I have been asked to describe my experience so far during this 9 month long ESC project with Green Association
It would be an outright lie to say it has been all bells and whistles, all flowers, puppies and kittens. All the volunteers including myself have faced a lot of challenges in adapting to each other, to the new environment, to all the challenges presented in living a more rural style of life. In a way it has been so dynamic that we must be adaptive and ready to improvise. Which I feel is typical for the Bulgarian cultural landscape in general, so perhaps I am more ready for this sort of life and it is why I believe in the project and am grateful for this opportunity.
Cherry tomatoes from the local land and the barrel we tried to fit through the house window
I can also say with confidence that not only have I build and will keep building lasting relationships, I have also trained a pletora of skills in areas such as gardening, construction, building using wood and metal, living and sharing a space with other volunteers, cooking, helping each other and so on. This project to me is an antidote to stagnation and boredom, its incredible in the amount of opportunity I have and keep on receiving.
A sink I built for the house bathroom, and a break during the construction of the tiny house.
Before and during the construction of the tiny house we built out of an old soviet wagon.
A cat buddy I met at the end of October.
Some filled pumpkins I made at Bostan Bair.
Tiho, Andrej and I carrying a generator to power the tools for construction.
A view out of the tiny house looking at the surrounding nature.
From a grand point of view, to me these European Funded Volunteer programs are way more good than they are bad. They construct young people and they also construct culture.
Thank you for this project Aleko , Catherine and the European Union.
Luchezar Zvezdev