From Saturday 27th of July till last Sunday (4th of August), I was living in the woods together with international volunteers that came to Slovakia to help renovating the medieval ruinned castle of Jasenov, a village close to Humenne.
The workcamp was not officially starting until Sunday 28th, but Dasa and I -because of our role of leaders- went the day before to check that everything was ok. It was in fact good that we did so -we needed a lot of time for organising many material and stuff like house rules or agenda. For sure the most important thing we realised was that the accomodation indoors was not so good as expected, and I'll explain why.
See? This was a hard living conditions workcamp, which implied living in the forest without electricity or normal bathroom -instead we had dry toilet and an improvised private space made out of canvas for showering with buckets of water. The accomodation consisted in 4 places in a small cottage (in two bunk beds) and a big tent for 6 people or more.
First night we went to sleep in the cottage (or chata in Slovak, pronunced 'hata'), thinking that it was probably the only night we would have a proper rest in the indoors space. Unfortunately for us, we were wrong. We woke up several times because of noises of animals that at the beginning we thought were country mices but once we turned on our flashlights we discover it was a cute kind of squirrel, call doormouse (liron in Spanish). Here's a sample picture from google images:
Anyway, when our volunteers arrived the following day we needed to inform them about this, and of course most of them chose to sleep in the tent ourside and so Dasa, me and Alejandro -Ukranian brave guy-, spent the night in the cottage. Fortunately it got better, not so noisy like the first night, which meant that following day we changed for the Serbian girls, and Alejandro stayed there.
Also first night after everybody arrived we had a little speech from our local partner, about the organization and the history of the castle. It's always good for keeping the volunteers motivated, so they know the background and the contribution they're going to make with their work.
Afterwards we made some name games and getting to know each other games (I specially enjoyed the 'human bingo'). We introduced the agenda of days, explained the kitchen team task for meals, house rules and decided who was going to sleep where that first night -we asked the next day for more pallets to sleep in the tent.
During following days we were working in the castle, with different kind of tasks.Most of us were clearing the area of the hill surrounding the castle from bushes, and piling up spread stones that would later help in the reconstruction of some walls -they want to use the same stones that were originally there. Sadly there were no many places where the walls are being rebuilt right now, so only one of us got to try actual reconstruction work. Finally, other couple of volunteers was busy with archeological work, digging close to the walls and looking for some historical remains.
But of course not everything is work in an international workcamp. We had plenty of great moments during our free time, sharing pictures, playing card games while having massages, playing Duh (mental speed game in Slovak, but Dasa translated the rules for us) or simply chilling by the fireplace listening to national presentations. Here some samples:
We had two special free time activities. First it came our free day, when we went together with Brekov volunteers (a nearby castle, also workcamp project within Inex) to Humenne's castle and open-air museum. Later in the afternoon we made some canoing in Laborec river, and we finished quite late, which meant we stopped by and got some take-away pizza for dinner (and for snack for following day :P). Unfortunately I don't have pictures from this day yet because I didn't take my camera, but luckily I took it for our second special day: Feast of Cultures. [edit: added some pics]
Feast of Cultures is an event where local people get to know the international volunteers by their different national presentations and dishes. We were quite surprised by the massive attendance of this event from the people of the village -you never know how many of them are going to appear. People seemed to like the food, some old women sang for us as saying thank you and at the end nothing was left in the dishes.
There were reporters who interviewed some of the participants and also the mayor said some words for the opening of the celebration -and of course Alexander, our local partner, president of the organisation for the conservation of the castle. And, of course! I almost forget! I had a revelation moment when trying plazma biscuits that girls took from Serbia, there were my favourite during childhood! I don't remember why they stopped making them in Spain, but I was quite sad for a while, and having the opportunity to tried them again really made me happy. They brought also Ajvar, paprika's paste for crackers, very nice!
Nevertheless, it wasn't the only moment we got the change to experience worldwide tastes. Everyday we had different national cooking teams, which meant great opportunity to try different kind of tasty food. Last working Friday also the locals wanted to have a nice gesture with us and prepared gulash in return. The second dish was prepared by the Czech girl. It's rice cooked with milk and raisins, and then cacao powder, butter and peach compote, delicious! It's true, I've enjoyed this workcampa lot when it comes to cooking.
For all of these great experiences it was difficult to say goodbye the last day. Within only a week we had become quite close and I noticed how people were much more talkative and smiling than in the very first days. It was a nice group and some of them live close, so maybe -hopefully- I'll see them again soon :)
And for being first time as leader I think things went pretty well. I have many factors in favor, like the group being small with nice participants and the lenght that was kind of short (1 week instead of 2 weeks, that is more common). But besides all, I had the great luck to count with the endless support and expertise of Dasa by my side. I learnt a lot about her and she kept me motivated to behave like a proper leader, kindly most of the time and more strict when it was necessary -almost never I would say, but still I had to prove myself I could do it.
Anyway, I only have few days left in the week here in Bratislava, new projects are awaiting. From Friday till Sunday I'll be in Banska Stiavnica together with Matiss to have the advanced planned visit (APV) for the exchange project that will take part in Septembert, when we'll give some more information to national leaders to get ready for this meeting.
Afterwards, the very Sunday, I will go from Banska Stiavnica to Zvolen, direction Slatinka, to get my second workcamp started. Peto will be waiting for me and we'll receive 15 international volunteers to work in this enviromental organization set in kind of 'eco-village'. It is supposed to be also a hard living conditions workcamp, but I strongly doubt that it would be harder than in Jasenov -it would be like a hotel for me, haha.
Yeah, pretty busy indeed these days, and this crazy heat doesn't put me in the mood to do anything afterwards in my free time. Ale nevadi, there's always a space for a spontaneous plan in the evening, when the sun is calmer -just have to look for it.
Everything's going well for me as you can see, pretty readers. I hope life is also treating you right :)
Loads of hugs,
Ali
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