Training Course in Palermo, day 2

The story of the training course in Palermo continues, from their base in the convent of San Giovanni Battista di Baida.
By guest blogger Alex Adriana:

Baida - getting to know the topic

So, we started the second day with one of the games we did on the first day. The facebook game. The people who didn’t have their picture drawn yet, got it today. The other energizer was massaging each other in a big circle. I noticed that it’s very common to touch each other in a lot of cultures. Sometimes I’m okay with that but other times it makes me a bit uncomfortable though.

Today was about the homo eroticus (his-story). It was about how many historical happenings are written from a male perspective and females are nowhere to be found. So, we talked a lot more about the women in this story. There was an assigment and we had to write down a few fictional characters (from fairy tales and myths) and divide them into three groups: virgin woman, fertile (sexually active) woman and the old woman. It was very funny and nice to see that many of the Slavic fairy tales are the same as the ones I know from Dutch culture.

After the coffee break we did a very nice energizer, called Mazinga! It’s very simple, yet very powerful. And we continued with the lecture, when our lecturer said something very inspiring I think: "Every  woman is a nun, even when she shows her nipples". To me it means there is nothing about a human (male nor female) body to sexualize. Everyone’s body is sacred.

After lunch we had time to prepare our presentation, but since the internet wasn’t working and we had other technical difficulties we couldn’t finish our powerpoint. We ended up making a poster, which was also very nice. But, due to lack of time we weren’t able to present this day, so it moved to the other day.

After dinner we had the opportunity to show the organisation we represent. In our case that’s our school, as well as the internship me and Ruby (one of my classmates) are doing. There were many other organisations, some of which I’m really interested in. For example, some of them work with the same method, but others are in a totally different field of work. In the late evening we had a party on the rooftop of the monastery, which has an amazingly beautiful view. I talked with a lot of nice people and I got to know some people a bit better.

Day 2 was a very nice day, but I was also a bit sleepy and I felt like the lectures were a bit too long here and there. But the people here are very, very nice!