Tramonti - workcamp - LONGGGG description :) part 1.

Kedves Mindenki!

Elhatároztam, hogy leírom az egyes táborokkal kapcsolatos élményeimet, mert különben hamarosan elveszhetnek a múlt homályában..:) persze, ha egyszer elkezdek írni, akkor nem tudok leállni, mindent el akarok mondani. Így történt, hogy ez a hosszú beszámoló még mindig csak az első része egy 2 hetes tábor + 1 hetes nyaralásnak Tramonti-ban!

Pictures are a bit messed up, but enjoy reading the first part of my diary about the last workcamp I participated! :) For those, who don't want to read all...IT WAS GREAT..THE END!! :)

Tramonti

2014. August 20. – September 2. (7.)

How did it begin with my experience in Tramonti?? First of all..let’s say, that it was a hard decision, it was not sure at all, that I will go to that camp. I was prepared to go to Ecovillage Mogliazze (on the North in Liguria) from the very beginning of my Erasmus semester.. as on the first week Manuela showed me the description of all the workcamps of YAP, from which I was supposed to participate in a few. I chose the Ecovillage on the first place, and during the whole season Liza and Stefano always tried to pay attention on my preference. I would have chosen Manservirsi Castle as well, as I thought it would be great to get to know the operation of a castle, as a tourism attraction as an insider. The ecovillage on the other hand attracted me, with the opportunity of taking care of some farm animals, harvesting fruits and vegetables, cooking marmalade, collecting honey and selling the products on the biomarket. Alessio, a young Italian volunteer of YAP and at the same time the campleader of last year in Mogliazze told me about the beautiful panorama-shower as well, which touched me immediately. According to the news in the village there’s no normal shower, hot water only if the sun shines and it warms up the water, moreover the shower is not in the building, but outside, looking over the beautiful panorama of the Appenines. You can understand why I wanted so badly to go there.

Well, at the end what happened..first of all, I fell in love with Naples and the South of Italy during my first workcamp of GIS1, then in while Liza and Stefano visited us in my 3^rd camp, Scandiano, they told me, that there was a new workcamp confirmed a few days ago, but they haven’t got a campleader yet, however they were trying to announce it among the Italian volunteers. They told me, that Alessio could go again to Mogliazze and I could go to Tramonti. They tried to explain this opportunity with their hope, as this would be the first year of the camp and they would be happy to trust it with someone who has enough experience (and I was happy to be a person like this… J ). So finally after a few days I decided, that I would love to see more of South-Italy, even planned to go on a trip to Puglia (to visit also an old-Erasmus friend) and accepted the offer.

Two of my best friends from Hungary came to visit me for a week before my departure. I even had to get ready for moving out of my room, to send home in different rounds my luggages..so I had some really busy days. Guiding around my friends in Rome made me fall in love with the city already for the 3^rd or 4^th times. But then the day has arrived when I had to depart for the last camp. I saw some beautiful pictures about the region, and I knew that I have to change vehicles at least 3-4 times until I get there..still I couldn’t imagine, how beautiful it would be sitting on the bus from Salerno and enjoying the curves on the Amalfi-coast, as the bus climbs up the hills, crossing tiny but cute villages, pushing the horn in each corner …J and getting lost in the amazing view of the coast, the blue sea, the white boats, the green lemon terraces.

In Salerno I had to wait for the bus for an hour, so I took a walk to the seaside and in the pedestrian area. When I arrived back to the central station I saw an Asian guy with luggages waiting at the same bus stop, where I should have been. As I checked around, I saw many tourists in the area, therefore I decided to ask him only if he gets off at the same stop where I will. He turned out to be Kei from Japan…my first volunteer of “Make it green!”. In the meantime I contacted Antonio, the local coordinator, who offered me to pick me up in Maiori. I was always a bit afraid of calling the local coordinators for the first time, as talking with an Italian on phone was still a challenge for me. At the same time I knew, that Antonio speaks really well English, therefore there should be no problem.

Before the camps I was a bit afraid of losing my Italian knowledge while staying with the international volunteer 24/7, but it turned out, that even if one or two of the local coordinators had a good English knowledge, I still had to translate between the other locals and the volunteers, which I enjoyed a LOT!! I love becoming able to speak fluently in a language, to slowly start using gestures, to be able to understand dialects, etc.

