Hi there, blog readers

We are group of 6 frenchies coming to Kuterevo to live an experience with bears: Nicoline, Linda, Maud, Clement, Leti and Adama. We come from Nantes, a lovely city in the west side of the pentagone. No we don’t have no Effeil tower but we have nice people and some delicious biscuits 😉

So our group is composed of 4 girls and 2 boys (unfortuaned for us), we meet on September , in order to prepare the trip. We arrived 9 days ago in Zagreb and we were amazed by the architecture of the city.

We slept in a youth hostel not basic „noisy, I-can-barelly-sleep“ hostel. THE Youth Hostel with comfy sofa in front of the TV, hot chocolate and awesome hosts telling stories about the people coming here . We only slept one night but it was a hearth-breaking leaving. Our sorrows were soon forgotten thanks to the amazing view of the Velebit mountains. Once arrived we met Ivan, the Croatian Santa Claus, foundator of the refuge and savior of bear. With him we met Amelie, our awesome French/ Croatian translator and responsible of the volonteers.

I bet you all want to know the 1st thing we did when we arrived to Postaja, the volonteers HQ. No? Oh don t try to hide your obvious curiosity, I will tell you. Well, the 1st thing we did was asking for the WIFI ! What a twist, huh?

No, we met the others volonteers before that .
Leo, the Belgian rasta-music lover (the only thing he smokes is cigarettes though).
Lukas, our German mascot that goes crazy-potatoes at the sight of French cheeze.
Later in the week end we were joined by two older volonteers; Aniol and Lilli our catalan and Finn representers.

After that, our charmig little team was ready to meet our furry friends in the enclosure near Postaja. We were so happy to see the bears we almost forgot to use our eyes to watch them instead of our cameras. Once the introduction over we helped the volonteers gathering carrots, cooking bread and yogurt (for us, not the bears).

Oh, and we dont sleep in Postaja like the other volonteers. No, our French skin cannot stand the cold of the night , so we actually lives in a house 300 feet away. With running hot water, comfy beds, big 3D screen with surrouding HQ sound (ok, it might be a lie). Anyway, its way more comfortable than Postaja.

After one night of sleep , we went to our first day of work. I know you will say „By work you mean feeding the bears and stuff, right ?“ – No dude, this is entertainment¸ Im talking about real, hardcore, bones-breaking work: Building an enclosure (Ta ta taaaam !!). So basically, 6 out of 10 days we are working on the enclosure with Ivan and Josa if the weather is cool. By the way, Josa is a worker from the village that totally looks like Hank in the breaking bad serie (I call him Hank but he doesn’t get it). The work is hard (lifting heavy stuff, basically) but its rewarded by something great at the end of the day! Soup! Yeah! Everybody loves Soup, right?

About the activites in the village, theres that fabulous place called the mini-market, where you can buy something to eat that’s not vegetables (God bless this place). Besides that, we did a lot of things like going early in the morning to Miča and Marica’s place to get milk. Marica is the grandma of every volonteer, she’s the nice old lady every village needs. In certains evenings, Maja comes to teach the Croatian for those who seek knowledge. No, I’m not making any jokes on this one, eh!

After work at 5pm, we can do whatever we want (even gangsta-bad things, like not flushing the toilets, Thug Life!). Anyways, we are having great times here in Kuterevo and I am not promoting the place or something but if you loves bears, beers, and working with bare hands, you should come ASAP.

Au revoir ! – Team Frenchies