If there is a place in the world that can keep on surprising you and inspiring you with energy, that’s Georgia. Despite being quite familiar with one of our favorite countries in Caucasus, we, the whole Estonian team that Shokkin Group was sending to “Into the Wild”, were still excited and very much looking forward to this life-changing experience. Outdoor projects are always different, because the feelings you get helping each other under the burning sun or in the cold night give you learning moments that can’t gained as easily in a comfy urban project.
But that was the whole point of this Erasmus+ youth exchange: to take youngsters outside of their comfort zone, to gather them in a unique place as the Georgian mountains and give them the space and opportunities to rediscover themselves and the world they thought they knew.
Our journey started when the whole group of participants and group leaders (more than 30 people from 6 different countries) gathered in the center of Tbilisi to jump in the bus that would take us to a hotel within Borjomi Natural Park. There we would spend the first hours getting to know each other before taking all our materials and setting the road to the outdoor part in the morning. After some cool name games and ice-breakers, and the very last chance to sleep in a proper bed, we took all the materials and started the real adventure.
When we arrived and finally managed to carry all the food and materials for the five days that we would spend outdoors to the camping spot, the group was provided with a set of missions that would trigger the first conversations, the first challenges, and the first bonds among everyone. When our fancy kitchen area was all set up, the tents were all arranged, the bonfire was furnished with seats for everyone and the toilet hole was already dug, we felt the satisfaction of admiring the final result, the product of our work as a big team and of our joined efforts. And this was just the beginning… wait, I never actually mentioned the aim of this youth exchange, did I?
Of course, the main reason to bring all these wonderful and inspiring people together was to foster a better understanding of the concept of sustainability and environmental issues, as well as to give us space for discussion and reflection upon nowadays trends in consumption and lifestyle… all connected with outdoor cooking and other hard skills! So during the next days we had workshops dedicated to first aid, orienteering challenges, “masterchef” cooking competitions, production of natural and bio cosmetics, and very interesting debates and presentations that made us reflect on our lifestyle and on how to change some habits in our daily life.
Of course, it was not only this that made the project so unique, but all the responsibilities and tasks within the group in order to maintain the stationary camp: cooking teams cooking “not boring meals”, wood team immersing themselves in the Georgian forest to gather wood with which keep us warm in the evenings, cleaning groups… and what was the icing on the cake every day, all the big and small conversations around the fire at night, while cleaning, while enjoying the sun or simply before sleeping together with your “tentmates”.
The last two days we had to say bye bye to the impressive and breath-taking Georgian nature and come back to Misaktsieli and back to civilization, warm showers and comfy beds. There, and until the official end of the project, we worked on the dissemination material, our “holy cookbook”, typing in all the recipes we cooked during the outdoor part, brainstorming about the list of needed materials for an outdoor activity of this magnitude, reflecting on our learning points and, all in all, trying to leave a proof of all the intense learning outcomes that we gained during the week.
Outdoor + Georgia + Erasmus+: could there be anything better?
