Hello again!

Today (14.01.14) is the last day of the project Winter Peace in Kuterevo. Finally we got rain. I know it’s not snow, but it’s something. It’s like in the movies, when you leave some place the whole nature is like crying 😀 But before sharing napkins and goodbye hugs, we have to boast about what we did for the last 3 days. We started projects that we want to use to show the world some solutions, ideas and things to think about the way we treat the nature. At the time we had to gather our ideas, what should the projects look like, no one believed that we could make it for a day and a half and prepare presentation for the rest of the second day. We separated in five groups for the five projects:

• Land art: This group had the aim to remind people of the fact that everything is connected, especially humans and nature by doing art. With natural materials they created a stickman-family.
• BEar THE CHANGE – Interviewing all volunteers what is change, what prevents it, and to write a quotation for it was the the way for this group to gather material, also for some kind of art. On two long pieces of wood, decorated with the footprints of bears, they stuck the portraits of all 25 volunteers and their quotations.
•  KUTEchangeREVO – This project-group created a photo essay of how people from the village see the climate change, how it affects their way of life and what it might tell about their future.
• Travelling footprint –  All around the globe, volunteers engaging themselves in all kinds of projects and programs travel through long distances, most likely by planes. For this reason the group of “Travelling footprint” recorded a very serious video to convince these people of the benefits of using environment-friendly tranportion.
• reconnAction – The most artistic and creative volunteers created an exhibition of posters, bags and buttons with sayings about (missing) change and bad industry to provoke people to think more about what they do, how they live, how far are they from nature and that we should reconnect to it by taking actions.

Yesterday we made a  presentation in the local fire department hall in front of Kuterevo’s  local community. Also we prepared an intercultural evening presenting some food and useful phrases from our countries. During this evening full of joy, the spirit of Kuterevo and of course rakia we learnt a traditional song and we sang it to the visitors with the help of five young musicians from the village. We also danced traditional dances with some of them. This night, we felt like being part of the big family of Kuterevo.

A bit of melancholy is noticeable as the volunteers come together for the big end-evaluation. Can you see the problem here? Now we don’t want to go back to our countries 🙂 We felt so good here that we made it like our home. We felt part of it all for only ten days. Only ten days you need to get to know other people’s culture. This miracle would be impossible without the work of Helena and Amelie, the main leaders of the project, their inspiration, love to nature and this way of living – peacefully but not monotonically.

We wish you to get inspiration like we did. Maybe you don’t need to go to other country or to get in touch with different people but at least you can start from where you are exactly right now. Get up put a smile on your face and try to feel the place you live in other positive way. Try to see the good in other people, try to make them smile too. Just start with the little steps so you can find the inner force to not stop changing, develop yourself and your world in peace, harmony and become one with the universe.

The last thing which is left to do is the farewell-party, a night which is supposed to be full of joy, singing, dancing and giving an opportunity for the volunteers to remember the days they spent together. Afterwards they’ll start their journey to Zagreb in order to return to their home-countries, starting out in a future where they have to face new challenges, but also with the chance to make the world a little bit better.

BOK ! (‘’Hello’’, ‘’Goodbye’’, ‘’God’’ in Croatian)

Boryana and Siggi