Help co-create a sauna retreat in the forest and live off-grid in Zagnańsk, Poland

Details

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  Description

  Hi there ! I'm Maku and creating a magical place in the forest. I've built a community sauna here, and right now I'm living here one of the building with my wife. We hold sauna ceremonies for our community and others here, with lots of music, singing and so on :) With the help of our friends and volunteers day by day we add new structures & unique spots to our space, turning it into a magical forest land. :) The sauna itself is also very magical, built of solid logs, very dark inside, with just the light of woodburing stove and candles...
  
  For instance recently structures that we've build:
  - a shower-tower, where at the bottom of it you can take a shower and at the top drink a tea or coffea ,while being 4m above the ground surrounded by threes..
  - a vault shape structure around the fireplace was created, dropping beautiful shadows in the night
  - massage/bathing room, placed in the greenhouse with the bark floor
  - all over you can find some little pieces of art, bugs houses, festival-like signs and so on
  - we dug a pond, where you can jump in after a sauna, also also we've made a low tech filtering system for it
  - clay pizza oven
  - a BeachBar in the forest ! :D Placed just by the pond, close to sauna provides us a good SOUND SYSTEM :D because life is about music, isn't it ? :) So prepare for some good etno-electro music, world, andino, cumbia vibes :) We gonna build also a second floor with some mattresses and hammocks to sleep and small trampoline to jump into the pond. Sound appealing ? :)
  
  
  Coming projects:
  
  Another log sauna, a three house, further one - constructing bridges above the pond and between trees. All the time something new, you never now what will be actual when you come ;)
  
  On Wensdays, Fridays and Saturdays, we hold sauna ceremonies at the evenings.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Art Projects

  Help with Eco Projects

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Farmstay help

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

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  What's this?
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  If you like nature and sauna - it's definitely place for you. If you don't like - you will start to like it for sure :) Because it's probably completely different from what you've experience. So you can learn a lot about sauna ceremony, but also about building structures.
  
  In general you will experience a lot of natural building here. and being kind of off-grid in the nature too. We've got plenty of top quality power tools as well as hand tools. Mainly for working with wood, but some metal and stone work too.
  But if you like to work with timber - you may learn a lot here.
  
  We don't have a garden here yet (next year probably), but there is a lot of forest gardening like picking berries, shrooms, cultivation shrooms, sauna wigs making, pruning threes and so on. But we could make some preperations for next year ( like raised beds or so on)
  
  We generally live here alone, but it would be find a day without any guests here - there is almost always someone coming, visiting, sauning and so on. So you'll get into contact with many of our friends, a kind of alternative community here as well as with other volunteers coming here for differents projects. So you'll rather experience the local culture by meeting people coming here, rather than hanging around ( although sometime we go to visit ours weirdy friends too :)
  
  Summertime is a great time to come here as it's easy to live in simply conditions that we have here. Although we live here the whole year round from 3 years.

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  Help

  The help we need is about making this space more beautiful and about to mainten what we' already managed to create. So it's about:
  - mainly natural building ( I've got 18 years of experience of running professional comercial buissness - building eco-houses), we build small forms here - like treehouses, shelters, earthbuildings, platforms, vaults, fences and so on - very interesting structures from low tech to glamours camping style :) lots of carpentry, clay plastering, weaving and digging&carring as well
  - also lots of making art and decoration similar to what you can see at consciousness/trance music festivals - totems, spiderwebs, sculptures from the roots, colourful rainflys and so on - you're welcome to come with you own projects , we'll try to provide you materials for doing that
  - maintening sauna, neighbeurhood and infrastructure ( cutting and chopping wood, fireing, cleaning, pumping/carring water, weedwacking)
  - sometimes maybe shopping but rather rarely
  - cooking rather for ourselves, like kitchen shifts
  
  
  We require 5 hours a day of work for 6 days a week here, hours adjustable. I used to say it's about balance between working, resting and celebrating, but I like to work and play hard :) Often things we do here is sth between work, fun and creation, so sometimes it's difficult to say where we are now :) But 5 hours is required, the rest is optional, as there is many creative projects here that you would maybe like to work longer too :)

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  Polish: Fluent
  Spanish: Beginner

  This host offers a language exchange
  This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
  You can contact them directly for more information.
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  Accommodation

  For now mainly tents, sometimes possible to move into camping wagoon.
  
  We've some extra woolen blankets in case of cold weather. It's a forest area, very shaded, so tents don't get overheated.
  We have drinking water from a big container and we use it to shower also. If you'd like to take a warm shower, you can heat up sauna and take some boiling water from the water container that is on the stove pipe. You may also like to take a warm bath, but that require little more job (to make up fire under the bathtub), but you'll get a really unique experience bathing in the woods :) We very often use sauna ( more like russian banya, lower tempeture, more moisture, easy to stay as long as 30-50 minuts inside), so don't be afraid of cold, you'll get more heat than you expect ;) after quick time, cold water is not a problem, rather a bless. We practice also Wiff Hoff methods, with cold bathing in the morning as a must. We dug a small pond so you can jump into a water and swim too.
  There is a very nice compost toilet on site.
  
  There is about 30 minutes walking distance to the shop, but you can take a bike, and then is less than 10 minutes.
  There is also a beautiful spot in the woods, 15 minutes by bike, where is a spring with fresh water coming out of the roots of huge fir three, amazing place, and you can enjoy drinking straight from the Mother Earth ;)

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  What else ...

  We live in the nature because we like silence. The only noise here is that one that we do :) but sometimes we like a good loud music too. But in general we don't make noises after 10pm, so we all of us can sleep well and get up in the morning.
  
  It's also not really a good place for the dogs - we've got forest animals here and we like them coming here. Dogs barking in the night announsing their presence here is also not something that we enjoy being here in the woods :)
  
  There are some really nice nature reserve close to us, as well as a nice lake in the forgotten quary site. Good place for bike trips and being in the forest ( it starts straight from the place we live and spread vastly for over 40km).

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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

  There's is WiFi in the BeachBar, not perfect but pretty stable. You may sit by the bar, enjoy nature and work 🙂

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  Space for parking camper vans

  Pretty much all of the sizes of campervans would fit here although the road is pretty bumpy, so when you get here you don't want to go out to buy snacks to the gas station 😉

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  Can possibly accept pets

  But not dogs :) Sorry, we live in the forest area, we enjoy wild nature life, and it's often frightened by dogs. Cats, turtles, parrots and chicken are welcome.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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  Hours expected

  5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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