We have been spending the past two months in the heal of Italy. The idea was to do something constructive and escape the cold and rain of Belgium where we last were. As things have turned out, we have been freezing cold living in a drafty disused factory without heating; we have had rain coming through our bedroom ceiling and so many other places that we have had to empty buckets of water every two hours where rain had seeped through; we have been sharing the one bathroom on site with tons of people (and taking our turn to clean afterwards…just imagine dozens of people in their muddy working boots); and we have mostly been living off food discarded by supermarkets. All that said, it has been an amazing and beautiful experience!!
Brindisi, Italy
When we arrived in Italy, it all started like a wonderful holiday. Because of Covid, we had to quarantine for ten days before joining the community at our final destination in the countryside near Brindisi. We chose to quarantine in the historic centre. As our covid test, two days in, was negative, we had the freedom of the town. Gone were the low grey winter skies of Brussels: in Southern Italy, November is the heart of Autumn. We had sun, the last of the wonderful autumn produce grown locally (aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes, newly harvested olive oil), and we followed the huge murmurations of migrating birds that danced over our heads, as they assembled for their trip to Africa. And because of covid and low season, we had the place to ourselves. We chose Brindisi because of its mild winter climate…what we didn’t expect is the differential between generally pleasant sunny days and wintry, humid, cold nights and that the area is not set up to cope properly with cold weather: there is no heating. Sleeping fully clothed under a pile of blankets quickly became essential.
Our apartment in the historic centre was converted from what looked like a granary
Our apartment was just a few steps away from this wonderful daily market
Brindisi is a charming town with a port which, because of Covid, was deserted 
It, of course, has lots of historic churches
Unlike many towns today, Brindisi is not tearing down statues: this fountain is dedicated to Mussolini who is revered here because he made Brindisi the capital of Puglia.
We will miss our daily goûter: Puglian wine with fennel seed taralli biscuits 
We won’t miss our Covid tests
Charity: Il Faro
The charity we are volunteering for, Cooperativa Sociale Il Faro, is truly amazing: it is filled with beautiful people, who do such a great job in shielding abused women and giving them a new chance in life free of tyranny. We have met some of these women and their children and heard stories of their domestic abuse and repression. Their fear of speaking up is intense, especially those from mafia families. Il Faro, which means the Lighthouse, provides them with a refuge, food, therapy and vocational training for 1-2 years in order to put them onto a path of self reliance. It is creating incredible opportunities for the women. We feel so lucky to have been adopted by this community which has become like an extended family for us.
The guiding hands and visionaries who make it happen: Virginia and Silvia’s smiles shine so brightly, you can see them in their eyes and behind their masks. 
Giovanni , now driver, guardian and pivot of the community, has turned round his life in crime to protect the abused and teach the young. He is cherished by Il Faro for his heart filled with honey.
Our guardian angel Jenny who has looked after all the volunteers tirelessly and is a magnet for all the children who adore her. Grown ups too! 
Daniele, tour guide extraordinaire and another of Il Faro’s guardian angels.
Our dancer friend Edgar, a beautiful man with a beautiful soul
The volunteering A Team
We already know that when we eventually leave, we will mostly miss this community which has always been so welcoming, positive and happy, so often laughing and smiling in the face of the hardships facing this part of the country.
Our Jobs
We have had a wide variety of tasks: weeding, fundraising, acting, cooking, cutting plastic bottles (for a greenhouse), building a compost bin, researching, making a scavenger hunt for the kids in the community, restoring furniture, recycling and upcycling…the list goes on and on.
We both acted in a promotional film to highlight Il Faro’s great work: we will attach a link here when it is released next month.
Weeding with “help” from Barone, one of three cats on the property
Helping to bottle up delicious olive oil grown on the grounds of the charity 
The finished product offered as presents to helpers in the community
Italiano
We have been spending an hour every day on the Duolingo App to learn Italian just to be able to have some basic conversations with our colleagues. All of our fellow volunteers (from France, Germany, Belgium and Spain) speak perfect English, and the Italians are keen to improve their English, but they are also more than happy to share their language and culture with us… so end result: a good opportunity for us to learn some Italian.
Grazie
We have had lunch and dinner every day with the volunteers and staff from the charity. One of the customs here is for one person to say Thank You before each meal…thanking everyone for their efforts, cooking, and positive energy and whatever each person feels in their hearts. It has been genuinely wholesome and refreshing, something we will really miss. When it came to our turn to say Grazie, we have sometimes tried to get through it all in Italian…everyone was so forgiving of our mistakes.
