Hello all! Today I will tell you about my experience in the pensioner’s club in Todorovo village. The club is in the center of the village, next to the cultural center “Future” for which I told you about in previous posts. There are about 20 members in the club- both men and women. Since the village is close to the city of Pleven most of the locals are what we call in Bulgaria “city villagers”, some of them doesn’t have gardens, others come only for the weekends or for the summer. Also, most of them travel to the city often and that is where they buy all their food from.
The goal of our session there was to teach the elderly people in the village what a seed library is and to motivate them to contribute to it with their own seeds. We went early in the morning for their weekly meet up. We were lucky that Galya-the secretary from the cultural center was there with us to introduce us. We realized that when we are introduced by a local there is a bigger chance for people to get involve into our workshops.
I was surprised by the fact that the pensioners in the club were divided by sex. All the women were sitting in one table and all the men in another. One of the women was so kind to offer us some tea. The TV was playing Bulgarian folklore music as a background noise. One of the women gave to each person “kozunaci” (traditional sweet Bulgarian bread which we eat around Eastern usually with the eggs that we have painted for Easter).
We introduced ourselves and we started with a small discussion. We asked them if they have gardens and what type of vegetables and fruits they grow. We explained the idea of the seed library. The fact that many old seed varieties are disappearing and how important it is to save them. We told them about the “Plant guilds”. We gave them all the posters with the illustrations of the guilds from the book “Friends in the garden” and they read them and share them between each other. We answered all their questions about the plant guilds.
Afterwards we offered them to see the collection of seeds that we are donating to the club and to take whatever they need and to write their name and the name of the seeds they are taking in a notebook in order to remember to bring back some more seeds when they are ready. Some of the seeds were organic and local from Catherine and her permaculture farm “Venets”.
The first person interested in the seeds was one of the elderly men who told us that he has a tiny garden and doesn’t have any space for vegetables so he wanted to plant some flowers. We offered him a 5-6 kinds of garden flowers. He was so considerate for the other people so he took only 2-3 kinds in order to “leave for the others”. He was so sweet and kind. My heart melted.
We finished our session by thanking them for the time that we had. We hope that they will see the benefits of seed sharing and that it will become a habit and a tradition which they will pass to the younger generations. Back in 1999 was created the first contemporary seed library in California. So we were glad that we passed this incredible tradition and we will continue in order to save it. We left the village happy and satisfied thinking about future plans and projects in the village. Next week I will share with you about a magical thracian tomb which we found near Sheynovec peak.
Thank you for reading!
See you next week,
Polin
