May 14, 2008

Tranquillino brought Nick and Jason to the Hotel Malaga where Jane and Martina stayed. We were then picked up by Renato and he took us to the Baronia pasta factory. On the way there was a major accident headed in the opposite direction and the people were standing outside of their cars waiting for the accident to be cleared.

We were given an indepth tour of the impeccable facilities. We were required to wear very stylish ensembles to view the plant. They first showed us the main building which is where the grain is dropped off to be made into flour. Before the grain can even enter the compound, it has to be checked outside the gate. If it isn’t good enough, it is sent to a different facility. There are 7 floors each with a different function to modify the grain. We took a top down tour. The grain mostly comes from Puglia. There are 250 employees working in the Baronia factory. After the grain is completely ground down it is sent through a tunnel over to the pasta manufacturing building. At this point, Luigi, a Rotarian, joined us on our tour. In the manufacturing building they mix the flour with water and have eight different stations making different types of pasta. We saw as they made spaghetti, tagliatelli, shells, spinach lasagna, bowties, and much more. The entire process is done in this building from making the pasta to drying the pasta to packaging it and then shipping it off to a number of foreign countries as well as locally. They have a brand marketed to Whole Foods in the United States. We learned that the date printed on the box is two years, but the shelf life of pasta is indefinite because it is vacuum packed. We were then treated to a lunch of pasta called Basca which are very large looking rigatoni. Enzo De Matteis, a Rotarian, joined us at the end of lunch.

We were met by members of the Avellino Centaura Rotary Club. They took us to BioGem a genetic research lab. The lab was founded in 1997, but the building in Ariano Irpino was completed in 2006. The main research activity is to study human disease. They don’t perform testing on live animals. They genetically modify the embryos of over 40,000 rodents to study the effects and they add or subtract genes to get different results. The laboratory works in collaboration with the Universities of Sannio, Bari, Foggia, Naples, and Catanzaro. We then toured the facilities including the research building and the animal housing building. Our guides Andrea, Mario, Pasquale, and Giuseppe gave us detailed information about the research equipment, how they work with the materials, how they obtained funding from the European Union, and the animal housing building.

We then headed into Ariano Irpino to the local church. Jason’s great-great grandfather Rafael DeVito was from this town. The town has co-patron saints. The doors outside the church were redone in bronze during an anniversary of the church. Inside the church to the left is a statute given to the church by the town. To the right of this is a baptismal font from the tenth century. On the ceiling are paintings of the twelve apostles and around the walls are the stations of the cross. Toward the front of the church on the left is a small alter which is said to hold the crown of thorns worn by Jesus. It was a gift from the French Baron who used to have control of the area. There are a number of pieces in the church that were originally there before the earthquake in the 1700s. We were then taken through the back door of the church to the attached Bishop’s home. The top of the Bishop’s home is a type of library which holds many old archives dating back to the 1600s.

We then headed to dinner at Biffy’s, a local restaurant well known for pesce. We were joined by Guerino Gazzella, who also took us around during il pomeriggio, the President of the Rotary Club Avellino Centauro. We met a number of other people including Guiseppe, President of the Avellino Rotoract club and Guiseppe (Gepe), who lived in Baltimore for two years. Guiseppe, the Rotoracter, drove us home after dinner at 11:30 pm.