am chaffeur, tour guide, travel agent and valet. Cholo has goals he wants to accomplish like finding his parent's home, or applying for an Italian passport and I am making sure these things happen. It's kicking my ass a little bit. I'm over 40 and out of shape with a bum ankle. We don't eat. It's hot as shit, but that at least I'm used to. Cholo's perfect idiomatic knowledge of Italian, and specifically the Calabrian dialect, is the grease on my wheels. It's amazing that this is his first time to Italy and no one can believe he's from Argentina. He speaks an old dialect of Calabrese that's just too authentic.
Cholo at the top of Catanzaro looking Sosuth, the Ionian sea in the background.
An iron dragon and stone lion, above the pharmacy, Catanzaro.
Memories
Cholo has many. No shortage. I'm learning more details of his and his family's life everyday. I feel very lucky. Details like these I can not get from my Mom since she's dead. My Dad is recalcitrant about the Meyaarts aside from names and dates; I think not so much because he's unwilling to reveal the past but because I don't think he realizes that anyone would care since he doesn't seem to himself.
Cholo's short term memory, however, is failing. I'm sure May has noticed and somehow I have not despite 25 years in close contact. Patience is a virtue and for this I am a virtuous man. He struggles to remember where he left his phone, phone card, glasses, phone numbers and documents. He forgets new names immediately. I'll wait until he finds what he needs and won't embarrass him by doing the looking for him. I just realized that I worry that he may forget details of this very trip as it occurs. He's almost 73 now and for the first time I think I see the shadow of age on him. When we first met in the late 80s Cholo would haul cast iron radiators out of the back of his truck like they were loaves of bread. I've continued to see him with this aura of impenitrable strength but finally I see how hard it is for him to walk and climb and move all day. He's still terrifically vibrant and witty and my main take away is that he's finally here in his parent's homeland with much of his strength and intellect intact. It's terrific to watch, but I feel like he wishes this could have happened 20 years ago.
Here's one story I like. When we visited Cousin Peppino he was recounting stories of Cholo's older brother Rafa's visit to Sciconi in '53. I asked why Rafa came to Sciconi. To work? Cholo laughs. Hard. "My broda? To work? Non. He go to show da people he ees alive." Turns out his parents and their extended family all saved money to return a family member to Sciconi. Rafa was eldest and when he turned 18 he was the envoy. This was a deliberate move by Carmella Catania (Bonavota), Cholo's mother. She lost 3 children in Calabria, suffering the disgrace of having her dead babies scooped out of her with a spoon. In Calabria. In the 20s. She came to Argentina and has 3 boys from the age of 39 to 42 and Rafa was the middle finger in the face of those who scolded, insulted and criticized her failure to make children. She never returned to Italy for this reason. Calabria left her barren and Argentina gave her fruit. Heavy stuff.
Sciconi, baby
Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be big failures in Cholo's hunt to apply for italian citizenship. *An aside: Cousin Mimmo warned that I should try not to call him "Cholo" while I'm here, at least not in public. It's Southern italian slang for "pussy". Figures. Calling him Nick is very strange and I rarely remember. I blurt out "Cholo" and get surprised looks from ladies. Hey, what if you came to the US from Bangladesh and called your father-in-law "cunt". I get it.
Catanzaro's oddly what I expected, and not so. Provincial? Yes. Sophisticated? Yes, but how? It's tiny. Good luck finding a man in shorts. There's a formality that I like and I was prepared. Cholo shuffles around in cargo shorts and looks ike he fits. How could he not? It's a crazy ascent of switchbacks to get to the main gov't zone and my driving is zoned in. But for the Lancia I'd be the shit. Did I mention what cousin Mimo said when he learned I was driving a Lancia Musa? "Musa? E una machina feminina, no?". With a smirk.
A via in Catanzaro.
