Zsuzsi & Barna

Hungary & Romania
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Profile information

Travel information
We are currently
Travelling
Activities we are interested in:
Currently in: central Vietnam
Our next destination:
Vietnam - from Feb 2024 until May 2024
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Description
Hello everyone!

We are Zsuzsi and Barna, a young couple from Transylvania, Romania. We would like to explore the world a little bit before settling down with our careers. We are looking for opportunities that will build our character; jobs that will teach us skills we don't know yet; and places where we can find joy, productivity and peace at the same time.

About us:
Zsuzsi was working as a personal trainer in the past two years and started a small crochet business since that is her hobby.
She did several jobs before like aupairing and being a waitress.
Barna finished his MA in clinical psycholgy, during his studies he was a volunteer in a mental hospital. He is also a juggler and a fire juggler performer.

Now both of us are into travelling to explore the world. We have interests in meditation, spirituality and in any kind of movement activity (workout, yoga, acroyoga, taichi, dancing, juggling, hiking, etc).
We like to live in communities, to work around the house, to play board games and we looove animals!

Update!
We have been travelling for more than a year now and have already done 10+ workaways. Based on our experience, we decided to write a little update about our expectations/wishes from the future hosts.

1. A sense of security and personal space.
When we get a room, a bed or even just a corner as accommodation, we expect that the host and everyone around will treat it as ours and won't come and manage our place & stuff. Obviously we've experienced the opposite, and we don't like the constant worry of being robbed or the feeling of being walked through.

2. Tell us about changes in advance.
We are very flexible, we adapt easily and we don't mind if things change around us. But it is very uncomfortable when we see big changes that affect us/our stay and we don't know anything about it.
Therefore, we would like to ask our hosts to communicate with us about the changes in advance.

3. Timetable
We like to have a schedule. We don't like just hanging around and wasting time waiting for the host to tell us what to do. It is a constant juggling between free time and work time and we want to make the most of both.

4. Having someone we can rely on.
Arriving in a place where there are lots of people but no real host to introduce us to the place, tell us what to do and who to go to if we have a problem - gives us a feeling of being lost and not belonging.
We have experienced this many times, so we would like to ask the future places to make 1 person responsible for us.

Thank you!
Interests
Music
Water sports
Winter sports
Self development
Gardening
Sailing / Boating
Sustainability
Pets
Plant care
Yoga / Wellness
Vegetarian or vegan
Nature
Outdoor activities
Performing arts
Hitchhiking
Mountain
Events & social
Hiking
Fitness
DIY & crafts

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Languages
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Hungarian: Fluent
Romanian: Intermediate
Spanish: Beginner
More details about my language interests
We can teach English and Hungarian, but we are not professional teachers
Find a language buddy
Skills and knowledge we'd like to share or learn
We're interested in:
Charity Work
Eco Projects
Being an elderly companion
Teaching
Life at a Farmstay
Hospitality/Tourism
Some knowledge of:
Art Projects
Languages
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
General Maintenance
Helping with Computers/ Internet
Gardening
Able to teach about:
Babysitting and creative play
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Helping around the house
More details about your skills
crochet, juggling, fire-juggling, sports and workout
Age
25 & 27
Some more information
- Smoker
- Driver's licence
- Allergies
  Only Zsuzsi has a few food allergies, but nothing serious.
- Special dietary requirements
  We prefer vegetarian food, but when we travel, we accept any type we receive :)

Feedback

22 Apr 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Connect with Vietnamese ...)

Our almost 2 weeks with Eric and Anh had ups and downs.
There were many positive parts of the place. First were the animals (5 amazing and adorable dogs), we connected with them easily, played with them and learned a lot about dogs in packs. The house had many modern features like solar power, high pressure shower or smart sink in the kitchen.… read more The food was always good and varied, many times they even took us to restaurants and asked us what we wanted to eat, no matter the price. Eric and Anh were also friendly, it was so good that both of them spoke fluent English, so we could finally have nice and long conversations after a long time (we found it difficult to find hosts who spoke fluent English in Vietnam). On our last day, they invited us to Anh's cousin's wedding so we could see how Vietnamese people get married nowadays.

The tasks was also exciting, we helped with their beauty garden which included brainstorming and we felt they really cared and listened to our ideas and perspectives. What was not good for us is that we did not set our helping hours at the beginning, so we felt that we were expected to be more available to do house choirs outside of helping hours. We had to make sure that we had the free time to do the things we wanted to do on our own, like exercising, reading, and whatching series. And that sometimes meant retreating to our rooms, which might have seemed rude from their perspective.
We recommend that the next volunteers have a discussion at the beginning about the hours and the expectation to help around the house outside of the required 5 hours, as this would make things less complicated.

