Help with the orange and olive gardens and share experiences in the countryside of Sicily, Italy

Details

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  Description

  LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO 2025?
  We're happy to inform you, that during January we're on vacation (; but we're still replying the messages. For 2025, we'll be available to host after mid-February, when blood-orange picking season will start!
  
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  Hello! We're Jenny & Luca, a young couple who for the last years have veen challenging themself to take care of a piece of land in Sicily and live a simple life.
  
  Besides farming as lifestyle, our goal here in workaway is to connect with people who: are looking on live simpler; sharing a commnunal life; would like to explore transition according to natural farming, permaculture and agroecology principles; and designing creative solutions to provide water, energy and heating for a household. Please just write for us, if these ideias resonate with you.
  
  --To begin, a few words about the place that we live and will happily share with you:
  The garden is mainly populated by blood-orange and olives trees, together with other fruit trees and a few vegetable gardens. At first glance, we felt in love about the place due to its panorama. We're at the foot of the volcano Etna and near to the Simeto valley (the biggest river in Sicily!).
  
  Other than that, we built a local small community of neighbors that share the vision of agriculture and live really close by. We developed some activities together as an opportunity to gather and share experiences and resourses, at the same time that we keep each other motivated. Depending on the period, you'll have the chance to meet and share some work days together. The marjority production of the land are for us, family, friends and neighbors.
  
  --Check if this is a right place for you:
  For us to be a host on workaway doesn't strictly mean exchange a certain number of hours for food and stay, we're opening our house and sharing everything that we've have learnt in these last few years, so we're especially looking for people who: would like to immerse themselves on this lifestyle and on the daily routine of a small-scale farm; would like to experience communal living and also feel that than can contribute somehow with us and our place.
  If you're just look for a way of traveling cheap, probably another place would suit you better. For people who are on their vacation, we are appreciate your choice to spend time with us, but keep in mind that that we're expected full commited during the work days.
  
  So, what we are looking for? People who are pro-active and have iniatiave. People who rather have a good talk over a homemade meal than to be on their phones. People who are willing to leave the place better than their found it and take care of communal stuff as they were their own. People who would like to challenge the individual mindset to live a communal life and sharing common spaces. People who enjoy simple living, and who are looking to have their hands dirty and their bodies moving. People who are willing to adapt to a new daily routine. People who would to have a nice conversations about sociology, philosophy, food, agriculture and so on. Please avoid applying if that doesn't translate the kind of experience that you want to live.
  
  That said, there is no special need for previous experience. However, people with experience (at the specific tasks, farming, outdoor life, and also living in communities) are specially welcome to co-design and dicuss ideas together. Workawayers who feel good when with plants, animals, and in a natural environment are welcome. Other than that, we share the tasks of cooking and household chores outside of helping hours. So, this place is for people who are sociable and enjoy to share, cooking and eating together. We usually have lunch and dinner together. However, you should also consider that somedays for different reasons you could be by yourself and/or with the other guests, so you should be able to cook and developed tasks that we'll previously discuss with you.
  
  --About us:
  Our story together begins in Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America, where Jenny (32), from Brazil, meets Luca (34), from Palermo, Italia.
  
  Jenny completed her studies in Nutrition and Luca in Architecture. In those years, however, we struggled to find connections between our studies and the practical life. So, we both have decided to pursue a PhD. Jenny in the Sociology area, where she studied peasant social movements. While Luca debates indigenous Amazonian thought in the Philosophy faculty. When we have reached the last years of our studies, we decide to put their theories into practice.
  
  We've been guests ourselves in a local permaculture project for almost 1-year. Now, we're about to complete your first year hosting guests. After this period, we're happy to say that we had just amazing experiences and hope to expand on this experience with your presence here. Slowly, we're creating a community with people who love the outdoor and simple life from all over the world.
  
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  General information:
  The nearest town is 5km away. Unfortunately, there is no public transportation from the land to the city. At your arrival and departure, we'll arrange to get you at the nearest bus station. Please consider if you're traveling by plane, bus or train that there is no public transportation on Sundays. We cannot pick you up at Catania.
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  There is no wi-fi.
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  When you write to us, please take your time to introduce yourself. Tell us why you would like to come, tell us about your skills and knowledge and if you have any personal projects. If you arrived until here in your reading, name your message "Panda" so this also helps us to reply to people who are really interested to come and took their time to know a bit about us and our place.
  
