Helpx'ing Bracciano... Living with an Italian family

A house overlooking a lake about an hour from Rome, three meals a day of the freshest, tastiest traditional Italian food and a family with such a welcoming attitude and optimistic outlook on life..... Our time Helpx'ing in Bracciano was nothing short of remarkable.

HELPX

We wouldn't have been able to experience any of this if it wasn't for this little gem of a site called helpx. Inspired by a lovely friend who WWOOF'd in Italy earlier this year, we decided that living and working with a local family would be the best way to experience the culture of Italy. When looking into WWOOF (volunteers on organic farms) we came across the similar site of Helpx. The premise is simple- hosts set up a profile about what kind of work they need doing, and helpers set up their own profile about where they want to go and what skills they can bring (I couldn't help but feel it was a dating service when writing our profile). Helpers then contact the hosts and if both sides agree, the exchange is formed: about 4 hours work a day in return for accommodation and food. 

A HOME IN BRACCINO

We struck gold when we received a reply from Valentina, offering to let us volunteer in her home in Bracciano. This beautiful town is the largest of three villages that surround Lake Bracciano, about an hour out of Rome by train. It has everything you could ever want to see to get a taste of what life is like in a small Italian town- tiny cobblestone alleyways, Vespas zipping through the streets, a beautiful medieval castle overlooking the lake and a town square where there is often music on summer nights. The lake is fresh water, (not the salty, seadweedy stuff that makes up Lake Macquarie) and they don't allow petrol-fueled speedboats so the water is really clean to swim.

As for the house, it was hard to tell what we were in for from the photos- on their profile, they had just two small photos that really didn't do the place justice. It's only 8 years old, with a massive window in the lounge room overlooking the lake, and a beautiful kitchen with a blackboard where all the family write poems, music or whatever else pops into their heads. There is a massive garden out the back, and a yard out the front with a vegetable garden grown through permaculture methods (more on that later). Our room was the downstairs area of the house, complete with our own lounge room, room with a double sofa bed and our own bathroom. And the best bit? Valentina's mother owns a house next door with a swimming pool, and since she lives in Roma, we were free to use the pool as we wanted!

THE FAMILY
Valentina welcomed us with open arms into her life and family during our time in Bracciano. The family is made up of Valentina & Paolo, Tommaso (19), Cecilia (13), a 3-legged dog named LILO (he was shot and lost his other leg), the Bear-like puppy Baloo and a cat named Leo that gave us sass the whole time. Valentina was a truly remarkable person. She is an English literature teacher at high school, yet can speak just about every language: she is fluent in Italian, French, Spanish and English, as well as Italian sign language. She even wrote a book about teaching deaf people English through Italian sign language!. She has a relaxed outlook on life, and likes to travel a lot. Her friends are from all over the world, including one talented Colombian guitarist who plays a lot of Spanish guitar. One night we spent around the pool while Valentina, mike and her Colombian friend played music and we drank wine... That kind of sums up what an easygoing person she is. But one of the best bits about Valentina and her family was that they were amazing cooks...

THE FOOD
The homemade food we got during our time in Bracciano was so good, it deserves it's own mention. Valentina told us that in Italy, a day revolves around food, and she was not lying. Italians place a big emphasis on lunch, and at around 2pm each day, the family sit down to quite literally a feast: on the table there would be fresh bread or bruschetta, a dish of pasta (my favourite was a sauce made from fresh basil, tomato and almonds....although the homemade pesto was a close second), fresh melon and prosciutto (which taste amazing together), some sort of cheese, and to finish off fresh watermelon, grapes or home-grown figs. One day Paolo's family visited and lunch was about double in size- after the pasta there was a main dish of Moussaka (Paolo's cousin had just returned from Greece and had learnt the recipe for this eggplant & meat lasagne), as well as gelato for dolci, and some wine to wash it all down.

Dinner is more of a relaxed affair, although you can guarantee that there are at least 3 or 4 dishes on the table at any one time... Back home, pasta would be the main dish, but here it just seems like a PART of the meal!

A DAY IN THE LIFE
So in return for all of this amazing hospitality, we did have to work- although they were very relaxed about this point.

We would wake around 8-9am, have breakfast, and get started on work by around 9.30am. Our main tasks were storing firewood for the winter, (which involved cleaning out the old wood from the shed, wheelbarrowing over the new wood and stacking it into three and a half stacks), as well as gardening using permaculture methods (which meant weeding a garden and getting pricks from the rose bushes in the process, then laying down cardboard, woodchips & pine nettles on top to stop the growth of weeds). I'd have to say I'd take stacking logs over gardening any day, as at least the pile would get smaller as you worked whereas the weeds seemed to be never ending!

After about 3 hours (sometimes more, sometimes less when they told us it was too hot to work) we would be finished for the day. We would sit down to a feast by 2pm, then have the afternoons free to swim in the pool, have a little siesta, explore the nearby towns around the lake, or read. In the late afternoon Valentina would often be going to the beach or the lake and we would get a ride there for a swim.

Dinner is often 9pm, and since it is summer, afterwards there was often something on in Bracciano or the nearby towns. We watched some live jazz a couple of nights, went into town and had a beer with Valentina and Paolo one night, or they would have friends around at night as well.. Our poor Italian meant we could not really talk to them if they didn't speak English, though my limited Italian meant I could understand some of the topics of conversation and occasional words- add that to all of the hand gestures they use, and I could make out a couple of things they were saying!

BASICALLY..
We had an opportunity to see what life in Italy is REALLY like- not just what you get from sightseeing and sleeping in a hostel. And for what it was worth, I'd stack logs every day if it meant I could eat Italian food forever! Now we are ready to see some more of Italy.