12th entry – calabria 2009

Monday morning Alyssa, AnnaRita and I went to join the rosario walk to La Madonna delle Timpe. This time they aske AnnaRita, Mario and Tonina’s second child, to lead the rosary.

It was a beautiful morning and I took pics of the sun on the back of the church rather than any inside shots. A couple of the shots have a shadow of me taking the pic.

Unlike the Saturday rosario walk, no one brought coffee. The walk back was still pleasant and several picked blackberries to eat or take home. Also, all around us you could hear the sheep bells and the sheep dogs barking.

After the mid-day meal I went to the cemetery with Mario, Tonina and Alyssa. With Mario there I got to all the graves I could not readily find the last time I was there. I also got to see the cappelle, crypts,  that Mario purchased for his family. Death is a different experience in Aprigliano. Mario and Tonina were proud of the fact that they had already purchased the crypts where they would be buried.Cross 024I can’t see Ciccio and Mafalda doing that. In Canada as in the US, pre-buying your burial plot and maintaining it is not a thing people do. As a matter of fact most people would think it strange if someone did that. In Aprigliano, that Sunday morning Mario and his family went to the cemetery to clean the family crypt.

One thing I had noticed the last time I was shooting at the Aprigliano cemetery was the various crosses atop each grave. I began shooting these crosses and was astonished to discover that they were all different, that they all seemed hand forged and that some of them were truly beautiful. The one in the pic was the so unusual. The cross seems like a modern construct and yet it was atop one of the oldest tombs. I suspect that when it was put up it was the cheapest thing the family could afford. (It looks like someone found two discarded pieces of metal on the foundry floor and forged them together.) Now the contrast between an old brick tomb and a modern-looking cross is great.