Cairano 7x - Saving Irpinia
I spent a day touring a remote part of Eastern Irpinia in Campania this week during Cairano 7x 2010, a week-long series of promotional events designed to revitalize the area.
Luckily the person driving me in from Avellino knew where we were going. The eastern side of Irpinia reminds me a lot of the Flint Hills of Kansas. Undulating hills of wheat and a few patches of trees and very little else. There are clusters of villages around, but spaced far apart.
Popping out from the rolling hills, a stone outcropping catches my eye. "That's Cairano" my friend says. I don't really see a village, just a rock. Then the sun catches some windows and I begin to make out the outline of houses.
After a steep incline, we enter the town. It's small, quiet and charming. There are very few people about and my inner New Yorker is actually uncomfortable. After a few years, being crushed on the 6 train actually starts to feel normal. But it's also my inner New Yorker that begins to want to reach out to this area. I easily became spoiled by the simple access, to everything, that New York has to offer. Cairano and eastern Irpinia are still experiencing the effects of mass emigration to the north and immigration abroad and are stuck in a bit of a cycle. There is no reason to stay in such a rural place in these modern times and the more people go, the less reason there is to stay.
And with this, of course, is also a loss of eno-gastronomic culture. One person told me that their neighbors were so sickened by their grape vines not doing well, that they just ripped them out so they didn't have to look at them. This makes me cringe but  inspired to become an advocate for such an interesting and beautiful place .
For now, I start with the photos taken between Cairano, Andretta, Bisaccia and Aquilonia during Cairano 7x.
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Thumbnail image on the excerpt page from: http://cairano.wordpress.com/