When I decided at the very last minute to go to L'Aquila for the celebration of one year anniversary of the "wheelbarrow rebellion" and the constitution of the grass-root movement 3.32 I could not imagine the magic of crossed paths and bread that followed.
Beside participating to the annual celebration representing, even if in a pure symbolic way, the fight of people of my city against the privatization of public water [[http://www.acquaprilia.altervista.org/]], and the construction of a TurboGas farm that would buy gas from Russia and burn it to produce electricity [[http://www.noturbogasaprilia.it/]], I went to visit the city a year after a natural and political disaster.
What I found was an historical center abandoned to himself, still full of ruins, and new houses built in the suburbs, completely cut off by any integration with the territory and the city where found accommodation after 8 months sleeping in tents only some of the people remained without house.
At the same time, I found a strong sense of community between the ones active in the 3.32 "Case Matte" movement [[http://www.3e32.com/main/?page_id=113]] : people that fought for their city; people that an year ago took their wheelbarrow and forced the center of L'Aquila going against the militarization of their lives and their spaces. As a reaction, the wheelbarrow had been confiscated and finally released a year after.
To see about the situation of one year ago:
[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1ARYAfB_UU]]
Beside this, I also went to L'Aquila to visit someone that with other means and other principles was working to build new houses.
And it is in this way that I meet EVA: (finally a link in English) [[http://eva.pescomaggiore.org/en/]]
SelfBuilt EcoVillage .
You can read in their site (that I recommend you to visit as good example of transparency for donation and intents):
"Three generous neighbours have made available land to us, with a breathtaking panorama, a few steps from the historic center.
We are showing that it’s possible to build cheap houses,environmentally friendly and fast to build if we use mainly natural materials, cheap and available locally: the supporting structure in wood, the curtain walls of straw bales, reinforced concrete minimized, wood pellet stove for warm, solar panels and photovoltaic panels that will give us electricity and hot water that we need. Manpower is ourselves that hold the work’s tools and prefer the active hard work to the compulsory indolence of the earthquake refugee.
The intention is to speak with the people about reconstruction plans through participatory planning, listening at first to their needs, and then accompany them to the building of their own “space”, not only made of building material but above all of social and cultural links".
Well, to make it short: I proposed one of the main organizer of the project to go there (hopefully I will make it before Berlin), and to do BreadTimeStories with PastaMadre bread. They have a public oven (like the one showed by Charlie in Morocco) and have locally grounded spelt that I took with me and mixed with my PastaBread.
Finally, as magic coming to enlighten even more the project, today I discover that Walter from PastaMadre has been there:
see his pics on FB [[http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141337&id=44891540016]]
he made the bread, created a beautiful sink with the traditional Puglia's working method and went to the inauguration.
What can I say? The world is so beautifully little...and inspired project are the cement (ops... the straw) of communities :)
