Volunteer Summer School in Buryatia
- WHAT: Teach kids, travel and explore Buryat culture, food and nature.
- WHERE: Eurasia -> Russia -> Buryatia
- WHEN: 2011.
- HOW MUCH: Cost
- WHO: Volunteers from different countries of the world, those who want to visit the place they have never been to, want to see what they haven't seen, want to live unique experience, broaden own mind and help local children to get a wider exposure to the world and opportunities of the education.
Make change - educate yourself and others!
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Make change – educate yourself and others
Living conditions
As a volunteer you will stay at one of the local families’ house. There live about 1000 people in Mikhaylovka village and about 500 people in Yengorboy village. But, please, be aware that the Volunteer Summer School in Buryatia 2010 is not much about comfort. Living conditions are very simple. People live in simple wooden houses without gas and water pipeline. The toilet is outside. The sleeping space could be ranged from a sofa in the living roon to a sofa in a separate room but with a curtain instead of a door, to a sofa in a separate (summer) house which can be used also as a summer kitchen so you will stay there alone (if alone) only for a night. It will be not very much about private space so, please, think if you are ready for this.
You will pretty often eat there soups, meat and potatoes instead of caesar salad, tiramisu and fresh squeezed orange juice. If you are a strict vegetarian we strongly recommend you not to apply for the Volunteer Summer School in Buryatia cause there simply will be not much food for you. Buryats are historically nomads. It means the cuisine is based on milk and meat. Besides, life in Siberia is pretty hard without meat and the climate with short summer period hardly allow to cultivate vegetables (no planted fruits at all). All the fruits are brought from China. It means it’s rather expensive for locals to buy it regularly.
The family usually holds a cow or few cows, horses, sheep. For these two weeks you have to make your way of life appropriate to the people’s you live with. It means you have to take part in your family’s every-day life, to help in the house, be part of the family for a while and also to take a chance to give them another perception of ‘foreign’ world. For 99,9 % of them you will be the first foreigner they’d meet in their life.
I hope coming to Buryatia, seeing and watching these people’s life will broaden your mind. In any way, if you need something special, please, inform us about it in advance. We will try our best to arrange everything for you and make you feel comfortable as much as it is possible.