The Mafia's black hand, migranti in Siracusa & Buon Pasqua

Guarda! This is what happens in Sicily when someone makes you "an offer you can't refuse" and you refuse. Or at least that's the word on the street. This small unextraordinary pizzeria on Via Giudecca (the main one- not the smaller Viale Giudecca) was firebombed last Sunday night at 2am in the morning. The blast woke my friend Carlo, of "Mom invasion" fame, who lives down the street. This is the old Jewish ghetto in Siracusa a popular neighborhood among young locals since there's not much tourism here- several buildings are still pretty distressed and rent is cheap. There's a popular wine bar down the street called Tinkite and I'm particularly fond of one of the sisters who runs it- ciao Maria...
Anyway, the folks who ran this little negozio are also supposedly very nice. The pizza wasn't anything to write home about- (and yet here I am) but it wasn't bad and it was very cheap. Perhaps too cheap- because everyone says this place was targeted by the local MAFIA for not paying the piper. La Cosa Nostra qui in carina Siracusa! Non! Non posso credere. But apparently so. Interesting. ... because one morning I went into this place- and a well dressed guy with a large briefcase came in a sat at the counter. The owner came out and- as far as I could make out- the guy was there to fill an order form and the owner was saying he really didn't need anything- but the guy just sat there and looked at his watch as if to say, "listen you and I both know you have to order SOMEthing, so... why are we wasting time." And after that, I went back to the Hostel I was staying in at the time and announced "I think I may have seen Mafia today." But I didn't really think I had. But NOW... I'm pretty sure I did.
Anyway... there IS Mafia in Sicily- and there was some of it right here in Siracusa today. This morning- Easter Morning (Pasqua in Italy) a sbarca, or a peschebarca- a fishing boat- was spotted 26 miles of the coast of Sicily carrying 87 Egyptians- and the boat was brought in to Siracusa. This is interesting because 1) I'm not aware of any boats making it to Siracusa... as you're probably aware- most of these boats are landing in Lampadusa, Sicily's southernmost island. But those are mostly Tunisian and these were 2)) Egyptian refugees. E diversi. and #3) accompanying them were 13 smugglers. They were immediately arrested and are suspected of being part of a mafia refugee smuggling operation. According to the Italian telegiornale only 18 Egyptians were allowed to disembark here- the rest were taken south to Portopalo- (except the smugglers who were arrested). Anyway- I'm going to follow up on this- if not tomorrow then Tuesday with Ramzi. Ramzi speaks Arabic and I'd like to see if we can talk to some of the guys who got off the boat here. But he's out of town until Tuesday. It's very interesting- no? I will follow up.
BTW I fully support Berlusconi's initiative- why not give the migranti (the refugee immigrants) papers to travel throughout the EU for 6 months. THe rest of the EU nations have self righteously lectured Italy about the immigration "problem" and completely refused to help or provide any humanitarian assistance. They've ignored repeated requests by the ITalian foreign minister to meet and discuss the problem. So Il Cavalieri simply issued them papers. Brilliant. For a while France responded by shutting down the north-bound train- I think it's one that goes from Genoa to Marseille (not sure about that). But it's running again and finally Sarkozy is coming here on Weds to talk to the PM directly. See- that's government Mafia-style, sometime you just have to make them an offer they can't refuse.
Meanwhile I've been hosting some migrants- or one migrant. This is Nicholas, a very nice French biker who contacted me through couchsurfer. He's biking the entire Meditteranean- here's his route (see pic). He's already biked Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia and put something like 20,000 KM on the bike (over 5 months). It was a pleasure to host him for three days last weekend. The weather was horrible, but he ate everything I put in front of him and rested up. We took a small bike ride together to Plemmirio (about 15 KMs away. Give me a break. Sono vechio- I'm an old man) on the opposite side of the bay. It was a beautiful spot- a spit of land that juts out into mediterranean. There are some pillbox bunkers left over from WWII. Would be a beautiful place to camp. I'll try to load a picture. We got caught in the rain on the way back. The following morning he was off to Catania- bon voyage Nick! It was amazing to see how efficiently he was traveling- two rear saddlebag, two saddlebags on a rack mount on the front wheel, a small duffel sandwiched between the saddlebags on the rear rack- and a small handlebar bag with a weatherproof clear plastic pocket for his map. Incredibile! BTW Nick said he had no problem using couchsurfer throughout North Africa- the people were incredibly generous and hospitable- a sentiment echoed again and again by people who've traveled there. In fact, he said he was finding it more difficult to line up couches in Europe- . Nick's website where he's blogging about his trip is www.nrichaud.eu, but I think it's in French.
Anyway, he's off.. but there are other couchsurfers on the way... I think next weekend. I better look into that and get my dates straight.
Allora Buon Pasqua from Siracusa. uova ciocolata per tutti.