The report of Rusakovich about 2 weeks
in a volunteer camp spent in Italia

*The location

It is easy to reach the nearest to the village town Biella by train from Turin or Milan. One of the leaders of the organization met me at the station at the time that was convenient for me. The village itself is very picturesque, surrounded with hills and full of various old and beautiful monuments!!!

*Work

The work was easy and sometimes a little bit monotonous, but any activity becomes fun in a company of volunteers. Mainly we were painting nearly everything we saw – handrails, banisters, fences in the village… Sometimes a part of the group worked in the museum of iron: they scanned old drawings and made photos of them.  The most interesting work we had was one in the very first days of our staying there – we helped to organize Beer’s Festival.  In the morning we helped to clear the place from the rubbish and in the evening we had fun there ourselves.

*Free time

Or else –absolute absence of it! That doesn’t mean that we worked too much: that was due to the organizers who planned our spare time and did their utmost to fill every free minute with some kind of interesting activity. We had walks in the mountains, had dinners in different places, had excursions and got to know about the local handicrafts: we visited the workshop where iron is handled, the mill and the farm. Everywhere we met a lot of people who were eager to tell or to show us something. But the most unforgettable experiences were the Beer’s Festival where we were provided with free food and drinks and entertainments

and…

rising on top of the mountain, 2200 meters by height!!! Not everybody dared to do that, only experienced alpinists were brave enough to do that… and me, actually from a “mountainless” country. And I managed to do that!!!

*People

The locals are super! The only disadvantage is that they are speaking a very bad English. The languages used in the camp more often were Italian and Spanish. But I was able to find 2 persons who were speaking Russian (they were Italians by the way!!!). In general I didn’t have the problems with communicating.  We made a very friendly and interesting international company composed of an American girl, a Belarusian girl (me), a guy from Belgium, and a girl from Switzerland, 2 girls from Korea (as I have noticed Koreans always go abroad in pairs), 3 Spanish guys (to my mind – too many of them)), 2 French girls and a lot of the locals who helped us and sometimes stayed at our place for a night. The villagers are very friendly and kind, as well as the leaders of the program. I experienced that on my own when I came one to the place 1 day earlier and one of them spent 5 hours of his personal time to find me a place for a night.

*Living conditions

We were living as if we were kings – much better than in other camps in this location – we were having rooms mainly for 2 persons (only a girl from Spain and me had to share our rooms with boys because we were the last ones to arrive, but that was even more interesting). The food was marvelous. A local woman helped to prepare it and sometimes meals were dedicated to this or that cuisine. That was one of the things I liked most in the camp – we helped each other to cook, wash, clean… The most extravagant dishes were sangria cooked by Spaniards and certainly Belarussian draniki!!!!

*General overview

Those were the best holidays I had ever, and I hope that I will visit Italia again!!!!