No encounter is an island. No contact is an isolated dot.
Each new acquaintance is like a thread that connects to other threads that together come together to form a great fabric. That’s what I am learning from my walking journey.
First I meet some guys in Leuca who suggested I contact Marco, archaeologist and guide. So I meet Marco & Melissa in Barbarano del Capo, and their Arches organization.
Then I post a video about them and Antonio sees it. Who is Antonio? Unfortunately I don’t meet him in person, but what he created seems fantastic to me: Cleanuppers, a group of volunteers who collect waste which was illegally dumped in the area. The initiative has expanded from one town to another and created a network of collaborations. Sometimes they have recovered waste that had been lying abandoned for thirty years.
Antonio suggests that I contact Claudia, a Presicce-Acquarica guide and volunteer cleanupper. Claudia puts me in contact with Roberto, archaeologist, and Angelo, archaeologist-guide of Ugento.
On the same day Claudia gives me the number of Virgilio, FAI (Italian environmental organization) group leader in Gallipoli, and he immediately coordinates a meeting with Marcello, another FAI volunteer, on the day of my arrival. Angelo also suggests that I also meet Francesca, a tour guide in Gallipoli.
In the end I can see every place through the eyes of those who love it and know it well, and I can give to each thing the right meaning. Leaving this track behind me is invaluable and personally worth more than any number of followers.
It is very human network. As a geologist, used to traveling to study rocks, I realize how the soul of a territory is made up, above all, of people. We are human, we are interested in people, what they say and what they do. That's why I stepped away from academic geology to take this path. Because the land is not made only of earth and rocks, but of a social fabric, human stories, empathy and meaning.
