Up in the hills of the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy there lies a farm. On this farm there are several beautifully-dilapidated stone houses, about 200 chocolate-colored-brown goats, and the farmer Marco, a crazy young Italian man who transforms his goats' milk into the most delicious cheese. For the past 10 days Erik and I have been wwoofing on his farm. WWOOF is an organization which brings organic farmers who need some extra help in touch with folks who are seeking an adventure in agriculture and who want to have free room and board. (for more about wwoof check out: http://www.wwoof.it/gb/about.html)
I regret not writing about my last week in Sweden, which was spent on a beautiful tiny island called Fårö, pictured below:
I spent a lovely 10 days there with Erik's family, seeing a place so near to his heart, where he has spent nearly a month of every summer since he was born.
But now, Itlay. We flew directly from the island to Milano, then took a train to Bologna. From there we took a bus to the tiny town of San Prospero, though we nearly didn't make it since our bus driver seemed to have never heard of the town. We were helplessly lacking in the Itlalian language when we arrived and are faring only a bit better now. I do feel a bit ashamed at not preparing for this HUGE part of being in another country, called communication, yet i suppose i say my excuse was a busy spring and the fact that i'm still plugging away at my 2nd language, Swedish. So we arrived in the evening at the bus stop, got picked up by another wwoofer, and saw the farm for the first time....it is extremly picturesque as to be expected. By the end of our first evening here, we knew we were in for a good time. Before Marco got home from market, we munched on fresh bread with several kinds of goat cheese to choose from, local wine, and sweet, seasonal fruit. (finally i'm eating peaches again!!) Marco came home bringing with him another wwoofer, Emily from New Zeeland, who arrived the same evening. He gave us a friendly hello, told us to eat and drink whatever we wanted, then turned up The Police in the kitchen and made us a late-dinner of amazing pasta, bitter salad greens, tomatoes....yum. And chocolate and grappa to finish off the meal. Erik and I only had to give each other a knowing glance during the night to say, "cool.....this is going to be great."
Well, of course we have worked. We have taken turns milking about 120 goats 2x a day. We have helped make cheese, mowed the grass, cleared in the forest, weeded the vegetable garden. We have become dirty and goaty at the end of the days, but in between all this work we have laughed, ate the most delicious meals in the world (have i forgotten to say that the 2 other wwoofers are basically professional chefs?!), and taken long siestas.....so long we almost wonder if we're being lazy, then we look for the others and realize everyone is sleeping. :) The Italians are wonderful people. Full of expression, emotion, chaos....everything that the Swedes aren't. It is a refreshing change, though a little tough to get used to hearing them explode at one another, but when they make up and laugh after 3 mintues we realize maybe it's just one of those billions of cultural differences that exist between people on this earth.
A lot has happened during 10 days, but we're told it's been a typical week. Here is some of the drama that has unfolded: I cut my eye (it's better now), Carlo the worker got a nail through his foot, the dog Tommy (the sweetest, biggest, gentle giant in the world.....we love you tommy!!!) had his tail run over while taking his siesta under the market van, we threw a party for 100 of Marco's farmer friends, making homemade, brick oven pizza, listening to italian folk music, and trying out some traditional dancing. and drinking lots of wine. To continue....the inspectors came to check the cheese room so we spent a frantic day cleaning to pass inspection, the pipe broke yesterday which takes the milk to the cheese making room (do we have a word for this in english?) and all 300 liters of milk was lost, Marco's extended family stayed for 2 days and we served food for 14, and....well, that's all I can think of for now.
We are leaving today for a second farm 2 hours from here, going west heading towards the coast. We hope it can live up to our high expectations we have now, and we hope we are offered as much wine and grappa, and homemade gellato. We will miss the goats, and Marco and his crew and remember them fondly.....ciao!!
