I was hosted by a lovely family of four: parents Susanna and Walter, six-year-old Daisy and two-year-old Kevin. Despite the family not speaking much English (and me speaking next-to-no Italian), we managed to communicate well enough to get by. They have a wonderful family and the children are very sweet and very well-behaved which was great - and Susanna is a great cook!
The family live in a typical arrangement in Italy - a very large home which is shared with other family members. In this case, Walter's mother lives in the self-contained ground level which was really convenient as Daisy could stay with her Nonna while I took over her room for the week. On my second day, Sunday, Nonna and Walter's sister along with her husband and baby took me to a potato festival in a neighbouring town as the family was out all day. Nonna even cooked me dinner when I got home from a trip to the lake with the other tutors.
It's very common for Italian families to live in this arrangement, in fact, all four families that I stayed with had lived in the same small town for their whole lives (the wife may be from a neighbouring town but the husband seems to stay in his hometown) and the husband's parents will either live downstairs, next door or just around the corner, in the family home. One of my camp directors explained that the family home is very important to Italians and once they put down roots, they simply do not move! The family unit is very tight and, in fact, most Italians I have spoken to cannot believe how far away from home I am and how long I plan to be away for - the typical response when I would tell them about my travel is "how do your parents feel about you being so far away". They can't believe I'm happily on the other side of the world to where I grew up and where all my friends and family are.
It's just the Kiwi way though - most of us are raised to be independent and our parents take pride in the fact we can stand on our own two feet and not be overly dependent on them once we're adults.
Anyway, after our camp meeting on Sunday, our new director Valentina and her sister Nadia took us to a nearby lake for the afternoon, which was absolutely beautiful!
The tutors at the lake
Because we had one extra tutor, a really rare luxury at camp, I had the role of basically overseeing and planning all our afternoon games. We have lessons in the morning, and games in the afternoon, and usually all the tutors get together either before the day starts or at lunch time to arrange the afternoon's activities. As I didn't have a group in the morning, I could spend this time organising the afternoon, and it worked really well - I was feeling a bit burnt out and sick of teaching so it worked out really well.
The amazing view from the camp
Camp activities - making paper mâché volcanoes with Coke and Mentos
Our week ended with an absolutely delicious meal at a restaurant which serves local cuisine - which is very different from that of other parts of Italy. Polenta, beef goulash, cheeses, potatoes, coleslaw, cold meats (which you'll find everywhere in Italy), apple strudel for dessert and lots of red wine. The town had more of an Austrian or German feel to it which makes sense as it's so close to the border - the schools teach compulsory German as well as Italian and English.
On my last night, Walter and Susanna took me out for gelato to an amazing 400-year-old castle about 45 minutes from our town - it was really beautiful and I regret not taking my camera or phone (I thought we were just going down the road!)
It was a great end to what had been a very full on six weeks, I had decided while at the previous camp that this week would be my last so it was time to move on with my journey.
Looking forward to reading about your next lot of adventures Joanne.
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