Maiori was even more beautiful than Salerno, as it is already a small paradise, a holiday-resort on the coast, one of the biggest towns in the region. As with Kei we were walking towards Bar Oriente, our meeting point with Antonio, we saw in the busstop a young guy, sitting on his luggage…I became suspicious again…”excuse me, are you not going to the project Make it green!?”...”oui, yes…I’m Antoine from France”…with a really strong French accent J. So at the end the three of us were waiting for Antonio, our really nice and handsome coordinator. Getting in the car, we had our first sight of Tramonti, driving up and up towards the mountains, getting further away from the coast. Tramonti is a group of 13 villages (tra monti = between mountains, tramonto = sunset) surrounded by the lemon terraces, the wine yards, the green mountains, the blue sky and the view of the distant infinite sea.

Our group of volunteers was staying in the school of Polvica, where in the menza we had our mattresses, our dining/sleeping/living-room a huge kitchen some storage rooms and the building of the swimming pool, where we had some showers and bathrooms. During the afternoon I have got to know better Antonio, Vincenzo, the head of Acarbio, the host organization and Nicola, the coordinator of our environmental work with whom we started to fix some principles, the concrete aims of the project, the forthcoming program of our free-time and the details of the work itself. From time to time new volunteers arrived, finally also Franco appeared, our great chef, who immediately started to prepare the welcome dinner, on which we could meet some of the locals. As usual I started with some name games and ice-breakers, then I shared the basic information about the camp, the accommodation, the next days. The first night we after dinner, we went to the San Francesco Birreria and Pizzeria to try the new chestnut bear of the owner and to walk a bit around the village. Of course people, mainly youngsters looked at us as aliens, but we hoped, that after a while this might change. Our task, apart from collecting rubbish was also to raise awareness among locals concerning the environmental problems, and at the same time to raise the interest of youngsters towards international programs, which are offered so many times by Acarbio, but for which they can hardly find participants. Therefore we were prepared to have many contacts with the community, to be presented to the mayor and to try to involve in our work local volunteers as well.

The first working day started on the main road crossing Tramonti, leading to the seaside. Our job was to clean the sides of the road from the trash what is thrown away by people, and at the same time to be as visible as possible for all the citizens who drive along. It actually worked very well, most of the people stopped to ask what we were doing, where we were coming from, or at least greeted us and our work by pushing the horn and shouting “Complimenti” or “Bravi”. They often arrived with some apples, refreshments or biscuits or offered us a coffee or an ice-cream in the bar where we stopped for going to the bathroom. But the best was definitely, the fresh and cold lemonade brought in the huge 5 liters bottle made of the lemon from one of the most famous lemon growing region of the world. We did the same job for three days, walking slowly on both sides of the street, and being very happy when finally the group coming upwards met the group going towards the coast. I should not forget about my great interview, given to the local TV channel, who arrived at one point and asked really nice questions about the world peace J

On the first night, we went by walk to the third village (Figlino) from Polvica, where on the previous days a fairy tale-festival was organized, and that night the afterparty for the locals took place, with pasta and fagioli, pasta with tomato sauce, sausage with spinach, etc. and of course some house-wine. We walked around the village, adored the fairy tale paintings on the walls, felt sorry for not being able to come when it was all alive. We went in to the church of the village, waking up the priest to have to possibility to see something really special, what I have never seen before, a church with original painted majolica floor from the xx? century. Then we also met some nice people from a local social club, who invited us for some refreshments before the festival started. On the festival we ate a LOT, …as usual, met the world-famous pasta e fagioli for the first time, and even danced a bit with some girls, knowing the choreography of all the popular Italian songs. At the end I had my great moment, going home on bike for the first time with Vincenzo. I think I can state that riding a motorbike means freedom for me, especially under the stars, among the green mountains, in Italy or probably anywhere in the world… J

Another night we went to a medieval festival to another small town, Capitignano. The organization of the transportation of our group was so entertaining all the time. When we didn’t have our microbus, driven by Lello (or Ivan/Igor our huge but nice “Ukrainian”...who looks like a Ukrainian, according to the opinion of our volunteers but who is an original Tramontese J), our coordinators usually stood outside on the main road and stopped the locals asking if they also go to the next village/ to the festival in the neighborhood/ to the seaside, and usually we could find 2-3 cars in a few minutes. In Capitignano we spent a really enjoyable, colorful night, as basically the half of the village turned into a festival area. We saw an equestrian show, had a great dinner thanks to Franco, enjoyed the local band and the dancers performing tamburreata.

To be continued…