Seaside Holiday in Empire
We got back from Italy two months ago. I’ve planned to sit down and write many times but instead focused on catching up with family and friends, as well as sorting out my future life plans! More on that some other time.
Meanwhile, we are safely ensconced in coastal Maine for a month… the vacation from our gap year. Jokes aside, I’m really happy we were smart enough to plan three months of chill in the US, including a month of extra-extra chill time in Maine at the midway point of our special year. After absorbing new information, sights, and sounds at an alarming rate for most of the first 5 months of the year, the familiar calm of Maine is deeply appreciated. Besides, we’re focused on planning the second leg of our travels on THE continent (i.e. Africa). More on that sooner.
Funny enough, we got a small taste of Africa and the world while in southern Italy for six wonderful weeks. Throughout our travels, and especially on the island of Sicily, we kept unlayering the onion of conflicts and empires that have shaped the region for centuries -- including but not limited to Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, Normans, and Spaniards. Empires are the long arm of history, while nation states are so young. Italy as a unified country is only 162 years old, and like the US, their union is still a work in progress.
One of the things that has often struck me while traveling the world is the fissures and delicate sutures across many small and distinct cultures everywhere. Humans are social and collective in nature but living together successfully on a national scale and across vast differences is still new and very hard. To be clear, most of my touristic travel so far has been in Europe and the evidence of “tribal” conflicts I have learned about and witnessed while driving across France, Spain, and the Balkans bears resemblance to everything I’ve been taught about such things in sub-Saharan Africa.
You have to pay close attention to see the divisions play out -- for example, on highway signs in the Basque & Catalan regions of Spain, at hyperlocal historical museums everywhere, and in conversations with locals. While traveling, I’ve learned about identities, languages, connections, histories, and fights for recognition that I’d never heard of before arriving in a particular small town or region. I remember staying at a charming B&B in Sauris, Italy several years ago and learning how defiantly intent our host was to teach his children Zahre, an ancient language and culture related to Bavarian Germany.
Well, the Sicilians are similarly rocking an identity that only sometimes includes Italy as a whole. As everyone we met could recite, the Sicilians have a long & storied list of conquerors given their strategic position in the Mediterranean. Siracusa was once the capital of the Greek empire. Sicilians also have their own language. We perused many a menu that offered choices via Italian, English, and Sicilian. Current public policy towards migrants arriving daily on Sicilian shores is relatively humane and welcoming, i.e. radically different from that of the national Italian government. Our first meal in Palermo was Senegalese Maafe at a restaurant featuring dishes from recent immigrant communities.
The Sicilians we met were proud of the ways they have been shaped at the crossroads of Europe and Africa -- which shows up in their language, food (arancini!), architecture, Holy Week traditions, and attitude. While I don’t agree, I did understand when one of our tour guides declared, “Sicilians can’t be racist because of our history. We love everyone.”
Our time in southern Italy -- Sicily, Naples, Puglia -- was a continuous lesson on how humans repeatedly rocked by incursions of empire make sense of the world. We loved every minute. And, delightfully, the sea was never farther than 30mins away throughout.
As always… If you want to see more photos or read brief missives on different areas we visited and things we experienced, please check out my instagram posts from April and May. In upcoming posts, we’ll be sharing Steve’s food favorites, reading lists, and more.
I got a sense of the experience you had in Italy from your IG posts and appreciate reading it in long form. Enjoy Maine! Your spot looks gorgeous.