Updated on Settembre 22, 2015
Stéphanie L.
Marellina 2013
Ciao, Hallo, Salut! Sono Stéphanie e sono un “junky” del mare. Dopo il liceo, ho deciso che sarebbe tempo per qualcosa di diverso…e sono atterata nel piccolo perduto carino villaggio di Nerano, per essere volontaria del primo progetto MARE nel 2013. Fu un periodo felicissimo della mia vita, viaggando sulle onde col kayak, scoprendo le bellezze marine col snorkelling, spiegando cose ai turisti e amici, vivendo con gente internazionale, nel rithmo della natura… Adesso studio geografia ed economia e spero vedere e poter aiutare a proteggere tutti gli oceani del mondo!
stephanie.lacombe1@yahoo.de
Updated on Novembre 20, 2020
Spring Cleaning on the Beach
On the 8th of May, one of our first active contributions towards improving the Italian environment took us to – where else? – Ieranto bay! We got to go in kayak (first time too!) on the windy wavy sea. For use in the bay there are two types of kayak: the slower, but easily manageable sit-on-top kayaks and the fast little red ones. For this day, the latter were reserved for our experienced tutors.
It was a beautiful experience to be able to freely go around and explore the bay in the sunshine. But more than for having fun in the sun, we had come to Ieranto this day to work. To clean the two beaches we divided into two groups. Our mission: Collect all the rubbish! Since this was the first spring cleaning after winter and took place after a rainy windy week, this turned out to be quite a lot. All of it was not only collected, but also counted and documented. The rubbish consisted mostly of polystyrene (styrofoam), plastic bottles, other miscellaneous pieces of plastic, and a few cans.
More spectacular finds included a large rusty metal sign and a refrigerator. Transporting all of it back thus seemed quite a challenge, and required Gaelle to give up her kayak and hitch a ride with Tanja and Valentina on the double kayak.
The somewhat rough sea led to some minor accidents for Mikus and Frauke, who got run over by their kayaks when they tried to get them back on the water. The contents of their kayaks were thus spilled into the water. Unbeknownst to Mikus, his kayak contained one of our underwater cameras. Luckily, Mimì decided to take a group photo with all kayaks before disembarking, so the absence of the camera was noted in time: After a quick investigation by Detective Sgambati into who handed the missing camera to whom at what time and where they put it, we figured out its most likely location and speedily returned for a successful recovery.
Our second cleaning day led us to the beautiful marina di Crapolla. Mimì’s green van transported us safely to Torca, where we met up with Andrea, intern at the Marine Protected Area of Punta Campanella. After walking down 650 steps, we arrived at the bay. A stunningly beautiful place, yet sadly covered in trash as far as the eye could see.
Armed with purple and black trash bags we set out once again to separate polystyrene, plastic bottles, and thousands of small pieces of plastic from metal, fabric, glass, and many other often indefinable objects. Meanwhile, Andrea diligently noted down every number we shouted at him.
Some of the trash we found was immediately reused to make art, or as improvised instruments by Alvaro and Mimì, and of course the nice music lightened our work.
After several hours of labouring under the sun, we took our lunch break and finally got to enjoy the Fiordo di Crapolla in all its beauty.
Before climbing back up the 650 stairs, we neatly stacked all our collected bags on the beach, ready to be picked up via rubber boat a few days later on the 12th. Some more cleaning was done that day as well, and finally all rubbish was transported to its disposal destination at Marina del Cantone with the Park’s gommone.
The gommone had to make two trips to transport all the rubbish we found in Crapolla: all in all 140kg, including 15kg of polystyrene (a lot, given how light it is – taking up 10 big rubbish bags), 16kg of plastic pieces and bottles, 50kg of undifferentiated rubbish which can’t be recycled, 43kg of metal, and even a car battery.
This large amount of rubbish we collected on only two small beaches represents just a tiny fraction of the vast amounts swimming in our oceans, and it provides a valuable reminder:
Updated on Settembre 22, 2015
Madara P.
Marellina 2013
La prima cosa che mi viene in mente quando penso a questo periodo di volontariato è la sensazione che ho fatto una scelta perfetta e molto importante per la mia vita. Non succede spesso, che tutte le condizioni coincidano a pennello!! Difatti ho svolto molte attività collezionando nuove esperienze, emozioni che sicuramente porterò con me per tutta la vita!
madarap@hotmail.com
Updated on Novembre 20, 2020
How we made our horticultural garden
Having a horticultural garden in our own house is a sustainable and environmental-friendly way to produce our aliments; furthermore we can reuse the organic rubbish as substrate in the ground.
