WWOOFing: Erdevik, Serbia.

Moharac.

After such a positive experience with my Ostrich and human friends in Bulgaria, I decided to take another few weeks out of my schedule and head to a small village in Serbia to volunteer. No ostriches this time. Instead I have spent the last 4 weeks working at an artist’s retreat where not only do I help with the running of the place, I was able to indulge my own artistic tendencies and my secret dream of being an artist/creative type.

The Art House.

My work at the Erdevik Artists Residency & Permaculture program (EARP) has definitely not been as intense in terms of work load. I know comparing the two volunteer positions is not helpful, but I think it’s hard not to. Here, I have been cooking, cleaning and spending a lot of time down at the two lakes that are each about 2 kilometres from the retreat. It has been so relaxing and, unfortunately, at times, this has led to me feeling a little guilty about the amount I have been doing. As I mentioned in my post about WWOOFing in July, the exchange for WWOOFers is simple, you work, they feed you and give you a place to rest your head. I felt if I wasn’t pulling my weight I would be a burden here, but my host hasn’t kicked me out, so that’s saying something. Also, comparing it to the structure and hard work of the Ostrich farm makes EARP seem positively slow in comparison. Perhaps this says more about my need to switch of my brain and relax than anything else.

‘Meda’

I have explored some amazing galleries across Europe so far and seen some of the best works ever created. I have always enjoyed art, but I have never really put the time in gaining any skills that will help me actually be decent at it. Here I have spent many afternoons drawing with pastels, creating mosaics on steps, painting in acrylic and oils, printing with a silk screen, drawing in ink, sketching in charcoal, painting in watercolour, making collages, printing and sketching. I have by no means become an expert, but I think I have been improving my ideas and skills. I have come all the way to Serbia, to a small village to ‘be artistic’ for a month. Which to me, seems crazy! These are things I could not have foreseen just a few months ago. I have a full sketchbook, 2 works on canvas and a few marks in and on the house and garden to show for it. I even got to see the work of a local Serbian artist, Sava Sumanovic in a gallery a few villages over for some inspiration.

My first ever work on canvas.

I have found that village life has agreed with me while I have been here. It is so quiet and peaceful, no-one ever seems to be rushing and this has given me a great chance to relax. I have enjoyed walks around, picking fruit off the trees, trips to the lake for a swim and a people watch and saying “Dobro Dan” to every person who walks past me. Speaking of the people of the village, this has been one of my favourite aspects of staying here. One afternoon I went to give our neighbour some carrots for his goats, he offered me a beer and remembering my pact with myself to say yes more often, I did. We sat around his kitchen table speaking our own languages and not really understanding each other. Despite this we were both laughing and smiling. We found some common ground because we both knew some Italian words and he knew how to say that his brother lived in Sydney. He then went to another room and emerged with a map of the world with Australia placed over the top of other countries for size comparison. He exclaimed “Australie, very big” and mimed ‘large’ by throwing his hand around above his head. But the kindness of the people of Erdevik didn’t stop there. My host’s neighbour often comes around to cook dinner and takes us to the lake in his car so we don’t have to walk the strenuous 2 kilometres to get to either of the lakes; At the Kotlicijada festival we attended I was given more food and wine by strangers than I had ever been in my life; I have never been offered (or drunk) so much home made alcohol, known as rakija; When I was mosaicing the front step one man stopped to give me fresh blackberries and a little girl gave me a flower. In my regular life I would be highly suspicious of any of these behaviours. Free food? Do you want me to buy something? or wine? Hmmm, have you spiked it? But here I feel none of that, there is a genuineness about the people, they have very little, but they still give so much to each other.

Erdevik’s Catholic Church.