Our days seem to revolve around meal times with our friends
…and with us everywhere
Food
Local supermarkets donate some of their surplus food to our charity. The beneficiaries have their pick – by law, they are only allowed what is still in date and in saleable condition. Volunteers have what is left… in addition, we have a budget of one euro per person per meal to buy essentials, spices, etc. We never know what the next delivery will bring; yet it’s amazing just how splendid all our meals have been. Most of the volunteers are vegetarian; none of the Italian are. We each take a turn once a week to cook lunch and dinner for everyone, between 12 and 20 people. We generally have to wait for the day’s donations to decide on our menu, so we have to be creative. On our turns, we have made mostly Indian (vegetable pakora, aloo gobi, carrot halwa and chai) and English: cauliflower cheese, home made baked beans…our crumble went down particularly well with the Italians! Our food discoveries have been the main dish for the region, cime di rapa (a broccoli type vegetable cooked with orecchiette pasta), and a marmalade from Sicily made with bell peppers, chilli and sugar.
One Saturday, we all made orecchiette (local ear shaped pasta)… 
…under the guidance of Gabriele, a wonderful cook, professional dancer and friend.
…the result, orechiette alla marinara, was spectacular. 
Our kitchen sometimes looks like a market stall. We create a menu based on what arrives as donations., particularly plentiful the day before Christmas eve.
Free Time
Our evenings and weekends are often spent with the whole crew chatting, playing board games, watching movies, singing…even juggling as four of our fellow volunteers are professional circus performers, so there is always a lot of clowning around.
We are sometimes entertained by the circus volunteers at mealtimes… 
…and they have even taught us a few tricks.
Road Trips
We have managed to go away some weekends, mostly by ourselves but sometimes with our fellow volunteers, to relax in Brindisi or see other parts of Puglia.
Road trip around Puglia with our bubble of fellow volunteers, who are all beautiful people, led by Daniele.
The tree standing in the middle of a 400 metre lavender maze comes from a cutting made from the only tree, a persimmon, to have survived the Nagasaki bomb. A fitting tribute to have built a beautiful setting for reflection.
Puglia is known for its “trulli” houses. Legend has it that if the king’s house tax guard came in the olden days, the keystone could be removed and the cupula would collapse leaving a pile of rubble. With no house, there would be no tax to pay, and the homes could quickly be built up again as the stones were laid on top of each other without cement.
Puglia is famous for its olive oil and everywhere you look you see olive trees. Puglia is only 20,000 sq km, yet has 60 million olive trees, one for every person in the whole of Italy.
Known as the “Florence of the South”, Lecce is full of beautiful 17th Century architecture. Stunning town. 
Lecce’s Christmas lights were great too.
Lovely bike rides to the local beach, just 7km away… 
…lovely except when passing rubbish tips. We cannot escape them wherever we go in the world, yet it still shocks us to know people dump rubbish in beauty spots.
Party Time
An Italian friend warned us to prepare physically, physiologically and psychologically for the onslaught of food and alcohol over the New Year festivities. How right she was! Most shocking was how alcohol was in full flow at a New Year’s Day lunch despite an alcohol heavy NYE party going on until 5.30am (as old party poopers, we were asleep by 1am!).
Decorating the “tree”, a dead agave flower painted white, with recycled materials 
In full bloom!
The charity gave a party to its children and their ‘adopted grandparents’ who take on an important role in giving love and protection which the children had not felt in their lives.
A New Year’s Eve “Renegade” Party, which felt a bit like the UK’s Generation Game TV show where the volunteers had to copy tricks performed by the professionals.
Where Next?
No idea! We will send an update soon. Happy New Year!
Thank you Sylvie and Jeff for another great report on your travels.
Thanks Reeva
Happy New Year. Sending all our love, Jeff and Sylvie xx
Happy to hear from you and know you are both well and enjoying your amazing adventure, even with the cold and leaky roof, in this COVID environment. Happy New Year to you.
Hi Debbie and Stephen
Happy new year! Missing you and all the gang. Please send our love to everyone. Love xx
Hi Sylvie and Jeff
Mum shared this with me. Wow – what an amazing adventure you both are on. Certainly beats being stuck in my home office on my computer 8 hours a day!
So lovely to you both enjoying life and doing something so worthwhile.
