So, the morning of the 31st
at 6.30 Elisa drove Davide and me to the train station (15 km away from where
we were). We had checked the train schedule on the internet, but didn’t
purchase the tickets. We took the first small train for 1 hour more or less, and
then got off. We thought we should have changed 3, max 4 trains... when we got
to the second train station and we could finally buy the full ticket... they
told us there were no more seats available on the train we had picked... what
to do... well we changed our itinerary, it took us 12 hours to get from CittÃ
di Castello (Umbria) to Sannicandro (Puglia) and we had to change 6 trains and
get 2 car rides... not bad hah! I was happy and content, I was on the go again,
with all my heavy luggage, but this time I wasn’t even alone, had a brilliant
travel mate! Davide and I are quite different: he is quiet, calm, speaks with a
very low voice, skinny, long beard (I don’t have it luckily! :p) but he was a
bit tensed for the long trip; he said he wouldn’t have gone down to Puglia
alone. I was super relaxed, enjoying the long trip, singing, pinching him,
being my usual self! I even convinced him, wasn’t too hard I must say, to have
pizza and beer at 10 in the morning, considering though that we got up at 5 I
thought it was fair!
We had a good trip although the
weather was horrible, it rained and rained and rained, but I have to say the
two of us got on super well and I was quite surprised. We had no problems walking
around train stations, hopping on and off trains, finding seats, moving around
despite the big luggage and the fact that we never walked together really!
Davide is probably one of the most connected people I ever met, we often
thought about the same thing, had the same idea, reflection, and we really
didn’t know much about each other. Well with time he got to know almost
everything about me, partly because I told him things, but mainly because we
spent basically 24/7 together and people kept on asking me questions, and I
answered so he didn’t really need to ask me much! J
We arrived in Sannicandro and two
girls I never met before picked us up. We arrived at Giardino della Gioia and I
met my “old friends” there! It has been
a great welcoming, lots of hugs, people seemed to be happy to see me again.
Davide and I started fixing my tent (for those of you who haven’t seen it...
well, it’s green – only the background, and has plenty of pink, yellow and blue
flowers... when I went to buy it I was alone and asked which colour it was....
they told me green, so I bought it.... 3 weeks later I got to know it was
flowery!). Anyways, when we started to put up the tent the rain stopped!
INCREDIBLE! Then we had dinner with all the rest of the community in the
“circo”, a colourful structure made of wood and other materials, used for big
gatherings. There were people playing music, we did a sort of ritual for
Halloween and then we walked outside where someone had lit a fire!
Our first night sharing the tent
wasn’t the greatest! We had to get used to the different environment and to being
in a small space together I guess! But after that we had brilliant nights’
sleep. Well we made sure we were tired enough before going to bed! Davide is a
good companion also for vices I must say! J
At the Giardino there was a
meeting of all Italian eco-villages
but there is also an international
network of eco-villages called GEN (global ecovillage network)
So there were really quite a few
people, representatives from different eco-villages, people from Greece,
England, Germany... I was surprised to see that the place is getting more and
more international!
During these few days we had quite
a few activities, seminars on synergic agriculture, on dragon dreaming, non
violent communication,
tantric meditation, butterfly
meditation, and more.... but I don’t remember because... well Davide and I
missed some seminars to sit and chat with others or to go for walks in the
woods! Brilliant weather, at the beginning of November I was wearing one of my
Indian dresses! Incredibleeeee!
The time at the Giardino was
wonderful as usual, this is the first place I visited last March, it’s the
place that made me feel I could start this adventure, is the place were I felt
my disability wasn’t a problem because people are open minded, willing to help
and be there!
We didn’t take any photo so I will
upload a couple of old photos from when I was there in April and I twisted my ankle
and couldn’t walk, and a video of my first experience there, that lots of you have
probably already seen.
Here`s where it all started: 24/28
March 2012
Here`s a short (homemade) documentary
about permaculture,
Unfortunately it`s only in Italian
Now that I sit in front of a pc I
find it extremely difficult to communicate the great emotions I felt while I was
there; all those hugs, people who do not know each other but feel a super great
energy, the desire to share, to be there together, to get emotional if you feel
like, to hold hands and sing songs, look into each other`s eyes... hippie
behaviours for most of the outside world, real human beings for us who were
living this experience.
One of the songs I love and Davide
and I kept on singing even the last day when we said good-bye to each other
goes like this:
“Every little cell in my body is
happy, every little cell in my body is well; I’m so glad, every little cell in
my body is happy and well!” Useless to say that when I was there I was
complaining cause I didn’t like to dance, to sing, but after all I love it! J
I had uplifting chats with lots of
people there; it was great to hear from people like Antonio (the synergic
agriculture master) how he felt, how much he cared, loved and felt that what he
was doing was important; how much it’s vital to walk towards a proper change;
to change our attitude, to understand that we need to change our habits, learn
to respect others, open ourselves to others, create community, respect the
planet we live in, plants, nature, animals, people... and he even cried while
he said it! I can’t put in words what I felt, the great emotions I felt inside,
how warm and honest his tears felt, how contagious his thinking is, how happy I
was to be there and nowhere else! As he put it, to plant and spread joy is
always the most important thing, no matter if the soil is fertile or not, every
seed of joy we spread is a well spread seed!
Here is an article about this
experience, written by one of the guys who took part in the meeting,
unfortunately it’s in Italian though:
On Wednesday the 7th of
November Davide and I decided to move back up, so we took a lift to Tuscany
with Gabriele also called Peter Pane (“pane” in Italian means “bread”, Gabriele
bakes bread, but he is like a happy child although he is an adult, therefore
Peter Pane!). It was pissing rain, but while Davide and I dismantled the tent
it stopped raining, then it started again. We were supposed to leave at 10 in the
morning, we left after 1... there were
five of us in a car and we drove around, got lost, took wrong turns, stopped at
a supermarket and bought lots of shite, sweets and bread and every thing and
ate in the car park... we finally started our trip properly at 4.30 in the
afternoon. We stopped in Rome to drop another guy (Lingam is his name which means
penis in India... hahahaha);
We arrived in Peter Pane’s house
at around 3 in the morning. It had been raining in Tuscany too, but when we got
up in the morning... guess what! It was sunny!
We had fun with P.P. and then 2
other friends we had met in Puglia (1 I knew from my trip in April) arrived so
we talked, ate, drank some wine, cooked, sat in front of the fireplace...
Peter Pane lives alone in a very
old house, he has quite a bit of land, olive trees, animals, he grows his
vegetables, bakes bread, biscuits etc that he sells in organic markets. He only
uses organic produce, lives very simply, doesn’t have a heating system in his
house, only a fireplace; water comes from a well, and he has a very very simple
but beautiful life! And he is super fun too!
The day after, on Friday Davide and I moved on
again and we went to another eco-village.
A couple of links:
An interesting documentary:
A new we – YouTube
Nikola Tesla - The Untold Story – YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoY_7mbm5ng
Marinaleda, nel sud della Spagna il paese che non sente la crisi | Lontano dai riflettori - ilCambiamento.it
Marinaleda, nel sud della Spagna il paese che non sente la crisi | Lontano dai riflettori - ilCambiamento.it
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