"Generations in Balance"

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Being here sometimes reminds me of my childhood, when we were much more rooted in nature and somehow did everything from scratch. So I thought, why not bring a little bit of that back?

This time, I also wanted to reach a part of the local community that I hadn't really had the chance to connect with before: elderly people.

Maybe this comes from growing up in rural Romania, or maybe I am just becoming nostalgic, but I really believe that the knowledge elderly people carry is something you cannot easily replace. And honestly, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. There are always those little things people know because they learned them from their parents, grandparents or simply from doing them for years.

So, Generations in Balance was never supposed to be just about what I could bring to the community. I was also very curious about what they could bring, what they already knew and what we could exchange with each other.

I had three activities in mind: herbal practices, old-school batik and traditional soap making. Basically, getting our hands dirty, experimenting a little and going back to doing things the slower way.

And this was probably my favourite part: people started sharing their own knowledge too. They told me about things they knew, asked me questions (which I hope I had some decent answers to), and suddenly it wasn't really me teaching an activity anymore. It became more of an exchange.

Of course, the language barrier was still there. Sometimes very much there. But somehow, between words, gestures, demonstrations and probably some creative interpretation, we managed. And for me, it was also a chance to finally get a little closer to local people I hadn't interacted with much before.

The three activities also magically became four days, because yeah... apparently I needed an extra day to make sure everything actually went according to plan. Or at least somewhat according to plan.

But that extra day was worth it.

It was fun, a little chaotic at times, and also genuinely valuable for me. I started these activities wanting to share something from my own experience, but ended up learning and listening just as much.

And now, as my time here is slowly coming to an end, I think this will be one of those activities I'll remember dearly on my way back home.

A few days of herbs, colours, soap, questionable communication skills, shared knowledge and people coming together.


Not too bad. 🌿

—Timea 


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