Sorry voor als jullie de laatste video’s moesten missen, er was iets mis met mijn mail-systeem. Vanaf hier (hoop ik) is alles weer volgbaar. De overige video’s zijn op youtube terug te kijken. Sorry if you guys missed the last video’s, there was an error with my mail-system. From here on I hope everything will run smooth. You can watch them back on youtube.
Het is de laatste kans voor een inkijk in mijn rijke leven, geleefd in Tsjechie. Afscheid nemen is intens en soms verdrietig maar ik voel dat het de juiste keus is. It’s the last opportunity to have a glimpse into my rich life, lived in Czech. The goodbye is intense and sometimes sad but I feel like it’s the right choice.
It feels a bit like a monastery here. Lizards run away from me when I try to walk the path from the down-house to the upper-house, where the community-room, music-room and kitchen is. The intense smell of Linden penetrates my body. All nature is big here. It flows, as I flow. My day consists of meditation, eating – collected from the garden, cleaning and sleeping. I am not in the hotel anymore.
Food from the Garden
In two weeks it will be three years ago that I left for a landtrip and break from work and study for a couple of months. I hitchhiked to Mongolia, after that to Iran – and started cycling which made me ending up in Bulgaria with injuries in my knees. So if you want to know why Bulgaria, this is why Bulgaria. I kept making new plans for hitchhiking new continents, crossing the ocean by hitchhiking but every time when went into the plan-thinking, my body hurt. It kept telling me: Rein, you have to go inside. I shared a lot about meditation in my video’s and blogs while I didn’t truly know what meditation is. That’s no problem, I was on my way to where I am now. .
One month ago I stopped the hotel-project. Busy with helping people, I was avoiding going to the core of my restlessness. I will try to describe in some short sentences what it gives me now: Being one with everything, close to nature, being with people that have the same knowledge, drives and plans and a little amount of chemicals, sweets and electricity. I am diving, deeper and deeper. Going trough fears, embracing, living. The restlessness is fading away and I feel that I am going to a place that I didn’t visit for a long time.
Thinking about bringing Merope a visit? Visit our website
”Of course you have terrible soil problems in your country. What do you expect when you call it dirt?” (Hemenway, 2009)
Backyard
The whole forest turns green and becomes a big permaculture garden when the first sunbeam of spring shines trough the forest. Every day we pick great amounts of wild garlic from the forest where we make pesto from. The first workawayers left and new workawayers came. From Yekaterinburg, a city in the middle of Russia that I crossed, hitchhiking – three years ago. It is interesting to share each others stories and I think about how heavy it was for me, hitchhiking from Mongolia back to the Netherlands.
Full of energy, I am working on getting European attention for the project. With the help of friends in The Netherlands, we try to attract funding and visitors. Soon, the first guests – a big archeologists group that will stay for over a month will come and every day is cleaning and preparing,
Entrance
It’s great to see that Itso and Ana really want to make their hotel more ecological and are starting to seperate their trash more and more and even telling me sometimes to be aware of my ecological footprint. I must say, it’s still quite a struggle in Bulgaria to make clear to people what it means to minimize the ecological footprint, mainly because many give up and think that it will never change. It looks like there is a mindset that has to be broken trough. Being here for longer time, it sometimes makes me sad when people are constantly pointing with their finger to others, saying how stupid they are instead of taking initiative themselves to change something.
My house
Which amount of my time do I waste with changing others instead of being happy with me and working on myself? How can I change the mentality of people when I point at them instead of changing myself? I am laying in front of the caravan after sunset and it starts to be cold. Let’s go and have a shower. Amazing, I can just walk every day to a shower, lift the handle and warm water comes out. Birds whistle and the forest prepares for the night…
For almost a month, I didn’t write a blog. A new project emerged out of the growing friendship with my Bulgarian friend who has a rest-house, deep in the Bozoritsa forest.
Kyra
When I sit in front of the house, catching the first sunbeams of the spring – I hear the small river, down in the valley. On my left, twenty meters from me, there is the natural spring that gives access to a continuous stream of living water. Taking some rest from Vrav, I am realizing myself that for this period of my life I have to allow myself to have some basic facilities. Being in and around the rest-house – seeing it’s great potential to put my gathered knowledge of the past years into practice, I offered my help. This is how my life goes from being a nomad with a backpack/bicycle towards a sort of rest-house coordinator, taking the lead in a team of four people, including me. I feel honoured that my friend trusts me and my knowledge with his property to make the place self sustainable. The compost-bin is realized, we are working on the first small permaculture fundament together with Merope and the total garden is being cleaned by the hard working work-awayers that learn me how to be a better manager. I’ve made some short/mid/long term goals. If you have questions or suggestions, let me know.
Forest and camper place
Short-term goals (1/2 months) – One permaculture garden – At least one compost toilet outside – Functional kitchen compost system – Separating the trash so the only garbage will be plastic Mid-term goals (between now and 12 months) – The whole property as permaculture garden – Connecting the rest-house with the water from the well – Find an alternative for electricity (Probably propeller on hill) – Start creating home made cleaning products instead of chemicals used for cleaning – and after that a proper water filter system (Aquaponics) – A mindset change from consumerism towards a holistic conscious view and transformation from mainstream tourism towards ecotourism Long-term goals (1/2 years) – The whole property designed according to the permaculture philosophy – Only Eco-tourism – A place full of creativity and light that can shine into the villages and cities around and being an example for Eco-tourism – ZERO WASTE
First foundation of the Permaculture garden (background compost bin)
