Carnevale!

I was definitely excited about carnevale. Normally there's a school holiday during this time, but since we occupied the schools back in November, our principal said no. That didn't stop us from taking Saturday off and going with the host parents of another student to Sciacca, a small city pretty much directly south of Palermo, on the other side of the island. We spent the morning enjoying the beautiful weather in the country, before heading into town

 Sciacca

We spent the evening seeing the carri and dancers. I had never seen anything like it - great structures of paper mâché and wire, massive moving arms, eyes blinking. As this year is the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, some of the carri were especially grand. They showed important people from history, politics, and the news, as well as key places and things. There was one representing Sicily that had key parts of the economy and culture shown, such as agriculture, and fishing, and gave out tiny cups of fresh squeezed orange juice (I then held on to my tiny plastic cup for twenty minutes as I couldn't find a garbage can and I refused to do what any normal Sicilian would to and just throw it on the ground. And I wonder why I stand out.) 

Carnevale in Sciacca reminded me of Rossland Winter Carnival in a few ways. There was a very friendly atmosphere - though crowded it was not uncomfortable. Locals and out-of-towners mixed, everyone dressed up and dancing. 

Costumes and masks are a huge part of carnevale. Some people dressed up as specific celebrities or characters (we saw a lady gaga, as well as many movie characters), others wore silly socks and tights, men dressed up as women, and many wore masks and lots of makeup. Katelyn, Kaley and I bought masks from one of the vendors (though I wasn't really thinking and bought one that was both difficult to see out of and made me look a little like a cat), and enjoyed the events making several new friends. 

We got back home around 4 am, ears ringing and feet sore, and slept preparing ourselves for a day of... eating.. 

We were invited for lunch by some friends of Kaley's host family and I'm not sure if I am capable of describing just how much I ate. A normal dinner or Sunday lunch with guests includes (usually), a pasta course, a meat/bread/vegetables/salad course, fruit, and dessert. We ate homemade lasagne, sausage and pork with a lemon/mint/garlic sauce, potatoes and salad, bananas, oranges and cedri, and a massive dessert course. We had homemade almond/orange cake, chiacchiere (cookies of carnevale, usually fried, they are called Galani in Venice, and Cenci in Florence), cannoli (from Piana degli Albanese, a key place for cannoli, according to everyone here), sfincie di San Giuseppe (think a cream puff filled with cannoli filling), as well as many cookies (I had run out of room before these). 

Dessert from top: sfincie di San Giovanni, almond/orange cake, cannoli, chiacchiere, cookies.

After coffee we went back into town, hoping to see some of the historic centre by daylight. Sciacca is sort of the Sicilian town I thought of in my head before I knew what Sicily looked like, it's all winding streets that end at random, steep and narrow, with stone everywhere. We saw more of the carri as the struggled around corners (many of them being three storeys high), as well as stopping in at this church. 

We entered quietly, stepping off the loud street and into the cool interior, where members of the church softly sang and listened to the priest.

 

Back outside we saw a bit more of the city, then came back to Palermo, our weekend of carnevale finished.