LIY Learn It Yourself

Shggg, crck, iii, there, here, take, drop, clean, dirty, phhh, pshhh.

These are the sounds of the ever-changing workshop. The workshop moves organically, by its own cravings and wishes lingering in every wall, corner and tool. The workshop is a permutable organism. Things appear and disappear, organize and disorganize, furniture comes and goes. What you see as a trash actually is useful, and what seems useful might not be at all.

(I am writing this four days before Boltik Baik workshop week and since I started writing two vans full of stuff were unloaded here.)

And in the middle of this moving chaotic universe we’re supposed to have a design, a plan, and to renovate the place. Surprisingly things are advancing, starting to have a shape.

At first it was difficult for me to adapt. It’s sometimes hard to find a motivation to do what I want. And here I was, needed to do something I had not a clue about. I felt somewhat lost. If I didn’t have an explicit task my brain would just shut off and I froze while the time was passing. And time passes fast, flying and singing, like a seagull over the Baltic Sea.

One of the first weeks I went to the workshop to begin the work. After 4 hours of work I was feeling exhausted, demotivated, brainless. I didn’t know where to start, what I was doing or why I was doing it. I took a break, sat outside and used the little brain I had left to think about my dead status.

And suddenly it struck. I had an epiphany. Something incomprehensible became clearly obvious.

I started imagining the workshop during the main Boltik Baik week, filled with people and life. I saw the big picture. I understood that the motivation I was lacking many times was actually always in me. On the one hand I have to think about the goal, the result. I need to stop thinking: “Damn, I have to do X,” and to start thinking: “I really want Y, so I have to do X.” And on the other hand, the goal, the motivation is also (and sometimes mainly) the process. The doing, failing and learning.

Yeah, maybe it seems obvious. But feeling it and doing it  - it’s not the same thing. And I’m not going to lie. I’m still not the most active-ready-to-work person. But now I found the motivation, now I know better the questions I need to ask myself and I can just start doing things without overthinking.

I hope I will bring this feeling home.  

 João

Screw the Hobbit, this is my Unexpected Journey

 

I never thought of becoming a volunteer. I didn’t even agree with the concept. Normally it is just a white rich kid’s wet dream of helping the poor little children and then comeback to their home country and everything’s the same. But one day a friend of mine sent me the link to the Boltik Baik project, and I immediately knew that I need to do it. At the base it’s the combination of two of my favourite things, video and bicycles; it’s an opportunity to live abroad for the first time, and to get out of Lisbon’s routine. What could be bad? And even the bad things will be great for me, I thought.

So when I knew I was accepted I didn’t know much. I’m going to Latvia, to the north, to a coast city called Liepaja, to work with bicycles and video, I kept saying to people around me. I only found out where Latvia was in the map two days before coming to advance planning visit. So here I went to the plane thinking I would stay in the city and probably travel by myself. I didn’t have expectations and I didn’t have a goal. I just went.

The sauna in Dimzeni

And two weeks later none of that it’s true. Yes, at the superficial this is a project about bikes and video, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about renovating a workshop from scratch and getting your hand dirty. It’s about getting to know Latvia and it’s customs and rituals. I mean, in the last two weeks I saw fish jumping Europe’s widest waterfall, I saw snow suddenly falling when an incredible woman starts to sing a bird calling Easter song, I sent all my bad soul stuff to the river and I think it’s actually working – and I’m a sceptical-not-fond-of-esoteric-stuff monster. And I went to sauna for the first time in my life in a more than 100 year’s old wooden building and jumped in a freezing river afterwards. It was so intense! Sauna is a 90º homoerotic masochist therapy that cleans you on the inside, on the outside and your brain – or soul if you prefer. Really! I never thought it could be so great. I was just screaming of pleasure.

Svete river

And jumping in the river? A powerful drug. When you jump you feel a shock followed by an awakening, a new birth. When I got out of the water I was dizzy for a while and then all the strong feelings started to kick in. I felt like I was super concentrated and full of energy with a wow-feeling about everything. The nature, the trees, the people with me… everything’s so beautiful! And then I went inside, warmed up again, had a bath, and went to have dinner, and I just felt sooo clean and relaxed. I can’t believe there are so many people – like I was before – who never tried, and probably never will, sauna and jumping in a freezing river.

To all of you my fellow friends I say: I feel sorry for you! I’m a lucky southern bastard.

I’m so glad I really came to Latvia. I just hope that I can come back also after the project.

João