Ceva de Vară, ceva de varăăă!!

Imagine a small town. A small town in the middle of Romania. A place which is quite unknown to other cities nearby. And imagine something spectacular is happening there. Something big. Something uncommon. Something of summer.

Imagine this is real. You’re still with me?

Welcome to Întorsura Buzăului, known as the coldest place in Romania. And known as.. Well, that’s mostly it. But if you take the train from touristic Braşov to this town, you will immediately be stunned by the amazing landscape on your way. High mountains, green meadows, small colorful villages, and old tunnels lead you to the almost unpronounceable Întorsura.

So what’s up there? If you were there last weekend, you experienced it all yourself. The Buzău river led you to an area outside of the town, where some thirty tents already took their place. And even more people. For what to happen? For a thing of summer. For…

CEVA DE VARĂĂĂ!!!

Aha. So? Let’s have a look at all those people, who are they? Open and curious persons of Întorsura, happy and adventurous people of towns around, and some crazy but strong people of different countries. Altogether they are enjoying a bonfire under a sky full of stars, waiting for many more things to happen.

Because the next day it’s the 18^th of July. This date was set for a long time in the heads of those foreign people. A year ago they arrived in Romania, to volunteer for the organization Mirakolix in Braşov. To organize different activities and events for kids and youngsters, to let them experience new things, to experience themselves new things, to make ideas happen. And to make one big idea happening again: the second edition of a festival at the end of their stay in this small town in the middle of Romania.

After a long time of looking forward, of creating and shaping thoughts, of struggling, of new insights, of helping each other out, of being completely out of ideas.. Happiness and frustration went hand in hand and surprises – good and bad – came out of the blue. After all this, time had come to put things into practice and to roll.

Also because of an organized camp beforehand many helping hands made it happen that 18^th and 19^th of July were full of activities: from board games to belly slides, from orienteering through the forest to building towers of beer boxes, from mandala and origami to creating jewelry. Printing T-shirt and bags, painted faces. Bike competitions for the small and taller ones. Zip lining over the festival area. Flying dogs. Get inspiration from movies and exhibitions.

Chopping wood and tomatoes for pizza in the evening. Taking baths in the river while Argatu is performing in the background. Firefighting. Even more fighting but in medieval style. And a lot of energy involved in performances of talented known and unknown artists. Energy of artists such as Offcompany, Petra Acker, Treipic Breaks & Pietonu, Acustica, Flavius Hosu, and our old friend Alizarina. Energy which merged together with the audience one, to send all lights and music out to again a sky full of stars.

And even more. What happened can be mentioned, what was felt could only be experienced. Or maybe not even. It felt like magic. Seeing so many people altogether enjoying their time, either by playing, creating, relaxing, running, biking, singing, drinking, or dancing. Seeing so many smiles. Feeling the warmth literally and figuratively. Not thinking about difficulties anymore but being in ecstasy of experiencing to the fullest.

People met each other. People talked with each other. They got connected. All because something was happening. It was something, a thing of summer, something different.

A fost ceva, a fost Ceva de Vară, a fost altceva.


- Grytine Twijnstra

Pictures are made by different amazing photographers, thanks a lot!

mirakologic: water

It makes approximately 65% of our body. It is the only chemical compound that naturally occurs in all three aggregate states. It covers 70% of our planet and the reason why earth is called the blue planet.

 AQUA

Water is the essence of live. And it is precious.

Nearly 97 percent of all the world's water is salty or otherwise undrinkable. Another 2 percent is locked in ice caps and glaciers. That leaves 1 percent for all our needs. 1 percent that is needed to run our bodies, nourish plants and animals, wash clothes, clean ourselves, flush the toilet, wash the dishes …

Nevertheless, for the readers of this article water is not a luxury product. It comes out of tubs in our homes, schools and work places.

In other parts of the world an improved water source is far from reach, making water so valuable that people in Nairobi for example pay 10 times more for it than they do in New York.

This fact will probably not change if we shower 5 minutes less per day and buy an eco-friendly washing machine. But it makes a change if you look at the big picture.

Water systems on our earth our interconnected and are in constant exchange. If a ship in the middle of the ocean releases chemicals and garbage to the water, it sooner or later affects even us.

The National Geographic explains it quite plain: “Common man-made pollutants that reach the ocean include pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, detergents, oil, sewage, plastics, and other solids. Many of these pollutants collect at the ocean's depths, where they are consumed by small marine organisms and introduced into the global food chain. Scientists are even discovering that pharmaceuticals ingested by humans but not fully processed by our bodies are eventually ending up in the fish we eat.” (http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-marine-pollution/)

Start today! Its easy

Treating water with consciousness and appreciation is the first step into the right direction and cleaner water for all of us.

Saving water the second one. It can start with small changes: 

Turn off the tap in your bathroom while you brush your teeth.

Take shorter showers. (Get a timer and time yourself.)

Don't let the water run constantly while you're washing or rinsing dishes.

Collect the water that you use to rinse vegetables and fruits to water your plants.

Check your house for leaking water containers. A leaky faucet loses up to 530 l of water per week.

And most important: keep yourself informed! The more you know about environment and consumption, the more ways you will find to save water and be greener.

Ina

Eco-campaign

If we have a look at the media it is striking how many future scenarios can be found among current movie releases. Robots, human settlement on other planets or different forms of apocalypses are common topics in books and TV nowadays.

All of them can be related to the simple fact that our planet is in danger.

Plenty of info graphics and documentaries about environmental pollution have been published throughout the past two centuries. And although some of them have a rather ominous character they all aim to wake us up and face the unpleasant facts.

A man-made disaster

Since the last century, our planet is exposed to dangers such as droughts, floods and the melting of ice caps. Water and soil are polluted and forests are cleared. Various species of animals and plants are imperilled by extinction.

Although the capitalist and industrial progress brought wealth to many it also brought poverty to many others. While we live our lives in comfort and safety, the price for our prosperity is often paid by others. Many times the products we use and even the food we eat were not produced locally, but in another part of the world - parts of the world where governments are not very concerned about environmental protection and human rights for the sake of a better economy.

The lonely polar bear and the 12-year old fabric worker in China are connected – even to us

It is commonly known that industrialization is the reason for extremely poor working conditions and environmental pollution. The long working hours and the lack of safety often lead to death or illness among the workers. Also they suffer from the dusts and fumes that are exhausted by factories, not to mention the industrial waste that is not properly disposed and thus polluting air and water.

Likewise these fumes lead directly to global warming and the melting of ice caps. Countries with a low sea level, such as the Netherlands or Bangladesh, are directly exposed to a yearly shrinking of land surface. The rising of the sea level might look marginal, but it means that the water is missing somewhere else: the Tibetan glaciers for example provide water to nearly a third of the world’s people.

Sooner or later, these changes will affect all of us. They do already. Modern diseases are spread among the world, claimed to be mainly man-made. Our bodies perceive unnatural substances on a daily basis that our metabolism might not process properly.

Facing these facts we might feel helpless. But change starts with an individual. We make everyday choices and these choices can later lead to a higher quality in living, a stable nature and a safer future.

You can start today!

Mirakologic is an eco-campaign that wants to make you aware of these facts and help you to become aware how much you can change on your own.

By giving tips and proposing recycling projects this campaign can help you to involve a higher awareness for your environment every day.

This quiz from WWF will show you how big your environmental footprint is and what you can do to decrease it step by step.

Ina