But what is the Kotlicijada festival I hear you ask? Well, I think Kotlicijada was one of my favourite days of the whole year so far. It was a cooking competition, where the people of Erdevik make their own goulash over an open flame by the lake. There were about 18 pots entered in the contest. The teams have 3 hours to make their meals which are then blind tasted and judged. The goulash was delicious, and of course, I was offered many plates to try, but this was not the best part. I loved sitting around with a wine and listening to people talk in Serbian. They stared at me, I guess I was a bit of an oddity, but they were kind and welcoming. Some other WWOOFers and artists from EARP also ran an art workshop with some local children. We made origami cranes and ninja stars. No surprises that a Japanese artist ran the workshop, but we all helped teach the children. The kids enjoyed it and there was lots of laughter and poor folding. Many kids came back several times to learn new folds and creations, as did some adults. By the end of the day with my stomach full of goulash and my head full of wine I realised how lucky I was to be there and to have a traditional and local experience. Meeting real people, not just other travellers. We came last in the cooking competition, by the way.

All the goulash.

On either side of the village there are two lakes. One lake, known as Moharac, is a sprawling lake surrounded by farm land, corn fields and some smallish mountains. The other lake, Jezero Bruje is a smaller, more shallow lake that apparently has healing properties for the skin due to the sulphur content of the water. I have wiled away many an afternoon hanging out by the lake in the sunshine. But it hasn’t all been lakes and goulash. I have done some work here, most of it in the kitchen. I have improved my bread recipe, picked, sorted and peeled potatoes, made jams, pickled beetroot and made breakfasts, lunches and dinners for up to 8 people. I have also painted the floor and doors, made curtains, cleaned, gardened and generally helped where I can around the house.

Moharac.

The house itself is a bustling hive of actiivty. There are always visitors. Neighbours, friends and even the electrician comes around almost daily. He greets me with a loud and mildly sleazy ‘Ciiiaaooooo Alison’, a wink, a pear and often a comment in Serbian about how beautiful I am. There are also many volunteers and artists who have come from all corners of the globe. Scotland, Finland, Australia, The Netherlands, Egypt, Moldova, Japan and Serbia have all been represented in the month that I was there. Everyone has been so different and I feel like I have learned something from many of them and I know many of the relationships will continue into the future and may even end in collaborations, including a writing and illustration collaboration with my new favourite Moldovan.

The kitchen walls are painted with silhouettes of artists and volunteers.

This has been a tough one to write. How do I sum up a month’s worth of creativity, laughs, rakija & pears from strangers? I originally planned to stay here for 2 weeks, then it became 3, then it became 4. It is the longest I have stayed in any place since I left Australia, it is the most at home I’ve felt and above all else it’s the most creative I’ve been able to be in a long, long time.

WWOOFing: Konstantinovo, Bulgaria.

The wide open spaces of Green Bird Farm.

For those of you who have read my ‘about me’ page or spoken to me about what I want to do this year, the common theme for my year is to ‘try new things’. That is what this portion of my adventure is all about. 2 weeks of working on a farm in rural Bulgaria is not something I would ever do. In fact, if you told me this is where I’d be 12 months ago I’d probably have laughed at you. I have a friend to thank for introducing me to the program and putting the idea in my head to get out here and try. Those of you who know me would probably have a bit of a giggle at the prospect of me getting my pasty skin outdoors, lifting things and being ‘outdoorsy’. But that is exactly what I have done here. However, if you’re looking for a ‘WWOOFing changed my life’ post, I suggest you look elsewhere. I am and possibly will always be a city girl, but that’s not to say I didn’t take a big, deep breath of all that country air during my 2 week stay on a farm in Konstantinovo, a village 15 minutes from the seaside town of Varna  (check out my visit to Varna after the jump) in Bulgaria. I learned a lot about what goes into running a farm and also, a little bit about what I am capable of too.

Ostrich and village.

