Written by Global Gap Fellow Oscar Rouse
December 12th, 2025
I wrote this journal entry on December 12, my last day at munnu project, the olive farm I lived and worked on from October to December:
Well, this is it. My last night on the farm. My last night sleeping in the camper, my last night in paternò. No more sunsets overlooking the valley, no more crêpes for breakfast, no more swifts fluttering in huge murmurations overhead. No more showers in the solar greenhouse, and no more reading with a flashlight in the camper. It’s time to move on.
I’m leaving this place behind tomorrow, but I’m taking so many valuable lessons and experiences with me. Not only did I learn through volunteering, like how to make olive oil from scratch and how to maintain a permaculture orchard effectively and carefully, but I also learned how carry myself with confidence in a strange new place and make connections with the people around me. I made new friends on days off at coffee shops, tennis courts, panino shops, and hostels, and also spent a lot of time on my own. I hope to carry with me the lessons, recipes, and friends that I earned here in Sicily into the rest of my travels.
If I had to pick a highlight from my time here, though, it would definitely be the Olive harvest. It felt incredibly rewarding and productive to work with the olives, going tree to tree with our rakes, nets, and ladders, and then watching the olives we picked get pressed and filtered into delicious, golden-green oil that we cooked with for weeks afterwards. Sometimes when I thought no one was watching, I would run my hands through the piles of olives, feeling their cool, smooth, green skin against mine and knowing that I was part of a tradition that dates back centuries in this part of the world. Despite the simple, sometimes difficult work, I felt like I was a part of something older and bigger than me, and I’m going to miss it.
I’ll also miss the card games, lovely meals, and conversations I had while here, but I know that I can find similar community and experiences wherever I go, and I feel much more confident and ready to do so. So with that, I’m going to try to enjoy one last night in the small camper next to the Olive trees before I go back to society and bathe in the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, and free Wi-Fi!