Finding work....about time too!!!

Aside from dashing in and out with the washing, dodging the showers and missing on more than one occasion, I so happened to bump into Giovani. Giovani is one of our neighbours. A kind man, who along with his wife, were working amongst their olive trees.

There seemed to be a slapdash approach to the language barrier from our part, but messages were received and got across. I was actually at the time dashing back out to make the most of some wind and sun, when we called across to each other a greeting. I mosied across to his side of the walling and in amongst his olive trees. I explained that I didn't understand Italian. I mustn't have done this very well as he spoke with great fluency in Italian. It is quite a task to enquire about what he was actually doing whilst having only a handful of words. However, after the moment that follows when no one knows quite what to say, Giovani directed me towards his machine that he was working and set about explaining. Gestures and a bit of common sense led to an understanding. At this point Jasper and Maya had been sent to look for me and they came and met Giovani and his wife. Giovani set about explaining and showing us the machine once more. A new twist happened after Clare came and looked for me. A 3rd explanation by Giovani ensured now that I knew fully what he was explaining. The twist was, that he fired up his machine, stood me by it, and encouraged me to work. Apparently finding jobs in Italy is very hard, I somehow had skipped the job queue and had been directed into a free labour situation.

Therefore I set to work on this shaking griddle thing, and sorted the olives out from the grass, stones, leaves. I loved it. I loved doing work. It was a real pleasure, being outdoors. He put a crate by the machine, lifted Jasper up and set us both to work. Jasper's face was a real picture, and to be honest, I think my face was just the same. Loved it!

What we think we learnt from Giovani:

Giovani and his wife Pina were sweeping around underneath the olive trees to collect the 'windfall' of olives. The olives were of a poor quality, and were therefore destined for Olive oil. 

The sweepings were out into the griddle with Jasper and me  sorting them out. The big shakey machine however, left stones from the soil within the olives. The next stage was that Giovani would take the baskets of olives and stones to the community shared factory, where the next machine sorted the olives out in water, the stones dropped away leaving you with the olives. After that a clever machine, did a 3 part separation of the olive itself into water, oil and the olive stone itself. If I misunderstood, then at least I felt I have misunderstood in an entirely plausible manner!

Conclusions then, well I loved the warmth and openness of our neighbours and I loved the work too. I have offered to work a free day for them, just because I want to. That could be tomorrow. Giovani though had to get back to work. Pina had swept about 3 trees worth of Olives whilst Giovani had given us the lowdown on Italian Olive growers production. He had to get back to work otherwise he was going to be not getting any tea!!