Firstly, for the uninitiated, WWOOFing stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms; which has then been turned into a verb. The exchange is simple, you give your time and in return you are given food and a place to rest your head. You can begin WWOOFing by joining an association, either the international WWOOF association, or like I did, a regional network. WWOOFing worked for me because it gave me several things: time away from ‘travel’; a chance to save a little bit of money; a place to spend a couple of weeks while waiting out my 180 Schengen days and the opportunity to do something I would never do in the ‘real’ world. My first placement gave me all this and more.  I began contacting farms while I was in Latvia about a fortnight before I hoped to arrive in Bulgaria. The only problem was, most of them didn’t bother to get back to me. Luckily, I did get a reply from a couple of farms, but one ceased communication right before we confirmed my place, the other, is the one from which I type this entry, so it worked out well. I would have thought people would have been very keen to reply, but it seems that it is not that simple. My willing work was for an ostrich farm. Yes, an ostrich farm. But it’s not as outrageous as it sounds. ‘Green Bird Farm’ is run by a young English family who have been working the land here and raising ostriches for a range of purposes for 5 years. Also on the farm love their 3 dogs, 2 cats, 2 rabbits, a set of ducklings, chickens, 2 miniature ponies and a range of colourful birds in a aviary. They also employ 2 locals. The two men are like night and day: one is a quiet reserved type who is methodical in his work. He is quiet, gentle and cares about his work deeply. The other is a man in his 60s who is the fittest guy I’ve ever seen. He is as strong as an ox and like a bull at a gate (and many other bovine analogies). He taught me a few Bulgarian phrases and when he says hello it sounds like he is singing it to you. They usually take volunteers two at a time and we hang around for a few weeks minimum. In my time here I worked with a pair of Ex-pats (French and British) who had come up for the weekend from another village in Bulgaria and a lovely young French guy at the beginning of a big adventure across Europe, or ‘Europa’ as he calls it. Ha! Those French are so fancy.

Sunset.

My work wasn’t all ostriches, I also worked in the garden, clearing weeds and unwanted plants, I painted a chicken house and rabbit hutch, I varnished wooden furniture, I cooked, I cleaned, I sanded away chipped paint, I looked after miniature ponies, vacuum packed meat, washed and brushed the pets, cleaned and packed eggs and I played a seemingly endless game of fetch with one of the family dogs. But it was the ostriches that were my favourite. I gave the adults water and fed them and collected their eggs every night before they have the chance peck them and eat them (!). I helped hatch babies, hand fed newborns, played with the little ones and of course fed and watered them too. I named them silly names, I spoke to them as if they could understand me and I pretty much morphed into a crazy ostrich lady. I felt connected to the place very quickly because of the warmth of my hosts but I think being given so much responsibility was a great thing. It meant I really care about what goes on here.

Oscar says “Fetch forever!”

Konstantinovo the village is a quaint and small town. As expected there are huge potholes to be avoided on the road, there is also old burned out cars and disused tractors lining the streets. People walk on the road because there is no footpath. There are only a few small shops. The school raises both the EU and Bulgarian flag, yet the concrete basketball court is more cracks and gaping holes than pristine playing surface. My host says “In Bulgaria it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission”, and that is evidenced in the town where people use space for whatever they please, be it raise goats or store old military vehicles amongst other things. The farm is on a hill on the outskirts of Konstantinovo, so after the working day is done and dinner is eaten there is not a lot to do. I loved this. It was so nice to relax. I had a lot of time to think, I read book one of a Song of Ice and Fire in 3 days, I wrote, I slept, I thought about the people I am missing, thought about people who I haven’t thought about in a long time, got horrible, random songs I haven’t thought about in years stuck in my head (‘Butterfly’ by Crazy Town, anyone? How about ‘How Bizzare’?) and I took a break. It was so refreshing.

Konstantinovo.

That’s not to say I didn’t work really hard. I have never pushed myself physically like I did while I worked here. As I swung my gardening ho, as I lifted hundreds of bags of Ostrich food and as I baked in the Bulgarian sun I couldn’t help but think I did much better than I would have ever expected myself to. And I have actual blisters on my palms. Maybe that’s what I can impress upon people who are reading this – I am really proud of myself. I’m not rushing to quit my job and live off the land when I return to Australia, but I am really happy I tried it.

Baby ostriches, fresh out of the egg.

So my first foray into WWOOFing was a success and a really worthwhile way to spend my time.