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

Detalles

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  Descripción

  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 born 1978), Janne (Dutch woman born 1983), 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!
  
  Sam also does Workaway as a worker and has a worker profile:
  If the link doesn't show below, his user name is 'muel2002' and you can add this in place of your username in the web address for your worker profile.
  
  
  He also served as a superviser for another Workaway host and is mentioned in the feedback:
  Again, if the link doesn't show below the host id number is 837699821335, or search for ' Lisa Teleorman '
  
  
  At any given time, there maybe both of us here, one of us, or neither of us; and there are different options on how you can spend your time here depending on what the circumstances are.
  
  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!
  
  
  - Getting Here -
  
  If you don't have your own transport, there is a bus service to the village from the municipal capital town: Gorna Oryahovitsa that itself is well served by transport links.
  
  The bus serves the village as follows:
  
  Monday to Friday twice a day . . .
  To Strelets >. . . 7:50 / 17:30
  From > . . . 8:50 / 18:30
  
  Sunday & Holidays
  To Strelets >. . . 17:30
  From > . . . 18:30
  
  I'm not currently sure what the case is for Saturday as it is not mentioned on the timetable!
  
  - House Sitting -
  
  There may be an opportunity to house sit along with looking after the dog. That's if we are able to be here when you would arrive, and we would be due to leave and return in a workable time.
  
  For housesitting you will need to buy your own food.
  
  If you do end up house sitting you just need to do whatever needs to be done to service and maintain the property on a day to day basis; e.g. feed the dog if it's here, let people read electricity and water meters, keep the vegetation under control. If we already have specific dates in mind we put a note in [brackets] at the beginning of this text.
  
  It would be advantageous to have your own car so you can more easily 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.
  
  - Fruit -
  
  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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  Tipos de ayuda y oportunidades de aprendizaje

  Jardinería

  Construcción y bricolaje

  Cuidado de animales

  Mantenimiento general

  Cuidado de casas
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  Intereses

  

  Cultura

  

  Sostenibilidad

  

  Carpintería

  

  Senderismo

  

  Baile

  

  Naturaleza

  

  Mascotas

  

  Trabajo de caridad

  

  Bricolaje y manualidades

  

  Música

  

  Jardinería
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  Intercambio cultural y oportunidades de aprendizaje

  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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  Ayuda

  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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  Idiomas

  Idiomas hablados
  Inglés: Fluido
  Español: Fluido
  Holandés: Fluido
  Romanian: Intermedio
  Bulgarian: Principiante

  Este anfitrión ofrece intercambio de idiomas
  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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  Alojamiento

  You will most likely be staying in your own house with your own kitchen.
  
  Water:
  
  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.
  
  
  Sleep:
  
  You will have your own room, and probably your own house next to ours if there are no other volunteers staying (which is likely). 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!
  
  Food:
  
  If Janne is here and we are cooking for you note that Janne is a pescatarian which pretty much makes Sam one also when at home.
  
  If you prefer to cook for yourself that's fine I can supply stuff for you and if you want to offer me some it's very unlikely I will say no :-). If cooking is a challenge for you then I can do it!
  
  - Internet -
  
  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.

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  Algo más...

  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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  Un poco más de información

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    Acceso a Internet

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    Acceso a Internet limitado

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    Tenemos animales

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    Somos fumadores

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    Puede alojar familias

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  Puede acoger a nómadas digitales

  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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  Espacio para aparcar autocaravanas

  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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  Podría aceptar mascotas

  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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  ¿Cuántos voluntarios puedes hospedar?

  Más de dos

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  Mis animales / mascotas

  

  Ludi

  Medium sized cute friendly dog, that can bark a lot, might do what you command her to do, and will steal your food if you leave it unattended.

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