Micro homestead near the center of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Details

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  Description

  Howdy!
  
  My husband and I are expats that moved to Sarajevo, Bosnia in September of 2022. After years of knowing we wanted change, we decided to buy some land and start our new lives. We lived in Arizona, where we met at a dog park and bonded over our mutual love of, hiking, animals, and nature. Now, we work as professors, I teach history and my husband teaches Biology, and we run a small (and I mean small) farm. We have chickens, ducks, sheep and a cow. My husband enjoys wood working and building things. If I can dream it up, he can make it a reality! I enjoy gardening, baking, cooking and preserving food. I am also a fluent Bosnian speaker and am happy to help anyone who needs help getting around and finding things to do in the city. My husband and I also have two dogs that enjoy lounging inside and running around the yard. We have dedicated the last year to slowly building our dream property. It started with updating our chicken coop, and now we have a chicken coop, a grow out coop for baby chicks, a duck area, a quail pen, and a sheep hut. We have lots of projects left to go, but we are excited for the future ahead.
  
  
  
  As we are opening our home to strangers, we find it very important to be surrounded by like minded people - not only for our own comfort, but to make sure everyone has an inviting stay. In our home we believe in science, equality and equity for all, womens rights and bodily autonomy, the rights and protections of people of color and minorities, seperation of church and state, and love for all. If for any reason this does not vibe with your own beliefs, we would kindly ask you look into the other amazing hosts in Bosnia.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Help with Eco Projects

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Animal Care

  Farmstay help

  General Maintenance
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  I am Bosnian-American with a masters degree in history, Bosnian history. If you visit here I can assure you that I will make it a priority to teach you about this countries rich history. I am also bilingual and can help with any translation needs you may have. Bosnia is a country full of history and culture, just waiting to be unlocked. Along with seeing a beautiful country, we will teach you as much or as little as you wish about having a homestead. This can range from the harvesting of animals, to the preservation of food, and even building structures. We are also happy to sit with anyone and discuss our process moving to this country, and the trials and tribulations we have faced through our year here.
  
  We would love to spread our knowledge to others.

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  Help

  Farming is not for the faint of heart. It is increidbly important for us to stress that the work at our home is not like going to a petting zoo. Those cute cuddly animals that we have also love to make a mess and require constant care. While we are happy to accept people with little to no farm experience, we generally seek to find workawayers that have experience with gardening, livestock care, and preservation as those tasks are necessary parts of the workaway experience. Truly though, the most important thing is to have an "I want to help" attitude, and a "Sure I can try" attitude. If you are looking for an easy workaway that is not labor intensive or represents more of the work done at hostels or child care, please know that this is likely not the right fit for you. Please see a list of projects we need to complete to determine whether or not we would be a good fit :)
  
  List of projects:
  Continuing building access steps up our hill
  Building a work table for the pantry/canning room
  Preserving all the fruit we pick
  chopping wood
  fence around garden
  get water to front yard
  Moving buckets of sand up a hill
  Building a deck
  Building a Pergola
  Prepare for spring and summer gardening - this includes pulling weeds
  
  We truly love the workaway experience and one of the biggest reasons we do this is to meet new people and develop life long connections. For us, a workawayer is much more than a volunteer, they are people who became our friends and we continue to see. For example, one of our previous workawayers had 5 days off work and chose to visit us again to spend time together because we truly became close friends. With that being said, in order for us to get to know as many people as possible, we try to keep most of our workaway visits under two weeks. Of course, this is flexible, but that allows us to have time to recharge our social batteries and meet more people. We try to avoid having volunteers back to back, as we think it’s important for us as a family to have some time in between to spend together. That being said, if you see a date marked out as red, that means that we have already accepted someone during that time, we will be on vacation, or we will not be taking volunteers due to the weather. If you’re only here for a few days, we might be able to work something out on red days, but generally those are recharge days. If you see something yellow, we likely have some dates that are already booked but potentially might be open to having another workawayer. Green dates no one has reached out, and likely if you reach out, we can work something out :)

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  Languages spoken

  Bosnian: Fluent
  English: Fluent
  Croatian: Fluent

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  Accommodation

  We live in a family home! This means there is three separate entrances and three “families.” My grandfather lives in one portion, my mother lives in the second, and we live in the third. You would stay with us in our portion. You would have full access to our guest bedroom, which you would not share; unless you come as a couple, and you would have access to our shared bathroom. Our kitchen, garden, and farm fresh eggs are yours for the taking. You can cook and use the kitchen as though it is your own, and I am happy to fix you up a plate of whatever I’m making, I personally love making breads, pastas and cakes! We have two friendly indoor dogs (perhaps giants is a better term), that will keep you company during your stay. The bus stop is about a 3 minute walk away from our home and can take you into the city. Most of our work is done by sun down, so you can have the evening to explore the city and all the attractions.
  
  
  While we love furry friends, we are unable to host volunteers with their own pets as our dogs are not dog and cat friendly.

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  What else ...

  Balkan life is different from the rest of europe. It is slow, relaxed and easy, but this also means that public transportation is slow, relaxed, and easy. There is two bus stops in our area, one is less than 400m away, but the bus comes and goes as it pleases - in Bosnia the best way to catch a bus is to show up at the stop and wait. There is another bus, which is operated by the city, which is roughly 1.5KM away and comes regularly. There is also a train station, and by train station I mean a platform in the middle of a field, that is roughly 1.5KM away and can take you to various parts of Bosnia including Zenica. Generally, we drop off volunteers on our way to work near the tram station, and then pick them up after work. This has been most effective, though many of our guests have tackled the bus system here as well :)

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Can host digital nomads

  In our guest room there is a small table that can double as an office. Our internet is not speedy by any means, but if you need to do video calls, send emails or edit pictures you can do so. My husband also works from home and has no problem :)

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  Space for parking camper vans

  Our driveway is quite long so we can accommodate just about any vehicle, including larger RVs :)

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  Two

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