Thursday AM we leave Catanzaro and make for Sciconi. I let the GPS do the talking and switch the language from English to Italian because the American English computer voice can't pronounce Italian and fucks up all the street names. I've been hating the GPS for taking me down crazy tiny streets that I ought not travel and misleading me now and again. Always trust your instincts! However for the voyage to Sciconi it's a nerve jangling blessing. I imagined that we would approach the village from the sea, the North. Instead we're led from the mountain village of Vibo Valentia to the South and we traverse tiny one-lane roads thru abandoned or barely farmed olive groves. At one point we're led thru a tiny village and I have to drive 40 meters in reverse when a 8 foot wide road narrows to 6. The smell of burning clutch is like insense. I have video too.
Approaching Sciconi.
An abandoned farmhouse. This area had a huge earthquake in 1906 and many buildings were abandoned at that time.
Coming down the mountain.
Finding we have no where left to go.
Down the mountain we come and finally we meet Via Sciconi. We pull up to the village Church to pay our respects: Chiesa San Michele. I have a kick ass picture of Saint Michael stomping on Lucifer's head. Lucifer is bummed.
Unhappy Satan.
Within moments Cholo has found a new friend, an old person to commisserate with. Cholo should walk around with the word "gregarious" in glowing capital letters above his head. In Rome it was embarrassing when he shouted "Mabuhay" to every asian person he saw, Filipino or not. Here it pays off when he finds Niccolino, 80 years young (for real). Turns out Cholo's mother did Niccolino's father's laundry. Small world, in Sciconi maybe.
Nicolino, 80 years old, leads us to the old Bonavota house.
Niccolino walks us down to the address of Cholo's mother's old house. It's gone now, replaced by something modern, but old buildings flank it. We walk to the back to see the pasture that belonged to Michele and Carmela Catania. She was a baker, but her oven has been demolished. You still get a very clear and poignant sense of their land and their life. Marginal but noble, leaving aside any kind of phony romanticism about how "pure" life may have been in dirt poor, third world Calabria.
21 Via Sciconi, the site of Cholo's parent's house.
The gate leading to the pasture begind Via Sciconi 21. Carmella Bonavota's old oven has since been demolished. She was a baker.
Niccolino takes us to visit a possible cousin where Cholo makes a new friend and it's not important whether they're actually related or not. After we're invited to Niccolino's modest home, directly next to the church and main square where he pours us a cold beer and desists, telling us he only drinks wine himself. Niccolino's 100 year old (at least!) mother clears the table of empty bottles and glasses. She stinks. It's too real to be surreal.
Cholo, Nicolino and his ancient mother.
A corner of Nicolino's home: garlic, Tropea onions and cast irons pans used to make conserve.
The schedule.
Idiomas
I have 6 years of French that can get me thru simple conversations and tight spots. I've never had a Spanish lesson but I've been studying "Castellano" in Cholo's home for almost 25 years. I've noticed lately, or at least in the 5 years that Cholo has lived near us in WPB that he's spoken less and less English. This trip has been an excellent workshop. 80% of my speech has been in Spanish, 15% in English when Cholo loses me and 5% in Italian or its slurry cugino Calabrese. I can understand Italian pretty well but can hardly speak it. I know enough to get by with numbers and simple pronouncements. It's so close to French and Spanish that I'm sure I could learn if I had time. I have no time. Gawd I'd like to be able to speak I-tal-yan. * Aside: Cholo has been shit on for the past 40+ years for his poor English. I know that my wife's stunning abilities in the business world have their foundation in working as Cholo's translator and office manager since she was 9. The man speaks 5 languages and unfortunately English is his worst. I give him a lot of credit for his accomplishments in life despite an education that ended at 11, and before that was just part-time because he needed to work to contribute to the family. Since the age of 6. And what do I have to bitch and moan about again?
Pizzo
I made arrangements to stay in Pizzo, a tiny seaside village on the Tyrrhhean sea. Pizzo! 2000 people, I think, but it swells a bit in August when the Neapolitans arrive for their summer vacation. Pizzo is famous for gelato and a dozen gastronomicas/gelaterias crowd the main square battling for customers. Cholo and I eat pistacchio and drink grappa. La vite e bella! Girls with big noses sing karaoke and line dance. It's weird and corny and fun. Lots of guys wear murses. I think of Galiafinakis in the Hangover insisting that "it's called a satchel. Indiana Jones wears one".
Pizzo at night. Can you find the three murses?
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