OUR GROUP
Since almost everybody has left, one of the volunteers made a video about us. We put the projector up to our balcony and watched it two times. Yes. some of us cried. We had to watch cat videos after this to not feel too sad. We're sad to leave, but happy because of the whole experience.
COVID VACCINE
To get vaccine abroad, you'll need local fiscal code. I went to get mine, had an appointment at 11:00. Had a local with me to avoid any misunderstandings. We were sitting in the waiting area for an hour (!) before we got any service. I really don't get the appointments here, what's the point to book if you still have to wait in a line?! I'm pretty sure I booked an appointment, not a disappointment.
When we finally got the service, they had trouble with my address - I'm from Põlva, so they didn't know how to find a letter Õ to find the town in the system. I gave them a postal code, but it was higher mathematics for them. It took 1,5 hours to sign one paper!
I wouldn't be stressed, being late is normal here, but we planned a trip to Tenuta Lanza with all the people from office and local volunteers. We had a very nice lunch together, swam in a pool and just had a good time.
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| Tenuta Lanza |
In the evening we arrived back to home and got the news from hospital, that there's soon-to-be-expired covid vaccine doses, so we headed to the hospital. Otherwise it would have been thrown out. I was lucky to get the fiscal code and the vaccine at the same day. I have never gotten a shot without getting a band-aid after - that was something weird.
THE GOOD KITCHEN
Mussomeli is blessed with an Australian chef called Danny McCubbin.
He bought a 1 euro house here and recently started rescuing food. It means that farmers, supermarkets and small businesses are supporting him with foodstuff and he's cooking for everybody for free. I am helping him with whatever I can - mostly cooking, but I also made signs and I support him and The Good Kitchen as much as I can. I just love the idea of not wasting food!
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| Me and my German friend making lentil balls |
Recently we made tomato salsa from the tomatoes donated by Nucera family. I don't know how many liters we made, but we used the pot big enough for me to sit inside. Local nursing home called Casa Vanessa got all the bottles of this delicious sauce as a gift.
Every Friday at 13:00 we prepare lunch for everybody who's hungry. Isn't it beautiful!
Links to Danny's work:
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| Danny in the middle, and volunteers |
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| Danny's speech to Mussomeli people |
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| Yes, news on real paper! |
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| Lentil balls, quinoa balls, hummus, pickled onions and fresh tomatoes, opening ceremony food |
MIDTERM EVALUATION
Every ESC volunteer is having midterm evaluation. These days, because of covid, it was online, which is little bit sad, because usually we can meet other volunteers, travel, and have fun activities together. We were still able to contact and share our experiences. We live with 10 people, but it's not that usual - some volunteers live with one person only. Actually everything can be different, depending on the hosting organization.
One of the tasks was to make memes, these are 2 my favourites:
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LOCAL NEWSPAPER IS TALKING ABOUT US
"MUSSOMELI – Sabato prossimo, 31 luglio dalle 10.30 alle 12.30 presso Sala delle Adunanze, Palazzo Sgadari, si svolgerà il cerimoniale di consegna di 10 foto che i volontari del programma “Corpo Europeo di Solidarietà”, ospitati dall’Arcistrauss nell’ambito dei progetti “Anticorpi di Solidarietà” e “Tabulè: Sharing Tables, Living Cultures”, hanno scattato e doneranno all’amministrazione e alla comunità locali per l’accoglienza e l’ospitalità che gli stessi hanno ricevuto durante questi mesi di permanenza a Mussomeli. I volontari vengono da Germania, Francia, Spagna, Belgio, Estonia, Lettonia. Sono questi i progetti:Con il progetto “Anticorpi di Solidarietà” si è voluto aumentare la consapevolezza nelle comunità locale della necessità di fare uso e buon uso della solidarietà per riuscire a farne un argine alle diverse forme di violenza che rischiano di infettare la società e rendere tutti i suoi cittadini avulsi dalla ricerca del bene comune.
Con il progetto “Tabulè: Sharing Tables, Living Cultures” si è fatto della tradizione culturale e culinaria lo strumento per esplorare la diversità che, diventando valore fondante dell’unione tra popoli, riesce ad essere occasione di sviluppo sociale e culturale dei giovani e delle comunità locali. "
MONUMENT FOR COVID VICTIMS
This is nice and everything, but also ... very useless. It just appeared couple of days ago in Mussomeli.
