Sunday September 13th

Although today was my day off, there was no sleeping in. First off, thanks to the possessed rooster living right across the street from my bedroom window. For a rooster, this crazy animal has no sense of time and crows randomly ALL throughout of the day. Sometimes for a half hour, sometimes just once. Whatever he is in the mood for I guess. Although I’ve started to get used to it, almost like you do the bark of a dog, today it didn’t fail to wake me up at 7:30am. It didn’t really matter though because at 8:00 the siren went off. It is the one that was used in the old times of war to alert the town that there was danger. It goes off twice a day as a reminder of the past. Around 8:30 their version of the ice cream man makes his way through the town selling fruit and vegetables and announcing today’s specials over an intercom. And remember I am in Sicily, so by announcing I mean screaming. Then at about 9:00 the construction begins. There is a house being built behind us so I spend most of my days off listening to everything from jackhammers to drills, with sirens, roosters, and intercoms in between. It’s funny.

Later that day, as I walked up the steep alley to mass, I was glared at by all the old men playing cards and having their coffee outside of the bars. Even though it has been about a month since I arrived here, they still seem so curious about the blond American who is living in their little town. There are only about 1,500 people living here, but there are at least four churches. Sicily is very Catholic and the towns here are centered around the Church. Thanks to the tradition, although the mass was in Italian I could still follow the majority of it. All of the children sit together in the front two or three rows (where the nuns made sure they behaved). Again, on my way back home, I was stared at as I passed each bar by the same old men sitting outside, still playing cards, who had now substituted their coffee for beer.