We also had some personal difficulties, mostly because Eric's and Zsuzsi's personalities did not seem to fit, and we did not discuss the hard feelings like we should have, but we let them go, which eventually led to uncomfortable feelings and strange theories about why we behaved the way we did. But on our penultimate night they invited us to a talk where we sat down and we shared all our feelings. Thanks to that we felt we had become closer to each other and when we left, we felt there were no hard feelings left.

We think it would be very helpful to have organized sharing sessions from week to week, where everyone can talk about their feelings, and the rest can listen, so that you can work through the problems and disturbances that always occur when people live together in a small place, isolated. This way no one would repeat our mistake of letting uncomfortable feelings go unchecked.

All in all, we recommend that you join them, and while you are there, try to engage with them as much as you can, because they appreciate it.
Thank you Anh & Eric for the hospitality and for the gifts, we wish you good luck for the future, we hope you will find the help and the company you need on this website!

(Very good )

22 Apr 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Homestay and Winery in the ...)

We stayed with Yên and her family for 3 weeks. The atmosphere of their home was very quiet, the people were friendly and caring. Yên was the only one who could speak English, with the rest of the family we talked through Google translate, although they were eager to learn the language.

Our main task was gardening: weeding and clearing away old… read more

(Excellent )

18 Feb 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Volunteers welcome in our ...)

We quickly fell in love with this place: Eliyan, Puji and the family are super friendly and always looking after us. They have a clear intention to help the people of Lombok and Indonesia, combined with the greatest of goodwill. Exceptional people who give all they can to help others!
The house and school were full of cats, which was a huge bonus… read more for us. The team members of the NGO are young local volunteers, also very kind and caring, although they seemed a little shy about starting a conversation in English. Most of the people don't speak English very well, but in spite of that it wasn't difficult to communicate with them.

Eliyan speaks very good and fluent English and we were connected with her in the first place. She is an exceptional host, kind, friendly, always communicating with us, feeding us, making sure we were feeling well. She even made sure that we had vegetarian food to eat, often cooking by herself (and omg how good it was!).

We did several different tasks. We started with a deep cleaning of the school, then moved on to working online. Barna did a background research on social NGOs to help clarify the profile of the foundation, meanwhile Zsuzsi helped with the workaway profile, updating the description and prioritising the many applicants. Finally, we held workshops for people from the local community: crocheting for women by Zsuzsi and juggling for children by Barna.
Once we went with the whole team to meet children in a poor area of West Lombok: we had to prepare some games to play with them. And another day we visited a local yarn studio (it was Zsuzsi's wish and Eliyan arranged the meeting) where they make high quality hand dyed natural yarns and preserve the tradition of Lombok by hand weaving traditional clothing.
Our schedule was flexible, Eliyan was never bossy or calculating our working hours, she let us manage it as we wanted (but we also worked so she didn't have to check on us).

The local area of Sengkol didn't have much to offer us, so in our free time we tended to go further south, about 15-20 minutes by bike towards Kuta, to enjoy the beach or watch the sunset. One weekend we went to the north, we wanted to visit the mountains but due to the rain we went to Gili Meno. Eliyan & Puji were so kind, they even arranged for us to stay with their relatives in the north for the night.

All in all we had 3 amazing weeks under Eliyan's wing. Puji, the family, the team members and the cats are all very kind and welcoming.
We highly recommend staying with them in Sengkol!
Thank you again for taking us in, we're very grateful for it! We wish you the best of luck in improving your community! ♡

(Excellent )

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Friends

Photos

Field work on a farm in Malaysia

Animal care on a farm in Malaysia

Fire performance by Barna

Doing acro yoga

We love hiking!

Bamboo furniture made by Barna in Malaysia

Moving the earth in India

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Posing with our host family in Vietnam

English class for children in rural area in Vietnam

In the business of homemade soaps in Vietnam

Crochet workshop in a hostel in Malaysia

Crochet workshop in a local village in Indonesia

English class for young adults in Vietnam

Always happy to do outdoor activities

Cat love

Feedback

22 Apr 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Connect with Vietnamese ...)

(Very good )

22 Apr 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Homestay and Winery in the ...)

(Excellent )

18 Feb 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Volunteers welcome in our ...)

(Excellent )

13 Feb 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Help out around our new ...)

A fun place and a great way to meet people! During our 6 week stay we made lasting friends and memories.
The staff are super nice people (Aiman, Akiem, Vaan) as well as the manager & owners (Melissa, Aliff and Shane). It is easy to meet new people here, the volunteers keep changing just like the guests.
We worked at the reception for 5 hours a… read more

(Excellent )

13 Feb 2024

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Help on our farm and be part ...)

