About Looking for Relatives

This is my second post of the day so if you're not tired of reading when you finish, go on to the next.

Yesterday started many months ago when we got a letter from our daughter's mother-in-law. Jean DiCocco's mother and father immigrated from Sicily near the turn of the century (the last one, that is) and Jean was born here (oops, there) in the States. Jean's letter asked us to see if we could find anyone from her family still living here. With the letter she sent a photo of her with her father and his birth certificate listing the name of the town in Sicily where he was born.

We put this off for as long as we could because........... I think our greatest fear was "What if we found them." What do you say. Hi? We came to see what you looked like? You don't know us but you might be related to someone we know in America? Good-bye. Seemed a bit eccentric to drive four hours to not know what to say. Besides....we don't speak Italian well enough to ask all the right questions or know what the answer is.

But, Jean had asked us to do it and we're always up for an adventure so finally we chose the day to go. Taking our map and trusty GPS we set off on our adventure. Even on the map the road to Basico was a miniscule snake slithering into a never-never land and we were a bit nervous.

The drive was amazing. Tiny little towns nestled between giant hills. Herds of sheep drifting lazily across the road, cows sidling into our pathway so that we had to get out and "encourage" them to move on. Puffy chestnut balls clinging to their trees, not willing to let go for another week or two. And the road itself..........let's just say that not even a snake has that many wiggles.

We finally entered the town of Basico and immediately were impressed with it's beauty. High on the hill overlooking valleys of trees and farmland, it was clean and new and modern looking with just enough antiquity to capture our hearts.

I took the plunge and,while Bob took photos and video,I stopped everyone I saw (both of them) and told them my story. In my broken Italian I said we were looking for the mother of the husband of my daughter--(why didn't I just look up the word for mother-in-law.....or even just say friend?--hindsight). One lady said she used to know some Chiofolos (pronounced: key-o'-fo-lo accent on the first o....not that it matters) but they moved to Messina.

Then we went into a little pastecierra (pastry bar) for a drink and bathroom. I told the young woman our search and she replied, "La mia madre (got that so far?) e' Chiofolo." So, there we had found a possible relative. I got her mother's name and address and will send that to Jean. Mission accomplished.

But-----don't stop here. There's more to come.

We walked around the town a little and kept coming back around to an older man who was taking things out of his car, carrying them into his "house." About the third time we passed him he asked if we were looking at antiquities. We said yes and he pointed up the mountain and mentioned the castle and church. Then he asked us to come inside to see something. When we followed him in we were surprised to see it was not a house at all but the place where he made provolone cheese---of course the old fashioned way. There were barrels of whatever it's made from. Shaped provelone soaking in vats of salt water and provelone hanging from the rafters ready to take to the shops. He cut some off and gave us a taste. Soft and mellow, I could have eaten much, much more of it. It was so much better than the provelone I'm used to, and we get it "fresh" from the market. I wish we could have bought some to take home but the stores were closed for riposo--"riposo" means "I rest" in Italian. We had to be satisfied with the chunks of manna we had.

As we were leaving his little one-person factory, I told him of our quest. He stood up straight and tall and said, "Io sono Chiofolo." You guessed it, we had found another possible family member. What a treat. We took his picture and thanked him as best we knew how but he wasn't ready to let us go yet. He urged us into his car and took us up the mountain to visit the church he said was so beautiful. When we got there, it was closed in preparation for a wedding. (There were people arriving as we got into the car to leave). I could tell he was disappointed that we didn't get to see what he was so proud of. We said good-bye to Antonio Chiofolo back at the car and thanked him again.

What more could there be to top this experience? We reluctantly left Basico and headed for home. What an Italian experience. We really do live in paradise.