Troina, as I said before, is located in the hinterland of Sicily. It is essentially a mountain town, with its city center being the highest in Sicily. This is a part of Sicily that (until global warming) regularly got snow, that grows soft wheat instead of durum wheat, and overlooks miles and miles of countryside. Not surprisingly, medieval lords took one look at Troina and realized its utility as a fortress. For the modern era, it means that the streets are narrow and steep, and my GPS was incredibly confused all the time.
Now, a quick note on the countryside - it is shocking how similar the Sicilian countryside is to Southern California. The vegetation is ridiculously similar, partly helped by the fact that Sicilians love prickly pear cactuses and grow them commercially. And the hills and mountains all look hauntingly familiar. Per the family lore (and my godfather is the guy who actually witnessed this), my great-grandmother was completely shocked to see where her grandson was living. He was based somewhere in Southern California, and when she visited him, she looked around, shook her head, and immediately regretted not moving to California. In fact, a good part of the San Diego fishing industry came from Sicilian immigrants who (unlike my great-grandmother) had heard about San Diego's resemblance to Sicily. It was genuinely shocking to fly thousands of miles and immediately see eucalyptus and palm trees growing alongside cactuses. Oh, and also disconcerting to me lately is that the houses on the hill in my neighborhood remind me of looking out onto Troina from my hotel.
With that being said, Troina in recent years has had two major events that drove economic activity after the great diaspora of the late 19th/early 20th Century*. The first happened after World War 2, when the Ancipa Dam was built. The Ancipa Dam, whose construction killed dozens of workers, provides electricity and water to a good chunk of Sicily - probably half the island. This work of infrastructure was obviously an enormous temporary boost to the local economy, but the biggest development was the Oasi (which I call the oasis).
The Oasi is a hospital for children born with mental disorders and adults with dementia. Founded by a Father Luigi Ferlauto, the Oasi takes children and adults from all over Sicily, and for purposes of treatment of mental disorders. The OaThe hospital itself has a hotel attached to it so that the families of patients can visit their loved ones, and to host various conferences.
Because we were a group of 18, we ended up staying in the at hotel, as opposed to one of the B&Bs in town. That lead to an interesting dynamic - we were giddy Americans living out our dreams of seeing our ancestral home, and catching up with relatives we hadn't seen in years, while the other guests were there visiting family members in often the worst of circumstances. By the way, if anyone reading this post was there at the time and was offended by our behavior, I apologize most sincerely.
One other thing to note about Troina - the town itself is pretty, old, and very clean. Not clean in the way that Taormina is clean*, but clean in the way that small towns are clean. The residents take pride in their town, and the whole town was virtually devoid of graffiti - something unheard of in other parts of Italy. In fact, when I mentioned on social media that Catania was a beautiful but gritty city, one of my Sicilian cousins made sure to comment that Troina was clean. And it is. Absolutely spotless.
*Part of my dislike of Taormina stems from the driver my parents hired to take us from Catania to Taormina. He was from Taormina and made several comments supportive of fascists which, given the artificiality of Taormina, makes a lot of sense. Catania, meanwhile, reminded me of hanging out in New York City with my roommate back in the 1990s (although Catania is 1,000,000 times safer than Alphabet City), and so I am immediately appreciative of it.
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