Alive but shaken

Hei everyone!
It's been a while since I've written to anyone or kept in touch though the blog or any other online social networking sites. It's a result of the current events here in Italy in the Abruzzo region where I'm volunteering. On the 6th of April an two big earthquakes hit the city of L'Aquila 30 km away from "La Canestra" by road and 10 km in direct line. Me, Lindsey, the American volunteer and Luisa, our coordinator on the farm didn't feel them much and considered everything will be back to normal soon.
Two weeks later and we are all sleeping in tents, moping the rain water out of them when it rains, take showers in the house with the doors slightly opened so we can go out in case of a tremor, eat in a enclosed space made by us from planks and thick, black plastic foil that doesn't leave any light in and everything couldn't be further from normality. But I'm glad I got to see the good side of this abnormal situation in the solidarity that the friends of the family showed as well as of random people. Full trunks of food and other useful things have been carried in our makeshift shelters by people who wanted to help, and volunteers from Italy and abroad have been coming constantly in the region to help the people in the camps, people that are left without a house or people who were advised it's not safe to return to their houses like us.
I'll try to remember how everything got to this point even though some details might have been blurred by daily routine and the stress of the situation.
Since the first tremor in L'Aquila, Pepe the father of the family, has been on alert. When I was thinking that we will be ok because the earthquake was over and not a problem for us Pepe on the other hand was already looking for alternatives to the antique stone built houses we slept in. (They welcome adobe, yurt of any type of light type of construction builders to experiment with other types of buildings than the stone ones that are so dangerous in case of an earthquake, by the way!). And he was right to do so since 10, 30 or even 100 km distance from such a natural calimitated area doesn't guarantee safety. From what I understand there are tectonic plates moving straight under our feet and the danger of a big one that could wipe out the whole village is always present.
From my last post and until the 10th of April we set up camp outside the houses on the therase where they already had gazebo under which we could set up small tents. The only problem was that Bruna's mother, Angelina couldn't take the cold, humid air because of her asthma and other problems and she had to sleep inside with Bruna looking after her. We also did flower necklaces for the lamb that follows Luisa everywhere as his mother, went for walks, we picked up stinging nettles, we brought from the family house a crazy Egyptian chicken, clipped her wings (feathers) and put her in with the other chickens. Not much else I think. We were in the first phase of the "terremotati", the people affected by the earthquake.

11th of April
We finally received a big tent from the commune, 5 days after the earthquake hit and sleeping in the small tents that got humid in the spring weather. I also tried to get back on the horse and this time succeeded in riding Carbosso but this time with a saddle and everything else.

12th of April
Not such a special day for the terremotati. Since we can't go inside we couldn't use the oven to cook anything special and we had the same "refugee" type of food we've been having for days. But it was a special day because we went to pick up Noemi from the camp where she remained to make the children feel better and get them to play and to have a sense of normality. That even though herself was very affected by the earthquakes and told us that everytime she felt a tremor after the big ones on the 6th she started shaking herself. Such a brave young lady! After picking her up on our way to the car the police stopped and gave her an Easter chocolate egg. It seems it's the one most important symbols of Easter for catholic christians here and people don't even know why. For orthodox christians like in Romania for example there are other traditions involving eggs but in a different way: the one that I really enjoyed as a kid was painting the eggs in red and than having "fights" to see who's egg is stronger. In the end we all ended eating an impossible amount of eggs. I was kinda home sick because I knew how many different things my parents would prepare for Easter. And that even though I knew the orthodox Easter is later than the catholic one. But Luisa had a great idea to uplift my spirit. Erica found a small belt in a Easter egg had written on it something to do with pirates which fit my new look perfectly because of the big scar across my face from falling of the horse. Luisa put the egg in my tent and told me to go have a look. I needed a belt so badly because my own I broke a while back. Thanks Luisa and Erica!After lunch Luisa and her father, that was now staying with us because his house in L'Aquila was damaged, invited me to go visit Luisa's grandmother (nona). She had a minor foot operation and was recovering in hospital. From my visit and talk with her I couldn't tell she was 95 years old (!!!). Seeing her making jokes and being so positive about everything even though her house was also damaged, she just went through an operation, earthquakes still went on and her age was inspirational and I felt great after visiting her.I was able to work hard all day carrying wood, placing the plastic foil over gazebo and other small things around our camp.

13th of April
In the cold morning it rained allot and the wind almost blew away the covers we made. They didn't protect us from the humidity much anyway. I also made a bit of a shelter for the dogs because they were in terrible shape out in the rain. At lunch we went to pick up the "refugee" food from the main camp of Capitigano. Small aluminium containers filled with warm and pretty good food. After that we reinforced the covers. In the night we had a pretty big earthquake 5 km away, 4,9 on Richter scale andI woke up to note down the time it happened: 11:20. It seems most big earthquakes happened during the night and surely there is a scientific reason behind this waiting to be discovered, something to do with temperature maybe. But to me the earthquake seems like something a worm from Dune would cause, waiting for the cover of night to attach unsuspecting Italians and the random Romanians like myself.

