Blending into a new place

The sun drops behind the mountains, leaving the ancient city in golden light. Rich smells of tomatoes and herbs spill from hidden restaurants, mixing with the smell of sweat and excitement that permeates and hangs like a suffocating fog in the warm evening air.

We’ve been sitting on the hot steps of the Cathedral for hours, staking our spots. There is no shade, only words muttered and jokes made in words I can barely understand. I stand as thousands of people seep noisily into the plaza, jostling their way towards the Cathedral.

It’s not been a week since I travelled to Catania on my solo exploration, not been a week since a family who knew little more than my name had taken me in. Now I wait in anticipation with thousands of devotees as they wait to catch a glimpse of their beloved Saint Agatha on her journey from the church in the annual celebration of her return to Catania.

Olive skinned children push through the crowd and clamber up the church fence, racing to the highest perches and the best view, calling to familiar faces in the crowd. Somewhere in the back of the plaza, a chorus begins, rising above gentle roar the thousands make. As more voices join in the song becomes a wave, bearing towards us, gaining speed and crashing against the walls of the Cathedral in a boom of cheering and frantic waving.

I’m caught up in the excitement- laughing at the white smiles around me and making friends where before there were only strange faces. Someone grabs my shoulders shakes me, demanding my attention to the heavy cathedral doors. Slowly they begin to open and the first of the martyrs’ procession marches from the dark, dressed in rich cream robes.

The swarm of people is as quiet as I imagine a mass gathering of thousands can be, as if we are all holding our breath.

I wait excitedly; hands gripped on the arms of my friends, standing on tiptoes to catch sight of a woman I have never met before. A woman whose face I have never seen, whose story I had only been told in a broken language by my new family on the steps of that Cathedral. A woman nearby cries out, tears run down her cheek, she begins frantically waving, quickly joined by those around her. The cheering rises above the city, a deafening cloud of noise joined by fireworks that no one notices. We only have eyes for the lady with tanned skin and rose coloured cheeks, her peaceful face framed with golden hair.