After we left Marilena and her mother in Delia we took the road that goes to Mistreta where Nick's cousin, Gina lives. Gina is a high school teacher of Latin and ancient Greek. Her husband, Silvestro, is a retired lawyer, and they have two children: Nino is 20 and a law student and Maria is 17 and is still in high school. Mistreta is a beautiful small town - clean, well kept and friendly. Gina and Silvestro's house looks nice from the outside but inside! Well, stunning is the only word I can think of. The house has been in Silvestro's family for a number of generations so it is very old but it has the best of Italian homes. Beautiful patterned tiles on the floor, lovely wood work, high ceilings with antique chandeliers. Actually the house is full of antiques of all sorts - Gina says she lives in a museum! The one thing that impressed me the most was a book that Nino showed me that had been published in 1668. For such an old book it was in amazing shape. One of the nicest treats however was seeing Jackie, Nick's cousin from Ottawa. By pure coincidence, she had booked a holiday to Italy at the same time as us.
We left Mistreta that afternoon and drove to Santo Stefano, where Gina and Silvestro have a lovely villa right on the water. We spent the afternoon swimming in the sea. It was warm and private and we had a wonderful time. Miyuki and Maria swam together and seemed to really hit it off.
The next day we left Miyuki with Maria in Santo Stefano and Nick and Jackie and I drove to Capizzi. Capizzi is a small mountain village of about 3500 people and it is the town where the Cacciatos originate from. Both of Nick's parents were born there as well as Jackie and Jackie had not been back since she left when she was 18. The road to Capizzi was an hour of one hairpin turn after another. When we reached Capizzi we drove through the town until we found a place to park. We stopped a passerby and asked him where the city hall was. Gina's sister, Mimma, works there as the city clerk. The passerby looked at us and said (in the Capizzi dialect) 'Oh, you are the city clerk's cousin! She is waiting for you..' The word had spread that Nick and Jackie were returning to Capizzi. We were ushered into City Hall where we met Mimma and Antonietta, another cousin who Jackie and Nick had never heard of. We were introduced to the mayor and then we were swept off to an amazing lunch of antipasto, baked ricotta, veal, horse steak, pasta, and on and on. Then we were taken on a tour of the town. Everywhere we went we met relatives and people who remembered Jackie and Nick's parents. We were invited into people's homes and shops, and were stopped every block or so by someone else who had heard we were in town. We met Carmela who is Mimma's aunt (not sure what that makes her to Nick) and she is a true Sicilian grande dame - a lady in every sense of the word. She was very kind to us, but it was clear she is a woman who is used to being listened to. One of the true treats that day was a visit to the main church. For such a small town, the church was beautiful and imposing. At the front there was a silver hand on a long stick. This silver hand apparently contained the actual finger of St. Giacomo (St. James) and they were about to carry the hand from church to church throughout the town. Jackie (who was named after this saint - Giacomina) said to us that Capizzi is a town caught in time. People still speak the same dialect as they have for decades, the festivals have not changed, and the attitudes and the thinking of people is still the same. Everyone knows everyone's business almost before they do. Personally, I loved the town, but I can see for someone as private as Jackie, it could be overwhelming. Finally, as the sun was going down, we left Capizzi. I think we all were grateful that we had been there, for different reasons. I think that Jackie had put some ghosts to bed, Nick had been able to see family and visit once again where his parents had come from, and I had been able to see small town Sicilian life a little closer. By the time we were driving back it was dark and I had to drive very slowly which was a good thing since as we turned the corner around one of the hairpin turns we were greeted on the road by two white horses, 9 cows and a calf. We stopped on this isolated mountain road and watched the animals for a few moments, listening to the cowbells - this was a sight out of Sicily from 100, 200, 1000 years ago. Then we wove the car past the animals and drove back to Santo Stefano.
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