A LITTLE PERMA-GARDEN
Published: 2019-12-17
Translation
This is a translation of a Bulgarian-language post. It conveys the content faithfully but is not the author's original English writing.
"Life in the village is hard" — everyone knows this, which is why the trend is for villages to empty out as locals rush to become city dwellers and seek the easier path. The opposite is a much rarer phenomenon, but it has been gaining popularity lately, especially among families with small children. You do not need to be some philosopher, or to have reached enlightenment — every normal person, sooner or later, feels suffocated in the big city. Whether from the smog, which is, no joke, one of the biggest factors for our health and our children's; whether from the constant stressful situations the city inevitably places us in, which are everyday life for everyone — in the traffic jam, at work, in the unwelcoming institutions, with the disorder of the state, with the insolent and unjust bureaucratic attitude toward the ordinary person — the list is endless!
So the choice to swap the urban madhouse for the idyllic calm of the village should not be hard at all; but the truth is, there is one huuuuge factor that turns out to be more decisive than common sense — namely, the question of livelihood, or, more simply put, money! And suddenly the seemingly simple choice, the longed-for change, becomes an impossible, dreamed-of utopia.
— "Welcome to the village, very nice, but how will you support yourselves here?" was the question the locals asked us most often. And quite reasonably so — here, before noon, the line of people in poverty in front of the little van handing out free hot food and bread from social services is long. Every month, when the municipal "employment service" comes to the town hall, the unemployed queue for a signature, and many families subsist on under 240 BGN a month, receive heating subsidies, and there is really simply no work.
— "Well, we are healthy, we are able — we will invent a livelihood, we will create our own employment, we will make a garden for market!" was my answer every time; and although with undisguised scepticism in their faces, the people, hungry for young folk and the noise of children, wished us success.
This was our idea: clean food both for us and for sale and livelihood. That we will not get rich — clear; the important thing is to have enough for the essentials. Here the rents are outrageously low, we are used to living even without electricity, so we can be endlessly economical in that respect too. We will have clean and fresh food in abundance once the garden starts to bear; we have an extensive cellar — for winter we will dry things, we will put up jars. And besides, every week we will take produce to the market in Sofia, so we will not isolate ourselves from civilisation and go batty — enough of extremes.
And so we began to look for a suitable place — to have its own water and electricity to pump it with, a fence… and as happens in most cases, when you are looking for something, sooner or later it finds you!
It was exactly as I had imagined it, and yet it surprised me how perfect everything was: 1.7 decares of unused land — last sown with alfalfa more than ten years ago. Rested, fertile and loose sandy soil. The location with respect to the compass points — perfect! It borders the last houses of the village to the east, and to the west, between the plot and the river, stretch 200-300 metres of common land, a pasture for horses, a willow grove.
Our landlord — a darling of a man, a Sofia native, literally a walking encyclopaedia of history — besides being an extremely pleasant and intelligent conversationalist, also turns out to be very keen on the idea of young people growing clean food on the yard plot that otherwise lies idle. We agree on the annual rent and pay it five years in advance, and with the money he puts up a sturdy wire fence around the place.
The rest is a lot of work, persistence and faith in the positive outcome. The difficulties are many, but so is the satisfaction when you reap the fruits of your labour. The best thing is the process itself — for me it is a priceless school, my meditation, my ikigai.
I thank life for bringing me together with my mission and helping me in every way to carry it out.