It has been too long since I wrote something here. By now things have settled down and life is becoming a bit more balanced, which I appreciate.

The work in the office is interesting, but sometimes there is not so much to do. Next week or the week after (depending on how fast my Italian will improve) I will start working with immigrant children. I have designed creative activities for them around identity, living in Italy, friendship and other themes. The goal is also to create an exhibition of the art works and the photo's that the children will make.

In December there will be a training course here in Palermo organised by my organisation on the three largest religions. I hope that I will be able to work as a trainer, but this will be decided in Sicilian time. The same as when our on arrival training will take place... nobody knows!

In general I'm getting more used to the Sicilian way of life and I must say it is impossible to be stressed here. I do however get frustrated sometimes, when I have to wait an hour for a bus and it doesn't show, when I have to wait two hours for a meeting to start, etc. But sometimes it is also just funny to see how they (dis)organise everything here; going to the policlinic of the hospital was one big joke because in the Netherlands the place couldn't possibly be called a hospital. It looked like an old school and there was a lady on the phone with her family, putting patients on hold, who decided if you could go to see the doctor. Hygiene appeared to be a foreign concept. But I got the right medication so it all seems to work out.

I haven't made many trips in the past few weeks, just to Cefalu; which is the most lovely little town I have seen so far. If I could I would love to live there instead of Palermo, it was very quiet en peaceful and we could swim in the water even though it was the end of October.

Yesterday we had an intercultural poetry evening; 15 people reading poems in about 10 different languages! I could understand quite a lot of the French, Italian, English, German and a bit of the Spanish poems (quite similar to Italian) but had problems with languages such as Estonian and Turkish! Nobody understood my Dutch poem, so I made a translation into English.

The house is a lot cleaner and my room feels like home. Our next project is the living room, so we can have our first party in this house. We don't want to spend too much money though, as we will be here just for another 7,5 months. In December I will go home between the 24th and the 30th for Christmas and I will return to Palermo to celebrate new year.

I am happy here, I just don't think I could live here forever. Nine months of complete chaos will be enough I think :).