After getting off the plane in Naples, we were happy welcomed with sunny 25 degrees. That's fantastic in contrast to our 5 degrees in the morning at half past 6 in Dresden.
Many thanks to Silvana for her perfect organisation! Without her help and the shuttle we wouldn't have reached the ferry in time, with just 5 minutes left to go and no idea where we had to buy the tickets. Mille grazie Silvana!
Our lovely host families are amazing! And a real italian Mamma with too much, too much to eat.
We can't wait till tomorrow to discovery this fairy tale island!
Maybe I should introduce myself first. My name is Anja Naacke. I study biomedicalscience at the University of Rostock. I’m glad that I took part in the project “Common, Goods and Peace-Ischia”: The people of this Island Ischia belong to one ofthe chaotic but loveliest of the world, which I ever got to know. On Ischia motoring is a tough sport but fair. The streets with maximum 2 meters width are notmade for 2 cars at the same time. But a demolished mirror and absence car door arenot a reason to leave everything behind and to have a cup of coffee together. Material things are not as important as human relations. That was the first impressing I saw when I arrived on Ischia.
The topic of this weeks’ program was ‘water’ as a common good. Questions aboutwater-saving in everyday life, wellness and the ocean came to my mind and I couldn’twait to jump straight into the sea. The coast of Ischia is a variety of gorges, mysterious caverns, hidden bays and long beaches with small colorful pebble stones. At these picturesque corners of this paradise the water of the sea compounds withmany thermal springs. We had the chance to visit ‘Parco Castiglione’, a thermal bath with various thermal treatments. Usually it is a place to relax in the wowing calmness but we did an acquagym lesson. That’s definitely one of the exhausting things I’ve ever done: Up and down, forwards and back through the whole swimmingpool and there’s no end in sight. But even better is to experience water in its utmost purity within a skin-dive in one of the many national marine parks of this island. Our discovery tour next to alow coastal plain and rocky sea beds, led us to the colorful playground of marinelife. This trip was the most inspiring for all project members of all this different EU-countries. Earlier we had heard about the importance of saving marine life in a conference given by the marine biologist Valerio Zupo.
During our stay we had a lot of different speeches and lively debates about the importance of water. Each partner school had the same assignment of tasks given by the teachers. But somehow everybody understood the definition of the project in adifferent way. Everyone prepared something else and so it didn’t get boring at all. That’s the fantastic thing about EU-Comenius Projects: It was an original composition!
The human relations we built during our stay on Ischia will persist lifelong. Beside the official project we met each other in the evening to hang around and to get to know our partners more personal. The time we had at ‘Maronti Beach’ was amazing. Some of us were baptized to become a part of Neptune ocean kingdom: Lucky ones who could escape this crazy German rite.
Ischia, we miss you: the sun, the sea, the traffic and most of course the people. Even if we, according to our host sister, always made “strange faces” when we didn’t understand her but with a mix of German, English and Italian it was a funny time!
Anja
