Palermo, February 23, 2010

Dear Rose,

spent more than a week after the last letter that I wrote.
I am fine and the grandmother is very good, even if I don’t how she walk all alone, that not even see us! The day before yesterday we went out and did not want the hug, she had had to go it alone.

Sunday morning I went with Mr Gianni to Isola delle Femmine ’cause We had to take the beer kegs from the warehouse of a friend who did not need that anymore.

It’s the first time I went out Arenella and it seems that I have taken a vacation, because to go to Island we took the highway as we left from Palermo.

Isola delle Femmine is near Palermo and it is just opposite the sea. But you must not think that is an island. The country is so called (Isle of Females) because it lies in front of an island with a building that looks like a tower, Mr Gianni told me it was a women’s prison. Opposite the island is the country called just Isola delle Femmine and is where we went.

Before going to the store, we took a walk on the beach with Signior Gianni. The beach is beautiful, sister. Long long long and white, you can not see the end, gets to the other country, Capaci, and gets over again. Nobody was there, sister. There was also warm and felt like bathing in the sea. Mr Gianni told me to have a bath but I told him that the water was cold. Did not tell him that I can not swim that I am ashamed, sister!

From the beach you can see even the smokestacks of a factory that throws a lot of smoke in the air. Then we went, because the store is near the factory and I realized that smoking is also stinks. Factory pocket the mountain facing the country to produces cement. Mr Gianni told me that smoking is very dangerous because it is lung cancer and there are many islanders who are sick. Poor them! He told me that they found a lot of Hexavalent chromium in the air that kills people! It’s the same as the movie Erin Brockovich, the one with Julia Roberts, remember sister? We saw it together.

I can not understand why if we know that the air kill people, people living near the factory and has not yet escaped.And I also do not understand why not even closed the factory that governments know everything. In the film, Chromium 6 stuff is learned much later that it was not known well or what they wanted to hide, but here things are known, but nobody does anything.

But if I turn away and watch the sea and the beach is beautiful enough, I also understand why people do not want to leave, it opens its eyes and its heart swells.

Love

Frankie

Filed under: Island by Frankie Lipper Tagged with: beach • Cement • Chrome • Hexavalent • Island • Isola delle Femmine