How a proper builder looks like

For all natural builders!

This is how a proper sustainable builder looks like:

Do not forget this equipment at home...

Advanced planning visit

The organizer team and the leaders of the national groups met during the advanced planning visit (15th – 18th July 2011) to discuss the whole project. On Friday we spoke about ourselves and our motivations to do this project.

We changed the programme according to the comments of the leaders, prepared the hot version, we spoke about the participants and their needs, intercultural evening, presentations and all the financial stuff.

We travelled to the venue, so that the leaders can prepare their groups better for the local reality, and so that they could enjoy the delicious fruits of mulberry trees...

On Sunday, we also visited a family living in an adobe house without on-grid electricity (they have only solar panels) and hot water. We will visit them during the exchange as well.

Thanks to this meeting, the leaders got much more involved into the project, we got new enthusiasm and we started to look forward to the whole event with such a great people very much!

Building our summer kitchen

Volunteers from the Artists of Life Association helped to build the superadobe summer kitchen we will be using during the exchange (hopefully). On the pictures you can see several stages of the superadobe building.

This is going to be a cellar for our food.

This is how the "snake" is filled.

The wall you can see was build by 7 people in 2 full working days.

Vasek experienced the tough reality of Hungarian summer - during noon, the temperature went up to 42°C, which made it impossible to work from 11 am to 4 pm. That´s why we had to work from 6 am to 11 am and then, after a long siesta, from 4 pm to 8 pm. This experience made us develop a hot version of the programme.

The showels and mortar mixers are waiting for us now!

Discover Mindegyszer near Bócsa - our venue

This is our venue: eco-farm Mindegyszer near Bócsa, Kecskemét

www.mindegyszer.wordpress.com

The location:

Budapest - Kecskemét: one hour by train

Kecskemét - Halasi útelágazás: 45 minutes by bus

Halasi útelagazás - Mindegyszer: 45 minutes by walk

After the walk, you will find this place...

These are the showers we will be using (also under construction).

The yurts will stand here.

This is the mulberry tree the fruits of which taste so great!

The wasps love it also...

The hungarian Great plain puszta...

... and the sunset over it.

Organizer planning meeting (4th and 5th July 2011)

After the scouting period, all the organizer team had to meet and choose the venue. Vašek, Míša and Rita came to Ági´s farmhouse in Vácszentlászló, where we spent two days under a chesnut tree. 

We decided to follow our feelings and risk going to Bócsa, even though Agostyán would be much safer and easier for us. We planned the whole programme again with the new venue...

...and we were constantly harvesting Ági´s garden.

Scouting for the venue

After we decided that the exchange will not take place in Gárdony, where we originally planned it to, a long scouting for a new venue started. We asked all our friends, acquaintances, and set out on a scouting journey to visit the places and people...

First we went to Bócsa, then we went south to Pécs, spoke to our friend Emese, who gave us contact for a family in Hosszúhetény.

We went there the day after, slept there, and thoroughly examined their adobe house without water and electricity (but with a magical spring under a majestic tree and with a solar panel). Fáni showed us everything, all the techniques they used to build this house, and many tricks for everyday life, including a recipe for pörkölt from green peas (in exchange for several gipsy songs that Vasek tought him).

Our journey continued by hitchhiking to Nagyszékely. Edit was very enthusiastic about hosting us, and we immediately fell in love with this enchanting village full of extraordinary architecture and permacultural gardens. Unfortunatelly, they are not building there any sustainable houses in the moment - everybody rather renovates old adobe houses - so we understood that this time this place will not suitable for us.

We wanted to go on to Gyűrűfű, but the guest house was occupied for the dates of our exchange. Than we got a phone call with another possible venue, so we headed north to Tata to check it out.

Agostyán near Tata is an eco-farm and environmental education centre, and they will build a cob house there this summer. This place and Bócsa were our favourite ones - we had to meet the other members of the team to choose one of them.

Everywhere, the people were very friendly and helpful. Soon we felt that just telling our vision to others, sometimes to people we haven´t met before, brought us new contacts, possiblities and ideas, and the things started to move. Everybody helped as he or she could, and soon we got the feeling that the project is just happening around us, more than us pushing it forward...

During the travel, we saw so many wonderful places and inspiring people, that I felt really grateful that this project gave me the excuse of calling them, vising their homes and meetig them. 

Vasek