We stayed on the farm for 2 weeks at the beginning of November 2023.

The working hours were fixed, we worked during the morning, 6 days a week, 5 very chilled hours (with food breaks). The work itself was mainly in the fields and it wasn't very organised, often we found ourselves just waiting for someone to give us something to do (we didn't… read more find this place as one where we could be creative).
At the beginning of our stay we were bored, but later volunteers arrived and made our time there much more enjoyable.

We were also lucky enough to be on the farm at the same time as Ellie (their previous volunteer who treated ALL the animals on the farm - meaning all 50+ bulls & cows and around 20 dogs). She only came for a check up for about a week. She was lovely and caring with both the animals and the people, hard working and willing to share her knowledge about animal care. We were able to learn many practical things about animal welfare under her guidance.

We were given delicious vegetarian & Indian food three times a day. We were also allowed to eat as many coconuts as we wanted and they often harvested jackfruit which they shared with us.

Our experience on the farm was good, we had some challenges because we felt useless, left alone, a bit lost and mostly bored, but these went away when other volunteers joined.
We would like to highlight a few things about the farm as the profile is not 100% accurate and volunteers should know what to expect.
- Although it is written several times, there is no wifi here and the signal is weak.
- There is no washing machine and you have to ask for detergent or bring your own.
- The working hours are 6 days a week, 4-5 hours a day.
- The facilities are okay, some rooms don't have hot showers. But the people are helpful and you have to be able to help yourself in these situations because no one is going to check if you are ok with the room or not.
- We came here to get more involved in the iscon community, but there are only a handful of devotees here who are not always interested in hanging out together (unless you are a bit persistent), the rest of the people are paid workers.
- The farm is quite isolated, without a vehicle there is no nearby place to visit (farms all around), with a vehicle there are some small towns where you can mainly shop or eat outside.
- During the work we didn't really feel needed or useful, every day we had to wait for a (mostly random) job to be found for us, as most of the work was done by the workers.

But like we said, we had a good time there. The place is organised, the schedule is fixed, the food is always on time. The place is big, so there is always room for new volunteers, and you will definitely meet other workawayers.

Simeshwara ji is a lovely person and a very good host, he is caring and kind, loves to talk about his religion, but he also has an important role in the ISCON community, so he is usually busy and rarely around.
We also think that in his previous life he must have been a Formula 1 driver.

(Very good )

9 Feb 2024

Left by host (Winter pruning in our ...) for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

We spent wonderful time with Zsuzsi & Barna. They were genuinely interested in meditation and self growth and they gave their best at it while they were here with us. They worked in the garden and cooked delicious food. They were also kind enough to guard our house when we were traveling. We hope your trip went well. Best of luck.

(Excellent )

18 Jun 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Winter pruning in our ...)

We definitely suggest going to Lalitah's and Utsav's home, but be prepared: it's not just a regular volunteering place. It is also a meditation retreat and a therapy place, sometimes a group therapy place. By that we mean it involves hard moments, out of comfort situations, and honesty.

Our total stay was 7 weeks in Bozcaada in February-March… read more

(Excellent )

2 Jan 2024

Left by host (Experience life at our ...) for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

Barna stayed with us about 2 weeks. During his stay, there is also 6 other workawayers that come and go in different dates. And of course i need to prepare separate room/tent for them to have their own privacy during their resting time. Barna also an independent person that i can rely on whatever project that he has done and also he can cook by… read more

(Excellent )

27 Dec 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Experience life at our ...)

I (Barna) stayed at the campsite for 2 weeks. I had a whole tent to myself, usually MD (the host) tries to give everyone their own tent/room so everyone has their own personal space.
We used to do all the cooking and shopping ourselves and then show the bill to MD and he would give us the money back for the shopping with no questions asked, which… read more

(Excellent )

6 Nov 2023

Left by host (Come, lets share our love for ...) for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

Hi Zsuzsi & Barna, You guys were amazing! the beautification work that you did around the bridge has made the place look so much better. I must admit the task involved so much of hard work and both of you have worked so well. Thank you once again for implementing the amazing idea.

