A little too much Italian culture

My heart has slowed down and there are no more shakes. This was a day that will not soon be forgotten. I cannot believe how things fell into place and how we all ended up safe in the end! I was supposed to pick up Kyle from school and was not supposed to have our guests Rick and Marilyn with me - just Vika. But things didn't work that way and they were with me - and thank God they were! We were driving home from Kyle's school along the Domitiana (That is one the main street along the outside of our village and only three entrances to our village from that street. Although on the other (east) side of the Domitiana there is more development it's generally not referred to as part of the main village.) It's very unusual to run into traffic at that time so I thought we must be approaching an accident. The road has a cement median and round abouts along the way. There was no traffic coming towards us and traffic was stopped in front of us. We were only a couple of blocks from the turn off for our place so I thought we'd find a way through. As we got closer I realized that traffic was slowing for garbage dumpsters that had been pulled and tipped in the middle of the street. What a prank! But really none of use were too put out so I drove around and continued on our way. Then we saw more dumpsters pulled into the middle of the street and dumped. Now we were thinking this is a little bit more than a prank but only being less than 2 km from home we continued. Then traffic stopped. That is when we all took a deeper breath and realized maybe this was something none of us expected.

We were parked in bumper to bumper traffic - with cars trying to run around on a dime and drive out going against the one way traffic. It was CHAOS and it got worse. We even had a dumpster dragged and tipped into the road in front of us. I didn't know what was going on but felt tension rising and knew it wasn't good but still thought we'd just go home. After 20 minutes or so we decided to turn off the main street and try the side streets to see if we could just get up the couple more blocks to the next roundabout where we could turn off. All the streets either dead ended or lead us back to where we started. We drove up and down the lane like streets and even cut across some vacant lots only to get more stressed and find ourselves back where we started - again. I am truly thankful that Rick was int he backseat with the kids. He and "Fireman Kyle" were drawing up the "fire map" in case we needed to find our way to the closest McDonalds. We saw many Africans walking towards the center of the activity and we stopped and talked to at least three of them. Maybe I should of been hesitant to speak to strangers in such a strange situation but I've always found the Africans in this area extremely friendly and they also all speak English. We were told several time that the roads were being blocked because the Italians (police we incorrectly assumed at the time) killed 7 Africans "with no reason". We were yelled at over and over - until I figured out that if I rolled down the windows and spoke English (then they knew we were not Italians) they were very friendly and even helpful to us. One gentleman even told us to try to get close to the barricade that completely blocked the road and let them know we were tourists and they would let us through. Bu how on earth could we even get close!

The kids had had enough. because we were pretty much parked I actually allowed them to get out of their carseats and a game of pass the baby began. (Do you know how finely ground cheerios can get?) We were running out of ways to keep everyone entertained. Kyle knew this was not a good situation and at one point just started screaming! (Have I mentioned how thankful I am that Rick was with us? He was FANTASTIC with Kyle!) Over and over we were weighing our options - do we park off the main street and wait, do we try to work our way through, do we try to go the wrong way through traffic and just get out of the area, or do we park the car and walk home (in the rain) and hope the car will be left untouched? We drove the back streets some more and made no progress. We all agreed that we would give one try to get through the blockade. A pretty impossible task to do when traffic was NOT moving - as in people had even deserted their cars. We had been watching an Italian school bus and kept commenting on that poor bus driver stuck with a load full of what looked like primary students. And their poor parents who were waiting and waiting for their children to arrive home. Eventually the Africans realized the bus needed to get through. I never realized I could glue myself in an Alfa Romeo station wagon to the bumper of a school bus. I became it's shadow. And sure enough it was lead right through the barrier. I kept the window cracked and kept yelling "do you speak English?" and it worked! We were allowed to turn around and go back on the other side of the street. I prayed - yes prayed - that we didn't get a flat tire after driving through so much debris and garbage.

Phew! We were free! What was normally a 10 minute drive had taken over and hour and a half and we still weren't home. Again, we found ourselves, with slightly less adrenolin, weighing our options; do we go to the mall, try to get in to the village from the north side or come up with something else to do? We decided to give it one shot to get through the north side of town. It was a long drive around and I knew if we could get close to the Holiday Inn I could probably get home - assuming the village center had been spared. At this point I was able to let go of some of the worry about our immediate safety and realized I may not have a home to go to? What if the village was the center of the riots and what we saw was only the perimeter. We drove on. At the north end of town, on the Domitiana, we again found dumpsters that had been dumped (but also uprighted again) and all the street signs pulled out of the ground and strewn across the road. The traffic ahead looked clear so we carried on. It was quite the slalom driving course but we made it through to the first entrance to the town. And we all held our breath as we were really not sure what we would find in town. We could breath again, the main village was untouched. In a matter of minutes we were home - after well over an hour and 45 minutes of trying. It was 5:15. We drove in and parked the car and before the gate had even closed our next door neighbour was there. "Michelle! Are you OK!" " Did you get Kyle" We quickly learned that yes indeed there had been a homicide/assassination and seven people were dead. There were parents from our village with kids in Kyle's school that could not get out to get their kids! Thank God we were home safe! Our neighbour advised us "DO NOT go out again tonight!" I just received a message from another friend (at 8:30) who had a delivery from the US military base - normally a 20 minute drive - and it took them over FOUR hours! Obviously the protests are still out there and even growing!

Now here's what we know - it was a mafia hit, actually two of them one at each end of our village- drug related. Seven people dead (rumours have it that it is 1 Italian and 6 Africans) There are many claims that the wrong people were killed, thus the protests. For those of you who have read Gomorrah: Italy's other Mafia you'll be familiar with the Casalese Clan.

And wouldn't you know tonight we have babysitters and it was to be the first date for us in eight months! I guess I can be thankful that all of us were home safe and sound and we shared a wonderful family (extended family too) dinner together.