For a week I was in Vojsko, a village near Idrija with six other people. Together with the local community we would build a walking path and also paint a wooden storage house. My task in the group was just painting the storage house together with one of the other volunteers. The goal of workcamp was to reconstruct a walking path by building stairs up to a viewpoint at the top of a hill and also to paint the storage house that belongs to the village of Vojsko.

At first, everyone is a bit shy and we try to memorize each other names. Those are the first awkward hours or days, but that evolves rapidly. You start having your own private jokes. But especially, you spend so much time together sharing shampoo or food or clothing, or all of them!, that you will learn about each other small routines and you will really learn how to share. These small things really bring you closer to the people; how one always drinks coffee first thing in the morning, how another person is always the first to wake up, how there is one of you who is always prepared with water and snacks,… There is some beauty in learning these things from strangers; you first get to know their private, most personal habits, to learn more general things about them.

You also get to know the local community. They will welcome you with the most generous hearts. There was an association of women who prepared delicious meals for us every day. It always came with dessert and coffee and funny talks – us mimicking and trying to speak Slovene, they smiling back at us. I am so grateful that I entered these people’s houses. It goes without saying, they also offered us their own crafted schnapps and wine.

This text would be too small to share my appreciation to all of the people we have met. I cannot forget Idrija’s Geopark team, the municipality of Idrija, the association of rural women, and many others who contributed to this experience.

Workcamps are a combination of interacting, sharing, working together, supporting each other, expanding one’s horizons, and taking all those precious moments with you. Take them back to where you started and see what happens. But you will have to wait until next year to get closer to what you’ve felt in that week!

Workcamp volunteer and local community. Slovenia, June 2016.

Story written by Jessica Lima, workcamp volunteer in Idrija, Slovenia, June, 2016