RANDOM THINGS THAT HAPPEN
Yesterday night about 22:00 I was just chilling at home, when I heard a knock on our door. There was police! They asked for our house front camera footage. I almost s**t my pants thinking of every wrong decision I've ever made in my life. We called the people from the organization and it turns out that our neighbour's copper pipe was stolen and they were trying to find the thieves. Uhh!
JUST PHOTOS OF ME
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| Me admiring Sicilian wine |
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| Me with happy dogs |
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| Me waiting for a train with a bag of chips |
SUMMER CAMP
We are organizing different types of activities for the local kids here. The summer camp lasts 3 weeks. For now, we have done art, singing, dancing, scavenger hunt, also educational activities. 
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| Regular temperature checking |
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| Children city planning |
SICILIAN SCREAMING THERAPY
One of our volunteers felt bad, because she's the only one who doesn't speak english and she felt left out of conversations sometimes. We literally had a screaming party with the people from the office. Everybody could scream what they found to be helpful for her. Of course, we translated everything. My screaming speach was about how I'm from Estonia and there's literally 1 million people in the whole world that speak estonian. I also struggle in most parts of the world, and it happens often, that even if people speak my mother language, we still don't understand each other. Not because of the language, but because we are different people. Others said other encouraging things to her, I hope it helped! Half of Mussomeli heard our crazy screaming therapy :D !
TOOTHPAIN
It's my first time ever when I have something wrong with my teeth, never had any holes or other problems, I have very beautiful and healhty teeth. My wisdom tooth started making me so much horrible pain yesterday. (Yes, I am 26 already, but I'm getting so wise here that it hurts!)
What happens when you are a volunteer in other country and need medical help? Well, usually you have to have insurance like here everybody has Cigna. I don't have it, because you can't have two insurances at the same time. Mine in my home country is connected with my school and with unemployment service, so I decieded to not get Cigna.
I had a first emergency visit yesterday, I didn't pay anything. The dentist looked into my mouth and was like: :O !!!, prescribed me 2 different pills AND something that needs to be injected to my butt! Thankfully one of the volunteers knows how to give a shot, so I didn't need to go to hospital to get shot. The scary part is still awaiting - next week I go to a checkup and maybe they need to remove the tooth. Let's hope for the best!
FOOD
I went on a date with myself, to place called Maximillian. I order one beer (didn't order food yet) and it came with free aperitivo. This is basically a full meal for a small girl like me!
ART fusion ENGLISH
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| My fellow teacher on the left and civil service guy who's helping with taking temperature of kids |
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| Lovely students |
BEFORE AND AFTER
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| before |
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| after |
IDK maybe it's illegal to do things like that, but it was soooooo ugly that it should be illegal.
ART fusion ENGLISH CLASS
MY FIRST FAMILY TRIP
We went to spend holidays with our volunteer family. I decided to go with them, because
a) it's cheaper to travel and take hotel with a group
b) for some reason I'm not on any of these photos the other volunteers take together, it's like I was never here!
c) I have a photographer friend in Catania and I wanted to have pictures of myself with Etna.
It was very fun, we visited Catania, Taormina, Cyclope's Island, Etna.
One day, I girl from our group accidently broke my mirror. She was very sorry and I was like "it's just an item, don't worry about it". But I started to worry about it, because some people say it brings 7 years of bad luck and I've seen it happening in my life before. The next day a black cat crossed our way (I can't believe I am writing this with a straight face). The day after that, the girl who broke my mirror, got robbed. A phone, credit cards, ID card, everything went. I buried this mirror and I hope for the best!
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| Waiting for our airbnb. We got scammed, it looked like a villa on the photos, but we got very small room with bunkbeds. |
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| Someone is actually planting the plants differently every day. |
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| not so good photo of Cyclope's Islands |
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| Photos of Etna on the streets |
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| Me with a local man and a trashpile that was next to our airbnb, nice neighbourhood |
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| Recycled plant pots |
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| Rocky beach in Taormina |
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| Taormina |
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| View of Etna in Taormina |
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| Catania city center |
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