Visit From A Rich Uncle From N.Z.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31225, 24 November 1966, Page 2

Visit From A Rich Uncle From N.Z.

“Si, si, casa Sivalli,” the woman said; “This is the Sivalli house.” “This is Mr Smith, from New Zealand,” said my guideinterpreter. I shook hands with Mrs Sivalli and handed her a bunch of carnations.

“Avanti,” she said; “Come in.”

It was dark, but that was not our main difficulty they just

don’t name their streets and number their houses in Camaro Inferiore the way we do in New Zealand.

The Sivallis’ house was a surprise. Instead of the hovel I had been expecting, it turned out to be a flat in a mul-ti-storey block. Apart from the fact that it was overcrowded, by our standards, it could have been a unit in any New Zealand block of State flats. But I was glad the Sivallis lived on the ground floor and not the seventh floor, for there was no lift. Mrs Sivalli showed us into the diningroom-cum-parlor, which, I later discovered, doubles as a bedroom for an 18-year-old. A pleasant-faced woman with greying hair, Mrs Sivalli had evidently been expecting me; I had had some correspondence with the authorities in Messina. “Giovanna!” called Mrs Sivalli, and a bright-eyed girl of 15 appeared in the doorway. Like her mother, Giovanna seemed to be in the best of spirits. Well clothed, well nourished, adequately housed (by Sicilian standards), she was by no means the pathetic waif I had visualised. When my wife and I decided six years ago to “sponsor” Giovanna, through the Save the Children Fund, her family was in very straitened circumstances. Mr Sivalli, an agricultural labourer, was hired by the day—when there was any work to be had. The dossier on the family told us there was often not enough money in the household to buy the clothes, medicines, even all the food, needed for the family of seven children. (“Seven children is too many,” Mr Sivalli later confided to me. “There are too many children in Sicily—too many mouths to feed.”) Life must have been grim for the Sivallis five years ago, when only one of the children was earning wages—sporadically, like his father. Other members of the family appeared, and were duly introduced: Anna (28, married, three children), Letterio (25, married, two children), Felicetta (22, married, pregnant), Giovacchino (20), Antonino (13) and Rita (12). Broke Ice

My guide, Mr Umberto, helped me to break the ice with Mrs Sivalli and the children, interpreting the Sicilian dialect and improving my limping Italian, half-forgotten after 20 years. I was still apprehensive, for Mr Sivalli had not arrived. 1 had read about the proud, jealous Sicilian men, and I knew I must be careful not to offend the allpowerful head of the household. I need not have worried. From the moment I shook hands with Giuseppe Sivalli and read the welcome in his smile we were mates —“compari,” was his word. A slight-ly-built man in his fifties, he must find bricklaying (his present occupation) heavy work. He looked tired when he arrived, wearing work trousers and a black, shortsleeved singles. Owned No Suit I was mildly surprised to see him in working clothes at night, in contrast to his well-dressed womenfolk. But when he appeared in the same gari> (still unshaven) the next two days, I guessed that if he owned a suit he would have worn it. A son-in-law, Nino Ruboschano, and a daughter-in-law, Anna, had also appeared and the small room was overflowing with a dozen people. We drank coffee, then beer, then cbianti; I had orought a flagon of chianti, but Mr Sivalli would not hear of opening my flagon until we had drunk his beer. The clatter of cups, the chink of glasses, the excited chatter rose to a crescendo. Suddenly I realised I was accepted.

“Chin, Chin'*

When Nino raised his glass in an informal toast he surprised me with the familiar toast, “Chin, chin.” Then I realised the words—"cin, cin,” in Italian—must have been popularised by the Cinzano liquor firm: one of their advertisements reads, “Cin, Cin —Cinzano.” “Why Cin, Cin?” I asked innocently, looking at my glass of chianti: “This isn’t Cinzano.” The pun—my first and last in Italian—was received with delight, and the mere mention of “Cin, Cin” was good for a chuckle any time in the next few days. Before the party broke up that night we laid plans for a rily outing the next day. erio and Nino each had

With a sigh of relief, I walked inside. It had taken us more than an hour to find the Sivafii’s house, although it was only four or five miles from Messina, Sicily’s main port, whence we had set off in a rented car.

, the use of a car, and, with my rented Fiat 1500, we reckoned we could transport 18 people. So we duly mustered about

noon on Saturday and set off, first to Messina, where I duly admired the medieval cathedral with its novel campanile. The hours and quarters are struck by life-sized figures hitting gongs and clashing cymbals. We took the first of several dozen pictures with my camera; the Sicilian enthusiasm for being photographed is equalled, in my experience, only by the Japanese. Along Coast Squeezed once more into our inadequate transport, we drove out of the city north along the sunlit coast. On the drive towards the promontory called Charybdis (2000 years ago—l didn’t discover its modern name) Scylla (now Silla) was visible across the oncefearsome Straits of Messina. The trip was full of interest, ancient and modern.

It was as well there was so much to hold my attention on the way: motoring in Sicily’s heat with a carload of people who are not too particular about bathing or brushing their teeth is not for the squeamish.

A tidal lake hove into view before we reached Charybdis. We spent most of the afternoon on the shores of the picturesque Lago di Ganzirri. The lake covers several thousand acres and is given over to mussel-farming, trawling and boating. The Mediterranean blue of the water contrasts with the parched hills, dotted with olive trees, surrounding the lake: patches of sub-tropical plants, cottages with tiled roofs, and brightlypainted fishing boats stand out vividly along the shores.

The lakeside restaurant where we stopped for a meal had tables and chairs set out for six people. Fortunately the proprietor had the wit to produce several bottles of wine while he improvised a trestle table for our large party. Reminding myself that I should not eat raw mussels taken from a lake which, for all I knew, served as a sewer outlet, I took a seat at one end of the table. Nino was on one side of me, Giovacchino at the other, my interpreter scarcely within shouting distance near the foot of the table. Plied with wine and food, I soon found myself using Italian words and phrases I never knew I had learned.

“Could I emigrate to New Zealand?” (Giovacchino.) “Do you have mussels in New Zealand?” (Nino). I also found I had been eating—and enjoying—raw mussels. Brush Dith Law Still at the wheel of the rented car. I had a brush with the law near Catania. Apparently I had one passenger too many in the car, and I was about to be “booked” for this crime when my “excess” passengers debouched from the car and engulfed the policeman. The little knot of ex-

cited people on the roadway, chattering in the staccato Sicilian dialect and gesticulating like opera singers, made a lively scene. Eventually, with noble condescension, authority pocketed its black book, shook hands ceremoniously with every male over the age of 13, and waved us on with a “buon viaggio.” At the airport I bade farewell to the Sivalli family, kissing each member of the party on each cheek. If I offended against Sicilian custom in kissing Mrs Sivalli before Mr, or Nino before Giovanna, I guess it didn’t matter: I was Catania airport’s V.I.P. that day. The first-class passengers are probably still wondering why the insignificant foreigner in the secondclass compartment got such a send-off.

A Christchurch member of the Save the Children Fund called on the child his family has sponsored in Sicily for five years while overseas this year. In this article he describes his meeting with the sponsored girl and her family.