What’s going on at Ermitaj??
Like most of the world, our plans for 2020 have been somehow… turned upside down!
At the start of the year, we announced our season agenda with enthusiasm, and it was a busy one!
In early March, the health crisis took hold in Europe, and the first confinement-related measures were implemented in Romania. Optimism then gradually gave way to uncertainty and a feeling of fatality.
But who says fatality means despair?
In terms of uncertainty, we quickly decided to cut it short by canceling all of our events until the fall. Despite the disappointment, we experienced this as a relief: instead of being dependent on external factors and political decisions, we turned the situation to our advantage and took over. Goodbye fatality!
The constraint then became an opportunity: taking advantage of it to work on aspects of Ermitaj’s project that are not related with welcoming people, and at the same time to improve our resilience.
Resilience… a term that is familiar to us, and which resonates a lot !
In other words, this is the perfect opportunity to work on the other strings that we want to have in our bow … The story of not putting all our eggs in the same basket, if you prefer 🙂
And this resilience, it concerns many aspects at Ermitaj:
Human resilience, by finally taking the time to schedule the meetings necessary to clarify our social and administrative organization, and to make collective life as harmonious as possible. Because it is well known that the Precious Human Factor is a primordial aspect in a project like ours.
Energy resilience, by taking the time to improve our water storage and distribution systems. But also by continuing to insulate the buildings, while improving the heating possibilities …
Food resilience, by expanding the vegetable garden, taking care of our orchards, improving our methods of preserving food, and improving our knowledge on foraging and cooking edible wild plants.
And of course financial resilience, by taking the time to develop our personal/group projects, with the objective of achieving a certain economic viability on the spot. According to the person, it will be: market gardening, consultancy and design in permaculture, picking and drying herbal tea plants, building solar dryers for drying fruits and vegetables, wood working, metal working (forge and welding), as well as the increase in our (late) scything areas, while enhancing the biodiversity of our meadows.
A whole program, isn’t it? No time to be bored 😉
And we are happy to be able to have a good time together despite the confinement … which one more advantage of living a collective project!
We must admit that we are looking forward to receiving visitors and volunteers again …
Because meeting and sharing are a big part of Ermitaj’s purpose!
Until we can welcome you again, we promise to take more time to share our activities on social networks, in particular via video content. So, stay tuned ! 😉
Take care of yourself … and of your resilience!