With much love and wishes
Melanie xxx
Hi Melanie, how wonderful to hear from you. This adventure can be really challenging but in a different way to how most people are challenged to keep sane and healthy in these mad times. It would be great to see you with your parents when we are back in the UK… whenever that might be! We are now challenged by Brexit as we need to get out of the EU, but going back to the UK at the moment is not so enticing! Much love, Jeff and Sylvie xx
Hi dear friends! The photos speak for themselves. I mean, you are where you want to be. In these mad times, its hard to do so. I admire you both and think of you often, and in a way envy you because you are so happy together, exploring, like Robinsons on an island, open to the experience and ready to help people improve their lives!
Im sure we ll meet again someday, and we ll have plenty of stories to tell and enjoy!
Love to you both, Sylvie and Jeff!
Marta (from B. A. Argentina)
Hi Marta, thank you for your beautiful and kind words. We have been very lucky with life so far in that everywhere we have been, we have met exceptionally kind and interesting people like yourself and that has encouraged us to want to make friends all over the world. Also, Jeff and I are very conscious that life has been generous with us in every possible other way.. .We cannot do anything much anyway for our own friends and family nor our own children during these times of lockdown and social distanciation. So, if we can help anyone anywhere, even if on a minute scale, we feel we are sharing a little of all we have received.
Leggere queste parole mi ha letteralmente commosso, avete lasciato in me e in tutta la fabbrica una enorme eredità , ci avete donato con umiltà e serenità tutta la vostra esperienza, le vostre conoscenze e tutto il vostro sapere per vivere bene. Ve ne sarò per sempre grato, e sarò per sempre grato alla vita perché mi ha concesso l’onore di conoscere due persone uniche come voi.
Grazie di tutto! Un abbraccio.
Skizzo.
Caro Skizzo … grazie per le tue bellissime parole. La verità è che potremmo restituirti ciascuno di essi e questo descriverebbe come ci sentiamo. Tu e tutti gli artisti della fabbrica (e ricordo con particolare affetto Gabriele, Edgard, Daniele, Sara, e ovviamente la nostra cara Carla) siete stati d’ispirazione per noi. Lei in particolare ci ha mostrato cos’è un essere umano vero e onesto. Abbiamo ammirato il modo in cui hai mantenuto, giorno dopo giorno, spingendo il tuo corpo e la tua creatività , dando il 100% di te stesso al servizio della tua arte. Potrebbe essersi fermato lì e sarebbe stato sufficiente, dato che c’è tanta inventiva e cura in quello che fai, tanto piacere nel vederti esibirti. Tuttavia, hai anche trovato il modo di dedicare generosamente il tuo tempo, la tua forza e le tue capacità per il bene comune, spesso più della tua giusta quota. (Ricorda le settimane di lavoro extra che ti sei imposto, erigendo un palcoscenico e preparando l’intrattenimento per tutti noi, giusto per fare in modo che tutti alla Fabbrica trascorressero un vivace e allegro Natale e Capodanno). Hai un sorriso sul tuo viso anche quando sei dolorante, vai avanti e sei sempre pronto con una parola o un gesto gentile per aiutare gli altri. Facciamo tesoro del tempo che abbiamo passato con voi, cucinando, creando, condividendo idee, storie e ricette, imparando anche a destreggiarci. Quindi, vedi, siamo davvero noi a ringraziarti per la saggezza e la gentilezza tanto più meravigliose che sembrano essere completamente e naturalmente parte di chi sei. Speriamo che quando tutti questi tempi folli saranno finiti, la gente accorrerà al tuo spettacolo e uscirà come noi ogni volta che ti abbiamo visto esibirti: con un grande sorriso sui loro volti, un raggio di sole negli occhi e meraviglia e tenerezza in i loro cuori. Quindi, grazie, e un grande abbraccio a te caro Ski, sperando che ci rivedremo.
Hi Marta, thank you for your beautiful and kind words. We have been very lucky with life so far in that everywhere we have been, we have met exceptionally kind and interesting people like yourself and that has encouraged us to want to make friends all over the world. Also, Jeff and I are very conscious that life has been generous with us in every possible other way.. .We cannot do anything much anyway for our own friends and family nor our own children during these times of lockdown and social distanciation. So, if we can help anyone anywhere, even if on a minute scale, we feel we are sharing a little of all we have received.
Ciao Sylvie and Jeff! Read with emotion your reply! Thanks! Also read Ricardo s text and he put the right words : you both gave to the whole group, all of yourselves, humbly and calmly…
Sometimes “how” is even more important than “what”.
Stay safe and let us know about your whereabouts!
Love from B. A. (Argentina)