  Please specify when you want to come and for how long you would like to stay. We truly encourage you to stay for a minimum of 2-weeks - in this way, you have time to get to know the place, get used to the routines and specially enjoy yourself.
  People who are looking for longer staying are also welcome. In our opinion, if this is the case you would be able explore in depth what live in countryside can mean.
  Feel free to write in English, Italian or Portuguese.
  We ask some patient on the time that we take to reply on. Most of the days, we work outdoors, and we take some days at the week to work on the computer. We take time, but we always reply.
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  Worth to say: We hope that you'll be able to feel at home at our place, we'll not tolerate any types of prejudices (gender, race, sexuality, so on).
  Latin americans and people who enjoy the region have a big space in our hearts.
  Sicilians and Italians as well are specially welcome, since one of your goals is to strengthen our local community.
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  Excited to exchange experiences,
  Hope to see you soon.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Art Projects

  Language practice

  Help with Eco Projects

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Farmstay help

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

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  What's this?
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  Simeto valley is a special place that is home for the biggest river in Sicily, affluent of the waters of Etna and Nebrodi mountains, that holds a wide range of native animals and plants. For us, sharing this place with others is a part of our dream to also increase human biodiversity in our project. We do believe that share this experience with us will be an unique opportunity to see Sicily countryside life through different lenses.

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  Help

  You will be able to live and experience an daily routine in natural small farming.
  
  Activities and expectations:
  Our activities are seasonal and vary according to our available resources, personal energy and skills.
  
  For the next period, some particular activities that we intend to do are:
  - Food picking, processing and cooking experiments: jams, liquors (limoncello, for example!), bread, pizza, etc, etc.
  - Agroforestry - Planting and maintenance of new native and exotic trees, annual pruning of fruit trees, regeneration design according to microclimate zones
  - Spring and winter vegetable garden
  - Helping the brunchs from the annual prunning and preparing wood for the winter
  - Design and experiments of self-building - If it's possible with natural, renewable and/or recycled materials. At the moment, we're working on compost toilets and small greenhouse.
  - Bio-lake, water's channels and irrigation system's management - working in progress!
  
  There is also the general maintenance of the place, which is important to mention because it takes a fair amount of time. Other than that, we expect that everyone is able to feel at home, and for this reason keep the place tidy and as or even better as they found it. We love to cook and share good meals, so the idea is that other than the working hours, we'll take turns at the kitchen to make specially vegetarian meals mostly with the fresh picked ingredients from the garden.
  
  We expected to work together 5 days a week, with 2 days off (once we're together we can define the details). Daily, we will have some activities in the morning and afternoon, composing around 5 hours. We can give you some suggestions of things to do in your days off, but keep in mind that during work days we expect full commitement to daily activites and the work schedule.
  
  Our activities are developed mainly outside. Keep in mind that temperatures varies a lot in your area. During winter season, for example, you can expected warm sunny days, but it can get chilly at night ( 0-5°C). Possibily, it's windy and rainy. For us this is everyday life, but due previous experiences we think it's worth to stress that in our place there are insects and everything else that comes with life in the coutryside.
  
  Life is community based with everything that goes with it. For example, every day, washing dishes is a shared task that we perform as equally as we can. As someone who is sharing communal spaces, we expect that cleaning from time to time is something that you can do by your own iniative, without the need to be told.
  
  It is worth saying that you might be developing activities on your own, in a couple or in a small group.

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  Languages spoken

  English: Fluent
  Italian: Fluent
  Portuguese: Fluent

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  Accommodation

  We have a caravan with two beds available to host workawayers. It is likely that you share the caravan with another guest depending on the moment and requests, so if you're not up to sharing the space, please clarify this for us.
  Even though we are in Sicily, consider that during fall and winter temperatures drop at the night, and we don't have central heating, so please be aware about that (warm pijamas and sleeping bag could be valuable!). Other than that, we have a simple, but spacious shared kitchen (with a wood stove that we use during winter evenings); an outhouse; and an outdoor shower inside a small greenhouse that we self-built.
  If you have your own camper, we'll be happy to host you as well.

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  What else ...

  We're 30-35 km from Catania, and you can arrive at the nearst town with public transportation.
  Once, we confirmed your stay we'll send you a file with further instructions of how to arrive and what could be useful to bring to enjoy your days with us and in our place.
  
  Ci vediamo presto! Nos vemos em breve!

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Can host digital nomads

  This host has indicated that they love having digital nomads stay.

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  Space for parking camper vans

  We will be happy to host you and your camper.

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  Can possibly accept pets

  Currently, we share the land with 4 cats - Panda, Cacau, Pandino & Mamma. We've hosted guests who have others cats and worked really okay. Write to us and we can discuss it.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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