Life’s a Beach

Meet Valentino and Eric, two people passing through the Cap but bringing a little happiness with their art on the way.

I first saw Valentinos amazing sand sculptures on instagram a few weeks ago. I was on the beach on the other side of the Cap at the time but as soon as I saw the picture I packed up my things and headed straight to Plage Salis to take some photos. Unfortunately when I got there there was nothing to see so I assumed it had been a one off and went back to the beach feeling very disapointed that I had missed it.

Luckily for me another sculpture popped up a few days later. My partner called me on his way to work one morning to say he had just driven past the beach and that there was another one there. I decided I had to go and find out who was making them so I grabbed my camera and headed to the beach.

Valentino – The Sand Artist

I arrived in Italy about 21 years ago. I am originally from Romania but I moved to Italy with my wife and son to find work.

We separated a few years later. I came home from work one day and found my wife in our bed with our neighbor.  I was completely devastated.

We had 2 sons at that time so since then I haven’t seen my sons. They are now 16 and 17 years old and live in Turin with their mother. I speak with them on the phone occasionally but that’s it. They don’t call me I call them.

It’s 11 years ago now since my wife and I separated.  The first few years were hard as my heart was broken and I really missed, and still do miss, my sons. But the difficult times have now passed, now it hurts a little bit less.

I do of course still really miss my sons and seeing them growing up. That is still very painful for me. I have pictures of them from when they were little on my phone though which helps.

When I left I went away to work for 5 years as a Mason.

After five years there was no more work in Italy. It became very difficult to earn a living there. The pay was, and still is, very low and mostly paid on the black. Workers are badly exploited especially in the building industry. Now there is the added problem of the refugees and immigrants who come to Italy. They are offered work but at maybe 3 euros and hour which they accept. The problem is an Italian can’t work for that low amount so many people are out of work. The jobs we get offered pay maybe 5 euros and hour for 8 or maybe 10 hours a day. It’s not possible to live on that.

I started doing sand sculptures as a means to live.

As a mason I am used to working with sand so doing what I do now was easy as I understand how sand works.

So this is what I decided to do to live. It’s what I have to do to survive. This is now my work it’s not a hobby, it’s my living. People think we build these sculptures just for fun but we don’t, this is our work. For us it’s a job.  I don’t think the people really understand that.

If I find a job which pays well with good conditions I would take it. I have many friends who often call me and offer me work but the conditions are bad so I carry on doing this.

In Italy the people are very generous and I can earn enough to buy what I need.

To make the sand sculptures we need to buy 50 kilos of salt and maybe 60 tea lights per day so some of the money we are given goes on that. With the rest we  buy our food and anything that’s left over we save for our travel on to the next place. At the moment we are saving up for flights to the Canaries which is where we want to spend the winter. There are lots of sandy beaches there and lots of tourists and it’s also warm so I think it will be a good place for us.

We will stay here on plage Salis for maybe another 2 weeks then we will make our way to Spain by train and then hopefully fly from Spain to the Canaries. That’s the plan.

I have been here on this beach once before in 2015 so maybe we will come back again next year I don’t know. We don’t have a fixed plan so we will see what happens.

I have many Italian friends who now live in the Canaries and own restaurants there so there is a possibility of me finding work when I go there this winter.  Maybe I will get a job with one of them and settle there for a while, who knows.

I am not looking for love right now.

I think it is hard to find a good woman with a good heart.  Most women want a man with money. I live on the streets, how can I find a woman who is happy with that?

At the moment I am happy with my life. I live with this beautiful view and I work for myself. I am not breaking my back working for someone else who treats me badly.

If I find a good job I will take it. If it doesn’t work out in Spain I will go back to Italy. The people there are very nice and also very generous.  I have worked a lot in Rimini on the Adriatic coast. I have also been to the UK once, to Oxford.  Even there I found myself some sand and made a little ship sculpture in the street. It’s funny people give you the same money for a small sculpture as they do for the big ones I do on the beaches.  If I have some sand then I can live.

Eric – The Apprentice

Originally I come from Burgundy, the wine country, but I don’t drink. I used to drink a lot but now I don’t drink at all. I never had a drink problem, I wasn’t an alchoholic or anything like that but I did used to like drinking beer.

When I was 27 years old I left France and spent the following 13 years on the streets in Italy. When I turned 40 I returned to France to find work. I got my drivers’ license and got myself a job.  After that I worked for 5 years in a place that sorted the clothes from the clothes banks you see in the streets.

I had a flat and a car and what people would call a normal life.

I was paid maybe 1200.00 Euros per month but then you take off my rent, I had a small debt on my car so I was paying back for that, car insurance, bills, electricity. Basically at the end of the month I had nothing left. I couldn’t do it so after 5 years I returned to Italy and went back to living on the streets. I like Italy more than France, I love Italy in fact. In Italy if you bump into someone accidentally they say sorry. In France if I bump into someone or knock on some ones door they call the police. It’s a different mentality in Italy than in France.

Right now we are living right here on this beach.

We are staying at the most beautiful hotel in the world. A  hotel with a million Michelin Stars. We have no problems sleeping here, sometimes we get a bit of hassle from the young ones but otherwise it’s  fine being here, nobody bothers us.

I met Valentino just a month or so ago in Italy but now we are good friends and we are travelling together. He is teaching me all about how to make these sand sculptures, I am his apprentice. In fact I have now made two pyramids by myself. With a bit of patience and calm you can learn to work with sand. I Like it.

I help Valetino with the bigger sculptures and he teaches me while he works. The Titanic takes around three days to make so we have to work really hard then. After we finish we leave it standing for another 3 days or so this is when we relax and enjoy the beach here. We have to constantly  maintain it of course but the hard work is in the construction. After a few days we make something else. It’s not a bad job really and we don’t have to work every day.

At the moment we are saving up for a flight to the Canaries.

The Canaries is where we want to go for the winter. We have a little pot where we save up our coins so that we can buy our flights.

It’s better to be somewhere hot when you live on the streets so The Canaries seemed like a good place. When we leave here we will take the train and travel along the coast down to Spain and then from Spain we will fly to the Canaries. I have never been there before but Valentino has many friends there.

This life I have now has less stress than the life I had before and everything we earn is for us.  We maybe earn between 10 and 30 euros per day which is enough for us. In Italy the people are more generous though, there we can get 35 Euros or more a day sometimes.  If everyone who took a picture of our work gave us just 50 cents we would be very happy.

It’s another way of life, a different life but it suits me.

I had a girlfriend in Italy but she fell pregnant.

She was younger than me and a student so she wasn’t ready for a family. It was better for her that she focused on her studies so I supported her decision not to have the baby. We aren’t together anymore. She made the right decision I think.

I have never been married and I don’t have any children.  I live on the streets so finding a girlfriend isn’t going to happen for me but that’s just life I guess and I am not looking for love anyway.

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