Monday 01.04.19
Today I had planned on joining the rest of the students at Gustolab to tour a vineyard, but I had the 24 hour stomach bug which held me back.
Tuesday 02.04.19
My day started off at Zappata Romana, where I helped create a slide show for the upcoming event on Saturday. Then had my weekly meeting with my mentor Giulia, from Gustolab. Then from 3-5 I had my Italian class. Today I had another new teacher. Then finally my day ended with a bus and metro ride to Vale La Pena, where the official pub is located that sells the Recuperale beer. I met with the "president" (Paulo Stranno) who created the program. I got to interview him and ask him questions that I had previously came up with.
After I collect a few of these interviews that I am doing with various non profits in Italy, I will add them into a video which is one of my assignments for Gustolab. Although Paulo Stranno spoke little to no English I could still tell how passionate he was about the work he is doing. If quoting your job as a physical therapist to create a non profit that will create jobs for prisoners and help end food waste doesn't say it already...
Wednesday 03.04.19
We had another cooking class, we met at the Testaccio Market.
After walking around the market I made the observation that most of all the fruit that was being sold but individually wrapped in plastic.. I found this very concerning and curious. After this we had another wine tasting class. Today we learned about and tasted sparkling wine. Which we normally call champagne, but after this course I found out you can only call a sparking wine, "champagne", if its from the region champagne.
Thursday 04.04.19
I was in charge of putting the power point together and finalizing all of the details. Silvia asked me to collect quotes about gardening, community, and over coming battles. My favorite quote I found was "“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” – Mother Teresa". This quote applies to many aspects in sustainable food and farming. In this major its often hard to stay optimistic with so much doubt surrounding us. But if only one person changes a habit in their daily routine, surly others will follow.
Friday 05.04.19
Started my day off at Mediterranea. This is one of my favorite ways to start the day off by. Its always fun, uplifting, and relaxed there. The second you walk past the gate you enter this magical space that has an oasis like no other. I helped train some of the new refugees, and practiced English with them. We worked on packaging up the wood boxes that would be sent out to Milan for design week. It was pretty exciting to see things that I had worked on being packaged up to be show cased at the show. I then had an appointment to go visit the FAO headquarters in Rome. This was a pretty special experience because not just anyone can have access to the inside of the FAO. This tour helped to deepen my understanding on SDGs, which is one of the topics for my paper! Also expanded my knowledge on what type of jobs are intertwined with sustainable food and farming.
Saturday 06.04.19
This Saturday I was invited to the garden party at Hortus Urbis. I brought a friend along with me and we plotted ourselves inside one of the garden beds and spent they day planting, and watering and getting dirty!! After there was pizza served that was made in the pizza oven thats also located in the garden and toppings are supplied by everyone bringing one pot luck item and their own plates and forks. I met a lady who was about 27-29 who's originally from Texas, and moved to Rome 3 years ago to work at IFAD. She works on the funding for United Nations agriculture programs.
