Come experience village life in the scenic hills of Strelets, Bulgaria

Informationen

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  Beschreibung

  Want to live a simple life in a simple village and live more like the locals do? We are a couple who have found that this is what we like to do. Come and experience the atmosphere surrounding quite an isolated house on the edge of a small quiet village, do 'this and that', and eat as much as you want of whatever fruit that happens to be growing here at the time. There can be a lot of fruit to choose from sometimes!
  
  We are Sam (English man 46), Janne (Dutch woman 41), and Lyuda (a nice medium sized dog). We are probably a slightly eccentric couple, but you probably have to be to get the house we did in the village we did and live like we do. Janne also speaks Spanish and Sam speaks a fair bit of Romanian if that's of any use or interest to you!
  
  [Currently it is just Sam here (as of 3rd September 2024), though maybe Janne will come along at some point in September or October ]
  
  In 2020 we drove around north central Bulgaria looking for a house to buy. We found a village we loved, then we found and bought the only house in it that we found suitable enough. It's an old house (not shown in pictures) made of wonky wood and mud bricks that needs a lot of work, but we love it!
  
  We have now also come into stewardship of the neighboring house (which we primarily house volunteers / guests in, and is the one in the pictures), so we now have 200% more land and buildings to use and look after than originally planned for!
  
  
  At any given time, there maybe both of us here, one of us, or neither of us; and there are three options on how you can spend your time here depending on what the circumstances are . . .
  
  1)
  Help us for a max of 10 hours a week . . .
  . . . for accommodation
  
  2)
  Help us for a max of 25 hours a week . . .
  . . . for food and accommodation.
  
  3)
  House sit and look after the dog
  . . . if we are due to leave . . .
  . . . and do whatever needs to be done to maintain the property; e.g. feed the dog, let people read electricity and water meters, keep the vegetation under control. If we have specific dates in mind we put a note in [brackets] at the beginning of this text.
  
  
  As we are just starting out with volunteers and you will be staying in your own house with your own kitchen, for now we have a preference for people to provide their own food (you can come with us when we go to the supermarket). Though do not let this put you off, if you would like us to feed you we can still do this.
  
  For house sitting it would be very advantageous to have your own car so you can go to a better location to do food shopping, and also access a cash machine. You could most likely survive by just shopping in the three local shops, but it's not something we would want to do.
  
  
  There is internet here via the mobile network, so we have a standard set amount of traffic totaling 100 GB per month. It's fast enough for streaming video.
  
  
  Depending on the season the available fruit could be:
  
  Mulberries
  Cherries
  Plums (at least 4 varieties, enough to lose count at least)
  Pears (2 varieties, if we are lucky)
  Apples (4 or more varieties)
  Peaches
  Figs
  Blackberries and/or Raspberries
  Grapes (red and white)
  Walnuts
  Almonds if you are really lucky

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  Arten von Hilfe und Lernmöglichkeiten

  Gartenarbeiten

  Heimwerker- und Bauarbeiten

  Betreuung von Tieren

  Zubereiten / Kochen von Mahlzeiten für die Familie

  Handwerkliche Arbeiten

  House sitting
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  Kultureller Austausch und Lernmöglichkeiten

  You will see what it's like to live in a simple small Bulgarian village up in some hills. Most people do all they can to live of the land they have. We ourselves (when we have the opportunity) like to try and grow some vegetables, herbs and maintain the couple of orchards that we have, one small (barely an orchard really), the other quite big.
  
  Sam has lived and worked in a few different countries including being an English teacher in Korea and Georgia, and a dog sledder in Arctic Norway.
  
  Janne has lived in South America during her anthropological studies for her University degree, and has also spent time living in Ghana. She also spends a lot of time travelling back and forth by train between The Netherlands and Romania/Bulgaria, each time going on a slightly different route and exploring new places.
  
  . . . . so . . . we have some stories to tell.

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  Arbeit

  There is always garden and property maintenance and organisation to do to keep things under control, but there is so much to do, just let us know what you like doing, or tell us if you think of something that can be done, and we'll see what we can come up with.
  
