Our host is a very extraordinary person. Mr. Elmar is always busy with hundreds of things on the Farm. He looks after horses, pigs, cows and even peacocks and encourages us to be a part of this big friendly family. Our girls wake up in the early morning some hours before breakfast to help Mr. Elmar with feeding farm animals.
Our guys are already close friends with some of the farm inhabitants.
The other nice person there is our cook – Marcelo. He prepares our meals and looks after sustainable use of food and not wasting food too much.
To organize our life in a proper way on a farm we had to split up into household groups, three people each group: kitchen group (lay the table, help the cook to prepare the meals ), dishes group (washing up), sanitary group (cleaning the toilets and bathrooms). But as one of the most important rules of the camp says – be ready to help your friend, all of the groups always have volunteers helping to perform these camp duties.
It`s German autumn. We live in a kind of educational sustainable farm, where German children used to come during a year and look after farm animals or make apple juice or whatever nice more.
The place is great: dogs run after peacocks, peacocks after kids and the whole thing is vibrant and very alive. The living itself is the most sustainable ever: dish washing, showers, toilets, waste – everything gives us everyday lessons on sustainable way of living.
We have to separate the garbage, rest of the food, plastic and glass, in order not to attract rats to our trash bins; we don`t use running water but the solar showers outside, although the weather isn`t hot at all)), we use the bio soap to protect soil and ground waters, we wash the dishes in the big bowls with hot and cold water in the fresh air.
The participants sleep in the tents on the straw using sleeping bags, woolen military blankets and bottles with hot water in order not to freeze at nights.
But despite these unusual living conditions all the participants are happy to be here and get new experience.
It was frizzy in the morning. Wind was so cold that we have to wear our jackets and coats. After breakfast we play warmup but it was not enough because of cold weather. However, it’s not stop us from still talking to each other. It is difficult to communicate with others, but somehow we understand what others are thinking. Also we try to make a translation for simple phrases on all 4 languages. It was funny to listen how other guys were trying to speak other languages – German, Italian and Belarusian. This day was without any amazing trips but we became closer to each other.
Our day started when bus catch us after we had arrived at Netherlands. After few hours we finally came to the farm. Our hosts warmly welcomed us. They showed us were we will sleep, were we will eat and were we will work for next 2 weeks. We started to get to know each other by playing games. After dinner we sit around the campfire and German team leaders gave us nice gifts.
