We just spent a month volunteering at a butterfly conservation charity in Castelgrande in Basilicata, a region in the south of Italy.
Our house was one of the best accommodations we have had while volunteering but wow, it was cold and humid at night!The views everywhere ranged from picturesque to spectacular.
Our hosts were truly extraordinary: beautifully open hearted, welcoming, generous and inspiring. We saw them every day – working in the butterfly garden and going to festivals and markets together – and became very close. We hope to always keep them in our lives.
They introduced us to their friends, so lunches even on working days sometimes lasted 5 hours……followed up by drinks some evenings.
Our job was to collect caterpillars before they were destroyed by lawnmowers, pesticide, etcWe fed them new leaves every day (each type of caterpillar ate different types of leaf)and also cleaned out the caterpillar poop. With our experience of mucking out poop from horses, cows, dogs, etc, we feel that our animal poop based CVs are now complete.!
We released them back into the wild once they finished their chrysalis. It was surprisingly emotional seeing them being eclosed!Once eclosed, we placed them next to their favourite food…and kept a close eye on them until they were ready to fly off.
It was also nice going into the garden every day to help with planting flowers for the butterflies, weeding and building fences from bamboo.It felt good to get some decent exercise too…those fences required lots of digging.Without further strain, we also extracted seeds for planting from dried calendula seed pods.
We helped out at the local school to play games in English and to organise a treasure hunt around the village…and we assisted with a children’s workshop to make fresh pasta to encourage children away from processed food.
Our village was quite peculiar! Just 600 people made up of only 3 families living there for ever…called Desantis, De Santis and De Sanctis. Few had ever left the region and were very parochial (they spoke about us in Italian without realising we understood) and one resident even had photos of Mussolini all over her house!!!The only shop in the village was of course half filled with pasta options and bizarrely, the owners didn’t allow any customers to touch the fruit and vegetables.We learned about a few other shops but only the villagers knew where they were, when they opened and what they sold.
Trips
Our hosts took us to towns in the mountains surrounding Castelgrande.The town Calitri, famous for its ceramics since the Etruscans, was a romantic place to celebrate our 40th anniversary!
Looking forward to the next 40 years together.Before the major earthquake of 1980 hitting Basilicata and Campania, this house’s bottom windows were the front doors. Legend has it that the owner slept through the night-time quake and opened his front door in the morning to find a 100 foot drop.Many of the town’s residents lived in caves like these until 1952.
We visited Pagani for a pagan festival and tried dancing with castanets, like the locals.There were many musicians: this singer was as good as any star we have seen.The pagan festival curiously included religious parades through the streets.
Walking around the streets was an experience too. This housebound lady lowered a bucket to receive her daily shopping…and many walls were filled with death and funeral notices. The displays felt much more sociable than newspaper notices.
Everywhere we went, the food we had was sublime in terms of the produce.We spent an entire day at a festival to celebrate artichokes: we had them fried and grilled, in soup, salads, pasts, stews and alcohol!And stuffed with herbs! We just couldn’t eat enough artichokes!
We will never forget the meals we had throughout the trip and how we and our friends cried out “Mamma Mia” for the exquisite tastes.The pizzas even looked happy!
Altamura is a wonderful town for its old streets and particularly its 14th century bakeries…which have been baking bread every day for over 600 years in the same room sized oven.The focaccia was unbelievable!
Matera is one of the oldest towns in the world.We spent the day in awe there, visiting all the rock churches with ancient frescoes.
Family Holiday
What a pleasure it was to have our sons join us on the Amalfi coast for the week following our volunteering! We mostly relaxed and went on long hikes.Playing games in a lemon grove in Sorrento was a highlight, as was our day in Pompei.
Pompei is a wonder for its portrayal of life on 24 August 79 AD. We stepped back in time to wander around the city to see its shops, taverns and homes, some with perfectly preserved 2000 year old frescoes.It was interesting to see how some things have not changed: one home had on its hallway floor a ‘Beware of the Dog’ sign in Latin made out of mosaics using tiny tessellae.The site is still being excavated. Spectacular discoveries continue to be made. Archaeologists are still hard at work as visitors can only admire their dedication. It appears though that 22 hectares will likely remain buried under ash and debris for decades.
Meeting our friends before leaving Italy was the perfect end to a wonderful trip. We all had a picnic on the pebbled beach of Cetera where our friends cooked anchovies from the fishermen and vegetables from their garden.And we had to return to the butterfly conservation garden one last time to say goodbye to everyone and of course to check on our favourite caterpillars.
Next
We will be pet sitting in the UK for most of the summer before hopefully continuing our beautiful adventures.
4 Comments. Leave new
Looks as if it was one of your most enjoyable experiences.
We would love to spend time around Pompei and Amalfi
What an amazing and wholesome experience! Sending you both lots of love from India, and wishes for your anniversary!
Hi Ambika
Wholesome is precisely the right word to describe the experience, thank you! Sending hugs back to you, we miss you!! Love xx
Italy is the best! Fantastic experience for you. 👏 👏 🥂 for your anniversary and many more adventures ahead.💐