Written by Italy & Greece Students, Katie M. & Conrad I.
Since the last blog we’ve moved away from the city of Rome and have been staying at a farm right outside of the city of Matera. For the past week we’ve been working with volunteers from the organization B-link, olive harvesting, visiting the local primary school, and learning about different duties on the farm like cleaning up after the cows. We’ve also spent the past week planning and cooking our own meals which included our own version of Thanksgiving. One night was dedicated to a cultural exchange where the group prepared and presented activities to teach the B-link volunteers about our home cultures.
Our Highlights of the Week:
🦃 We spent our one free day celebrating Thanksgiving with everyone helping to prepare a home cooked meal. We also spent the day doing various traditional Thanksgiving activities such as watching last years parade while making hand turkeys. We played a mini game of soccer and to end the day watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving all together.
🌳 Over our time in Matera we visited the local primary school three different times, getting to know the kids in the different first grade classes. On our final day in Matera we helped celebrate the ‘Festival of the Trees’, which included the kids singing songs and our group helping plant different kinds of trees, teaching the kids the importance of trees and taking care of the environment.
🥾 One of our favorite parts of the stay in Matera was going on a hike with a local guide to explore caves overlooking a valley. We learned that the caves were homes to various people from the medieval times. Our exploring included crawling through a mini cave tunnel and closing our eyes while we walked through a valley to tighten our senses.
But growth always comes with challenge … how did you grow this week?
One of the most challenging parts of the week was helping the farm with their annual olive harvest. This consisted of us getting up in the morning and working for up to five hours collecting olives off trees. After this experience we understood the importance of being precise in order to collect the olives using suitable farming methods, and this experience helped us learn about a crucial step in olive oil production.
What’s on for next week?
Next week we are headed to Naples for student directed travel! We are super excited to eat delicious pizza from the birthplace of pizza. We plan to visited the city of Pompeii as well as a hike up mount Vesuvius. One day is dedicated to exploring Sorento and another to an underground walking tour around Naples. We are excited to see the planning and work we’ve put into this week come to fruition.
