Our Town : Albidona

I, Michele, and my cousins ​​Giuseppe, Michele and Francesco are all students of Class 2 I and come from Albidona a mountain village at 800 meters above sea level with 1500 inhabitants. There are only elementary and middle schools, a post office and a bank. To attend a secondary school we have to go to Trebisacce: vocational and technical , grammar schools are all there. If we want to go to  University we go to Cosenza (Calabria), Rome, Bologna, Milan . Most of university students become  engineers, doctors, lawyers to get a  good future job.

As for the the history of our hometown, it is said it was founded by a group of refugees that  after returning from the Trojan War, landed on the coast of Calabria. The origins of Albidona are linked to the ancient city of Magna Graecia Leutarnia since it is said it was  built on the ruins of the legendary Leutarnia.

The patron saint is St. Archangel Michael celebrated on 8th May.
In ancient times the celebrations took place on September 29th, the usual day for the Catholic Church dedicated to the three Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael .. The feast of the patron saint attracts every year many immigrants, who come back to hometown just to take part to the celebrations in honor of Saint Michael.

In the morning there is the Eucharistic celebration, followed by the first part of the procession, accompanied by music from local musicians or band, with bagpipes and women in traditional costume carrying the "loins" (suggestive measures for agricultural containers decorated with floral tributes, or candles). In this first part of the parade procession some men who take turns, will carry the huge wooden statue of San Micheael, perhaps dating from the eighteenth-century Mother Church to the new neighborhood (Piano mare), stopping at Piazza S. Rocco.

In the early afternoon  the procession resume stopping finally at the small square in front of the vestibule of the Church in the late afternoon. Here we held the traditional "magic", an auction of local products, animals or artifacts dedicated to the saint offered by some devotees, the money will be used to pay the music concerts and fireworks at night.

Albidona economy was mainly  based on agriculture in the past, today many people are in the North of Italy working as well as abroad in Germany, Swiss, England, Belgium. It is a small town where people make good salami and cheese.
Here people have their piece of land to make wheat for bread , some olive trees to make olive oil, and a piece of land to make good wine and of course to raise cattle and pigs. Old people say that if you have wheat, oil, and a pig you have the house filled with everything and you will not have food problems. It is a poor municipality and people want to keep their products and produce them like it has always been. We say that you don't waste anything of the pig because everything is good . We make excellent cured prosciutto and also bacon and we have a particular salami called soppressata.

As you can see from the picture the typical products are salami, wine, dried red peppers to fry with olives and bacon,  sweet fried rolled dough made at Xmas and Easter, and a small accordion called organetto. People from Albidona like to gather and play music and sing old folk songs and while they play they also take breaks to drink a glass of wine and eat a piece of bread with salami, cheese, and have fun. Every social or personal event is a good chance to start playing folk music and start

dancing tarantella! We all love that! 

                                                          

This small picture shows some men in a garage having fun, drinking, eating and plaing tarantella, even without women.