14th of April
Me and Lindsey had a bit of fun after lunch in an arm wrestle where we realised we were equal in strength. Ha ha! Good thing Pepe wasn't around to see this as he always differentiates between the two of us in the work he asks us to do: I always end up doing the "man" stuff, carrying and lifting while "fragile" Lindsey does the "woman" stuff in the kitchen and around the house. But as it is I ended up carrying some more wood, cutting wood, cleaning wood around the little creek, something that I went to do on my own. Lindsey probably washed some more dishes.In the evening we gathered around a glass of Melissa infusion, a plant that is supposed to relax the mind. Still, even tranquilised with Melissa, we still felt the earthquake from 10:22 PM and the other ones that followed.

15th of April
The first sign from authorities came today in the presence of the firemen (vigili del fuoco) that came to inspect the churches. Some of the churches are very old like the one dedicated to saint Rocco close to the agriturism from 1866, i believe. Another sign from the authorities but unwanted one came when I went risking my life to use the internet in the family house just to find a window that redirected the connection to a local free network for the people affected by the earthquake but that required a username and password! Work of the day for me was cleaning and carrying wood.

16th of April
At 9:30 Rocco and his son Maurizzio, friends of the family came to make a stronger enclosure for us to cook and put the tents under. They brought all their professional tools and we were cutting and hammering a new shelter in no time. On this occasion I noticed what a hard time Italians have remembering my 4 letter name, Radu. I've been called so far Romeo, Raul, Rudy, Chico, Prato (pasture) and as a joke Radura (pasture inside a forest) and Tare by Rocco. There've been more but I can't remember them all. It's always amusing to collect a new nickname.Along with having a wind and rain proof shelter this was an important day also because it was the first time I got to taste artichoke (carciofi). Mmmmmmmm! Tasty. Rudy likes.

17th of April
The morning we started in force when me and Pepe drove to load some hey and bring home. We also unloaded and organised it. We also carried some wood home and I was ready for a break. But than the cows escaped and we had to go chase them back in the enclosure. After lunch I felt I needed some time doing something for myself so I went down from the camp near the small creek that runs through their property to practice making a shelter from things lying around. I used the bag that the big tent came in as a hammock and placed a tent cover it as a tarp. Very comfortable and pretty solid. View to the hills and the stars above. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep in it before I leave.

19th of April
Today was the orthodox christian Easter so I got a phone call from my parents early in the morning that woke me up. It was nice hearing from them though. They were both there to wish me all the things they were used to say since I was a baby and I felt close to them even so far away.But than the bad news started pouring in. The family was upset because their village wasn't included in the affected area and wasn't fit to receive government subsidies. And that when every other village around them was included. The damage to their family house is very visible as well as the damage to houses in the village. And not only the house was affected but also the agriturism. Understandably nobody is coming in the region anymore and the 40 people they were expecting for Easter canceled. As well as other people who came in just for the restaurant. Luisa and I had the luxury to escape for a bit from it all and we went to visit Luisa's grandmother again. She was in a good mood as usual and bought us both drinks in the hospital bar. After that we went to see if we could go into L'Aquila but the roads were still blocked and we could only see the "macelo", the mess around it. Truly impressive what Mother Nature can do in 20 seconds.

22rd of April
It started as a bad day for me because I pulled a muscle in my back cutting wood but it turned out to be pretty good having Bruna and Luisa massage me with a special natural cream that contains arnica, devil's grass and lavender. Also Bruna drove me to the pharmacy and bought me the same cream and insisted that she paid for it. I also fasted during lunch and dinner which I believe gives the body some time to readjust to healing instead of digesting.

23rd of April
Today was the day of the meeting of the ministers to decide on the budget for reconstruction and repairs of the affected areas. Since Aglioni di Capitignano wasn't included on the list of affected regions even though in a high risk area the whole family went to attend the meeting.While they were gone I started opening the big tent to let it dry and let some light in and started cleaning around the camp site. The back muscle was feeling allot better and I could only sense some tension in that area but no pain. Meanwhile a tractor full of fire wood came in and left a big pile of wood for me and Lindsey to organise. After this I went to get some hey for the donkeys that escaped once again. I left the hey there and went to find the donkeys with Michele after we had lunch. Meanwhile the family returned and after Pepe had lunch I went with him to shovel out some mud from the pig's enclosure. I have no idea why they keep pigs when they are such a pain to take care of and feed. In the evening after dinner Lindsey went in the big tent, sat down on one of the beds and after 3 minutes when I started talking to her I noticed she was sound asleep. Me, Pepe, Bruna, Michele and his friend went to a meeting at the main camp. Me and Michele got there first and couldn't get in because we weren't from the camp itself. They would have let Michele in because they knew him but not me from what I could make out. After lots of people came in to give their opinion while allot other were laughing and playing around us like children we finally saw Pepe, Bruna and Erica that were in the camp already. The meeting that we weren't allowed to attend wasn't happening anyway... Che cassino! What a mess!

Radu Burtescu - Romania, Constanta