Life in Tuscany

Tuttomondo 

I made it to the Mediterranean Sea!

Biking in Tuscany

I am so blessed to be living in Tuscany for the next month. I am living with a family in a small town called Avane. Avane is about 20 minutes drive from Pisa. I can actually see the leaning tower from the top of their mountain. Their family has owned the farm for many years. The running of the farm has been handed down through generations. There are many different aspects to the farm. They have olive trees from which they make their own olive oil. They have a liquor making business. They grow various fruits. They have chickens and rabbits. They are building an ecological bathroom and they are also building an oven to make their own bread in. Sadly, I don’t think the oven will be finished before I leave. Giacomo and Helena, the family I am living with, run everything expect the liquor making business. Giacomo’s sister runs that. 

Giacomo and Helena have four children. Stefana (not sure if I spelled that right) is in her early 20s and is away at college. Dante is 19 and goes to school in Lucca. Here in Italy there are 5 years of high-school instead of 4. Susannah is 16 and goes to school in Pisa. Daniel is 12 and goes to school in Avane. I am sharing a room with Susannah. Giacomo, Helena, and Susannah can all speak English pretty well. The boys don’t speak much at all. I don’t have any trouble communicating with Giacomo and Helena though. If Helena doesn’t understand something she just asks Giacomo to translate. Both Giacomo and Helena are translators. Giacomo mainly does Italian to English and English to Italian translation and Helena does Italian to French and Italian to Russia. 

I have worked six days on their farm so far. I got here on a Friday and they let me have Saturday and Sunday to rest before starting work on Monday. I start around 9am and work until about 1:30. On Saturdays I only have to work 2 hours. Right now we are working on burning all the olive tree branches that were cut down in the fall. In order to burn them we have to gather them all together and if the branches are too big we have to cut them. At first it seemed like it was going to be a never ending task. But little by little we have already finished 1 hectare and have started another. They have 6 hectares of olive trees. Thankfully, some of the other hectares have already been cleared. I think we have 3 more to clear.

Even though I’ve only been here a little over a week, i’ve been able to travel a good bit so far. My first Saturday here I went with Giacomo and Helena to a fair in Vecchiano. That Sunday I went with them to a fair in Pietra Santa. I saw the mountains where, supposedly, Michelangelo got the marble to make his sculptures. Everything is so beautiful here. I’ve also had the opportunity to go to Pisa, Livorno, Viareggio, and Pistoia. One day last week I biked around too! It’s been great. 

Some reasons why living in Tuscany is awesome:

-We have pasta for lunch everyday

-There is bread and wine at every meal

-My family owns an Alaskan Malamute named Vodka

-I found out today that Nutella is Italian. Makes sense

I’ll have to share more later.

Prayer Requests:

-I hurt my foot last week. It’s something I’ve done before. It’s called cuboid syndrome and it hurts to walk. I am going to a physical therapist tonight. Pray that it will get fixed and heal soon!

-Pray for conversations and relationship with the family.