Heavily Loaded

Photos and text by Eugenio Grosso

January 22, 2025

Since the ancient times, when people started sailing, the populations living on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea used to move in the Mediterranean basin to sell goods to their neighbours. For this reason, about three thousand years ago, Phoenician merchants coming from the region of modern Lebanon founded the city of Palermo (Italy). Their aim was to establish a port on the opposite bank of the sea to expand their trade. Panormus, the Latin name of the city, means “all port,” while the North Star at that time was called the Phoenician Star.

Today, at the port of Palermo, a crowd of Tunisian immigrants gathers every saturday to take a ferry to Tunis and continue those trades. Some of them are going home to spend holidays while others are professional sellers who go back and forth every week. However, almost all of them carry something to sell. Since the economic crisis hit Europe, a large number of immigrants lost their jobs. Getting back the idea of trade across the sea, buying and selling products from one country to another, allowed these people to create new businesses and deal with the slump.

Therefore, as in the past, and despite the EU legislation on immigration, the relationships between the populations facing the Mediterranean Sea are alive and strong. Merchants and travelers meet each other as their ancestors did before them, mixing the cultures they came from. For instance, some of the Tunisians living today in Sicily are commuters who regularly return to their country. This means that the exchanges between those places are extremely frequent, reducing the distances between people and cultures.

In the era of globalisation, when huge cargo companies ship products from one corner of the world to another, this group of people keeps alive the old routes by car, carrying all the goods they can. Rusty bicycles, dusty scooters, mattresses, pieces of furniture, and stoves are piled on the roofs of old cars and brought from port to port. Along with their products, those people carry traditions and information, contributing to the creation of the Mediterranean heritage.