Augusta isa pretty littleSicilian town. Just the perfect place to enjoy a romantic weekend if you are visiting Sicily.

The houses are brightly painted, with beautiful flowers. Almost every house has an old woman in a flowery printed dress, sitting by the door!
And the old men sit out on park benches or on the road, chatting... so it looks as though the women are waiting for their husbands, who in turn, look like they are avoiding their wives!

But all these beautiful people, and their beautiful homes, constantly live in the shadow of the temperamental Mt Etna-Europe’s most active volcano.

We happened to be in Augusta, when the mountain erupted yet another time.
It was a hot afternoon, and we could see the smoke belching out of the mountain top.My husband and I were spending a few hours in that town.
Strange, everything seemed to be covered in ash. The streets, the houses, the cars, everything had a grey layer of ash on it. Even the air was gritty. But we had no idea that Etna had plans to blow up again that night!

We walked into a small ristorante to savour some real Italian pizza, when we first caught a glimpse of the eruption on TV.
As we bit into our pizza, we saw the lava rolling down the mountain, and devastating a few villages in its path. We turned our head towards the big monster. It seemed so surreal-we eating pizzas, and watching lava ooze down a hillside, not on TV, but in front of our very eyes.

Etna is unique in a way that it erupts in four to five different ways- from the constant seeping of lava, to the powerful jet eruptions. From our table at the ristorante, we could not make out what kind of eruption it was. But yes, there was a steady ball of fire glowing in the distant.

It is strange, that even after knowing the monster lives in their backyard, the people in this area still want to live here. What is the reason for this? Well, it is simply because this lava makes the soil, fed from minerals in the volcanic acid rains, extremely nutrient rich.

This area produces award winning wines such as Nerello Mantello. The soil yields bumper crops of olives and lemons. This entices the farmers to stay on. About 20 percent of the island’s population live in Etna’s shadow.

So, in order to stay safe, each spring the residents walk down the narrow, cobble stoned streets of Augusta, chanting prayers and touting relics of Saint Agatha, their patron saint and protector against an eruption of the Mt Etna. I hope their prayers are delivered, but strangely contradictory is their want for the rich soil that the volcano produces to give them their livelihood.

The northern night sky glows eerily as the lava erupts out of the old mountaintop… yet the people sleep on. They have lived with Etna throughout their lives, and have learnt how to live side by side with the devastation.
As, from every devastation, there springs forth a new life.

©2004 Susmita Bhattacharya. All rights reserved. Terms of use.