  
  If you want a sample list of specific things that currently need doing (or always need doing), please see below:
  
  'Pointing' - putting fresh mortar inbetween bricks and rocks, specifically the outside toilet at the moment.
  Repairing and maintaining walls, and gaps in property bounderies, currently including improving a fence/boundry with extra wire and rocks to stop goats getting in.
  Collecting, moving and organising roof tiles to be used later on roof.
  Clearing up barn space of unwanted items and debris.
  Digging up tree stumps
  Digging up weed vines.
  House and garden improvement and maintenance
  
  Cooking - Sam likes to cook, but if he is doing things only he can do, sometimes it can be useful not to have to spend the time on cooking and instead spend the time on these things.
  
  There are many other specific things that need doing that may or may not have a higher priority than what has been listed above. However it would be too convoluted and involving to go into it here. For more details please get in contact.

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  Sprachen

  Gesprochene Sprachen
  Englisch: Fließend
  Spanisch: Fließend
  Niederländisch: Fließend
  Romanian: Gute Kenntnisse
  Bulgarian: Grundkenntnisse

  Dieser Gastgeber bietet Sprachaustausch an
  Sam is a certified (CELTA / TESOL) English teacher, and has taught at state schools for 1 and half years in Korea and half a year in Georgia, and would be happy to do what he can to help you out with English. If you happen to know Romanian, then Sam would gladly accept any help you care to give in helping him learn more!
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  Unterkunft

  You will have your own room, and probably your own house next to ours if there are no other volunteers staying (which is likely whilst we are just starting out on Workaway). The house primarily used for guests consists of two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a shower room / toilet. It has a washing machine and a fridge. In fact the house you will have will be better than the one we will stay in!
  
  If we are cooking for you note that Janne is a pescatarian which pretty much makes Sam one also when at home.
  
  Note that there has been a water shortage last year and this year, and there could be no tap water for a day or two. Consider that this short of thing can happen in many Bulgarian villages. With proper preparation it has never been a huge problem for us or the house sitters that experienced this last year. What we do is just fill up lots of containers with water when the water is running.
  
  We also have a well on each of the two properties, and a spring about 300 metres away which we use for drinking if we wish or need to.
  
  This year before we left the property at the beginning of August, there was news that the water shortage was going to be solved by tankers bringing in water. We will find out what the current situation is when Sam returns soon at the beginning of September.

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  Was noch ...

  We really like our village. The area we live in is quiet, and we can see the mountains when the air is clear mostly outside of the summer period. You can walk 5 minutes up the hill where there is a big forest and panoramic views of the surrounding hills and the mountains in the distance.

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  Etwas mehr Information

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    Internet Zugang

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    Eingeschränkter Internet Zugang

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    Wir besitzen Tiere

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    Wir sind Raucher

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    Familien möglich

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  Kann Digital Nomads unterbringen

  Not entirely sure what constitutes a 'digital nomad' and the ability to host one, but we can provide you with your own room with a desk/table, and an internet connection via the mobile network which is good enough for streaming video. We have an allowance of 100 GB bandwidth per month.

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  Platz zum Abstellen von Camper Vans

  Depending on how particular you are, smaller campervans / motorhomes can be catered for on our property, or outside next to the road. If you park on our property next to the house you would be staying in / using, the limiting factors are the steepness, size and surface of our driveway. There is no surface as such, just grass with maybe hidden rocks underneath the grass. If it gets wet, it can be tricky to get enough grip / momentum to get out of the driveway. There is shade in this spot for the first half of the day. There are two option for parking next to the road. You can park up close next to the house where there is next to no shade and may cause problems for tractors getting past. Or park further away in a spot where there is good shade but is next to a fork in the road that sees cars / tractors passing from time to time.

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  Hier sind Haustiere in der Regel willkommen

  If it is a dog you have, it just needs to get along with our dog. Usually if our dog sees we like another dog, it knows that it needs to tolerate it, but it can be a bit jealous and possessive of its territory and owners (food sources) to begin with. If it's a cat you will bring it will probably be chased away by our dog to begin with, but it can learn to tolerate cats.

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  Kapazität - wie viele Workawayer maximal

  mehr als zwei

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  Arbeitszeiten

  15 hours/week max, self catering - 25 hours/week max, food provided.

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