Carovilli 2

While we are driving there, I ask Brian what he expects from this village.. just a few things will make him happy:  if he can see with his own eyes the great mountains that he had noticed on the background of his great grandfather’s pictures, tread down the same soil his great grandfather had been walking on before he plucked up his heart to be leaving for America with his son – back then,  a little boy ( his first wife had died when she was giving birth to their child ) – to seek fortune elsewhere and to start from scratch in a land he knew nothing about …. . Brian keeps telling me about his great grandfather’s daughter, his grandmother, singing all her praises..
At last we get there and I realize that Brian doesn’t want to miss anything of this village, he asks me eagerly to translate all the signs or inscriptions that I can see, so as to grab and take back home as much as he can…
We find three old wives walking arms in arms, the oldest one in the middle, along the narrow village street; they are walking down the street and we are walking up, and they are taking up almost all the street. I introduce Brian to them, we ask them if they heard about Salvatore’s family (Brian’s great grandfather) and we learn that in the village there are a lot of emigrants’ houses, and that a lot of emigrants flock  back to their home country to spend there their whole summer.. Then we are told that “Antonino” –  nicknamed “Tony” and his wife (unfortunately, since she arrived late and I had to help two or three groups talk to each other I could not memorize her name!!)  - an Italian – American married couple are there right at the moment, in Carovilli, they ask passers-by if they have just run into them, if they know where they are, they invite a little boy to take us to their house..but we find Tony at the bar of the central square in the village… no sooner do I tell him about Brian’s investigations and report him all the details I have learned while travelling in his car, Tony’s eyes sparkle with joy and the three of us start talking in English .. In the U.S. Tony lives a short distance from the place Brain is from and they exchange a lot of the latest news on people, places and local sportsmen, just as if they were old friends and had known one other ever since..