In our case, we will make a garden with vegetables, aromatic herbs and ornamental flowers. Below we will explain the steps to follow from the beginning and processes such as cleaning, making rows and the preparation before planting. At this moment the ground is full of wild plants, compacted; we will learn how to distribute the aromatic herbs and vegetables together and show techniques to protect the soil and to water.
But how did you make your horticultural garden?
At this moment we have vegetables like onions, salads, zucchinis and peppers; flowers like daisies, begonia, sunflowers or dahlias and aromatic herbs like mint, salvia, iris or papyrus.
The first step was removing the vegetation that grew while the garden was abandoned. Then we had to loosen the soil. The ground needs to be ploughed to allow the drain and growth of the roots; besides, bigger stones were kept to divide the different part of our garden.
Before planting we divided the area taking into account the space needed for each species. Some species, like salad or onion, were first planted in a tray, and grew for long enough not to be destroyed by birds or the sun while other plants, like the flowers, were just spread on the ground as seeds. To place the young plants of vegetables we used a wooden stick, which makes a hole big enough to put the little plant into. Only one wild species that grew in our garden was left, the Borago, which is eatable.
The next step was watering. It is recommended to do it after sunset for 3 main reasons: first, to avoid water evaporation during the process; drops remaining on the surface of leaves can act like lenses with the direct sunlight, burning the plants; to avoid hydric stress, i.e the difficulty for plants to process photosynthesis and absorb the water contained in the ground at the same time.
After watering we covered the surface with the vegetation previously cut to maintain the humidity of the soil and protect it from direct radiation from the sun.
After all that work now we can say it was an awesome day, especially since everything has grown well and we even started eating our own vegetables and fruits.
Did you know?
Daisy is not a flower, but a inflorescence; this latinism means “a flower in a flower”. The daisy is a group of flowers (of the same species) that evolved together to create the aspect of only one. The yellow part in the centre that looks like pollen is not; in fact it is a hundred of tiny flowers with their own pollen, and each petal, a flower that evolved to look like one.
Updated on Novembre 20, 2020
Visita guidata con il FAI a proposta di agricoltura
Nella mattina del 18 Maggio, quattro volontari del nostro gruppo volevano imparare di piu a proposto dell’ agricultura nella baia di Ieranto. Siamo andati insieme con la nostra guida Antonella De Angelis del FAI ed alcune famiglie, piano piano, alla casetta del guardiano, da Salvatore.
Salvatore ci ha mostrato il suo orto, dove ci sono molte piante di frutta e verdura che crescono molto bene sotto il forte sole. Grazie al lavoro del giardinere della baia di Ieranto, Paolo, abbiamo potuto vedere ciliegie, limoni, melenzane, insalate, fagioli, patate e albicocche.
Abbiamo anche fatto un esperimento: alcuni visitatori hanno innestato un ramo di ulivo sopra un tronco di ulivo con una pasta speciale, sperando che cresca una pianta. Per far ciò il ramo ed il tronco non devono essere della stessa specie o almeno della stessa famiglia: per esempio, è possibile di innestare un ramo di limone sopra un tronco di arancio.
Poi abbiamo visto la piantagione di limoni della baia di Ieranto. I limoni sono coperti di tavole di legno. Servono per proteggere i frutti e la pianta dalla grandine, dalla salsedine, dal freddo e dal gelo.
Il culmine della visita consisteva nell’imparare di piu a proposto della produzione della mozzarella e dell’ olio di oliva, e la degustazione di questi prodotti.
Il processo di fabbricazione della mozzarella è molto interessante. La ricetta non è cambiata da molti anni, e i padri continuano a dare istruzioni ai figli.
C’era una seconda presentazione pomeriggio. Purtroppo Massimo non è potuto essere presente.
Dopo aver mangiato tanta ricotta con arancia, salumi, mozzarella e torta con miele (e probabilmente altri piatti che non ricorda adesso) e stanco a causa del calore, ha fatto una siesta all’ ombra degli alberi e non ha partecipato alla presentazione di fotografie al info-point del FAI. Non ti preoccupare Massimo, ci sarà un’altra visita guidata!
