🤳The week without the phone

👋Hello from the Eyes Wide Open Team!

How was our 3rd week of the project? Well, it was quite unusual and challenging at the same time. Why? ‘Cause we started our disconnection week and our devices and gadgets ended up abandoned in the drawer carefully locked by our coordinator Damiano “The Keeper” 👀

So here we go, the rules were set, the offline communication system established, and we were ready to face the second challenge of our week - The EcoFest🌿

Not much to say, we didn’t have experience in organising this kind of event, but we accepted the challenge with excitement and hope that we will make it happen. With the support of coordinators, we started to learn more about the logistics, planning, foreseeing and providing content to prepare 3 days celebration of sustainable life for local and international guests of our festival.

We were designing and putting up the signs for visitors, promoting the event offline visiting the villages and interacting with locals, which was quite inspiring (even without knowledge of the language). “Dressing up” our didactic garden as a main character and pearl of the party. Preparing the common spaces, food court, bar, chill area, and workshop zone.

A lot of work was done and finally, Day X arrived, but still early to relax. We took our roles defined in advance to run the festival: welcoming guests at the registration point, delivering workshops, taking shifts in the bar with our homemade drinks and desserts (the ginger lemonade we prepared was so refreshing, and the lemon cake…mmmm)

In the end, the weekend was full of knowledge sharing, new acquaintances, fun moments, music, and amazing dinners at sunset.

And guess what? We completely forgot about our devices! It was the magic of community, the magic of the place. Because Bergolo has its own magic and it brings changes to the rules of the game. Some of us still didn’t want to have the phone back for couple more days! Thanks to coordinators and team members our families were following our work and were in touch.

We are ready to start our last week of the project and looking forward to other surprises it will bring! But for sure we will bring home those precious moments and friendships we found here ✨