(Excellent )

22 Sep 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Come, lets share our love for ...)

Two months on the farm, working on a big project and eating delicious food.
It was a bit of a surprise that the family no longer lived there, but we were lucky enough to meet Ved and two of his daughters.
We were working on a big project, Zuby was a great help as a manager, as were Dinanath, Vikas, Krishna and the rest of the gardeners. No one… read more

(Excellent )

3 Nov 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Teach English and herb farm ...)

Our experience was both sweet and sour, overall it was heartwarming and it was hard to leave this place. We recommend everyone to join this project, but we also want to give a real reference so you can be prepared.

Positive experiences
- Good people:
Thuy is the main host, she is an amazing person, she is energetic and has a young spirit! The… read more

(Very good )

8 Oct 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Teaching simple English, ...)

It was our first time teaching English, but as Bill is a very calm and patient person, we felt that nothing could go wrong during the lessons. He gave us all the tools we needed and guided us when we were lost. The students are very friendly and often shy around foreigners, but after a while they started to blossom!
Our one week of stay was tough,… read more

(Excellent )

3 Oct 2023

Left by host for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

It was nice having Zsuzsi and Barna helping me with the classes.

They stayed at my place more than a week to help me teaching the students. Everything was great. We also had a good time together.
Zsuzsi and Barna are very friendly and clean people. When they taught the students, they were very patient and fun too! I bet all of the students… read more

(Excellent )

22 Sep 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Looking for help with social ...)

Wow, what an experience!
Because of this hostel we could meet a lot of other travellers and we could build a deep relationship with these people. ♡
Ajeet focuses on foreigners in his hostel, so you probably won't get a very Indian experience here.
Ajeet was straightforward about what he needed, and we started work the day we arrived. We renovated… read more

(Excellent )

22 Sep 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (🌟The mystical land where the ...)

We stayed with Manu in Rishikesh for about a week and our job was to do a deep cleaning in one of her buildings. The work was hard but rewarding.
Manu was direct in her conversation, telling us what she needed and what she could offer. We liked the way she communicated.
The schedule was flexible, Manu didn't care when we did the work, she just… read more

(Very good )

10 Sep 2023

Left by host (🌟The mystical land where the ...) for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

Zsuzsi & Barna were God sent to my Homestay. Very clear in communication and thorough with their tasks.

(Excellent )

18 Jun 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Volunteer on a Beautiful ...)

We stayed for a short period, only one week at Anil's resort. He has a local hotel, which is beautiful, right next to the jungle.

Anil is very nice, he isn't pushing or expecting much, his priority was for us to enjoy. We didn't have schedule of work and free time, so we had to make our own. We did gardening and painting, approximately 3 hours a… read more

(Excellent )

18 Jun 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Come and enjoy the beautiful ...)

We had the chance to be the first workaway volunteers at the Homestead.
It is a beautiful place hidden in the forest in Kullu Valley, with the most amazing people working there!
By staying there one and a half month, we got the opportunity to learn a lot about India from guests coming from different places of the country, and we could also become… read more

(Excellent )

7 Jun 2023

Left by host (Come and enjoy the beautiful ...) for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

In 2023 we tried a new location for the very first time; called the Homestead in the Manali region of Himichal Pradesh.

Zsuzsi and Barna had committed to join us for the month of May but due to ill-fortune (illness and a volunteering cancellation elsewhere) we were happy to receive them early.

Zsuzsi and Barna stayed approximately 6 weeks at the… read more

(Excellent )

18 Feb 2023

Left by host for Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna)

They are a friendly, helpful couple. It was positive and clean. they helped me a lot. They cleaned and cooked delicious food for me. Thank you for your help.

(Excellent )

18 Feb 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Discover the historical and ...)

Tuğsah was very kind to invite us into his home, and in exchange of a little work we could stay in his place in a very comfortable private room. He helped us a lot with his offer, so we are very grateful for him! He is a very kind and generous person, we had nice and meaningful conversations with him.
We would recommend him as a host!
Thank you… read more

(Excellent )

3 Feb 2023

Left by Workawayer (Zsuzsi & Barna) for host (Permaculture and organic ...)

Our stay in Justin's house was a heart warming experience, on our way to the train station after our three week stay, both of us got emotional, and wished that all our future farewell to be the same!

Justin is a well experienced and wonderful host, who has very good cooking skills, and also loves to cook. We ate "posh" salads and delicious meals… read more

(Excellent )

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