Would you like an Orange Juice?
I am Sotris Marini
Now we are in Art Farm
*Speaking Greek*
In Megali Mantineia
Outside of Kalamata
*Speaking Greek*
I was born in a village outside of Kalamata
When I was in Primary School we had no electricity
All my life, until I was 13 years old
All my life was in Nature, in the villages.
You can imagine how life was without electricity.
My job is a electrical-mechanical engineer
but, I stopped my job some years ago
So I started to build a treehouse
With material that I found in nature and from recycling
Welcome to Art Farm!
I have been here for 10 years, when I started building this place
I will try, with my poor english, to show you what I am doing here
This is an old water-well
When I was young we had a donkey
Who was going around
But now, the donkey is saying he is on vacation
I was working to give water to the flowers and to the trees
This was my job when I was 10 years old
It's very hard
to be a donkey
In this tree, I have a plan
to make a treehouse, the reception of Art Farm
And I hope that Pete Nelson, from Seattle
he will come, he promised to come here
to build it together
And I'm waiting for him
Pete, I wait for you!
Come on, let's go down
The flowers, now it's Spring, Look,
We have good flowers here, look, Opah!
Nice!
Many of the constructions here
I built it with material that I found that I didn't have to pay for
This is very interesting to me
When I came the first time here, I came 10 years ago
And there was nothing here
The first hut, I build over there, in this tree.
Now, it's not...
good
It's kaput
I stayed there for only one summer, alone
I saw in a dream
A dream one night when I was sleeping inside of what to make around
I saw the
amphitheater here
Here I built the amphitheater
here I built the bar
Over there I built the big house, the music hall
And all this project is to show the young people, especially
How was the life, when I was young
There is not a big distance from that time until today
but I saw that the technology is running away very quickly
I wanted to show you some of the things
we used in the time that I told you before, when I was young
For example this was the table we would sit around
with my three sisters, and brother
and we are sitting here
so small!
In 10 days we have figs to eat!
This is the place for social events
For example for dancing
*Singing in Greek*
Come on down
I used material I can find in nature
for example, bamboo from down by the river near here
I will show you how it is to live in a Greek treehouse
come up, come up if you like. It's nice
Hello Mister! How are you? Good. Good.
My mirror is here, yes.
It tells me all the time "You grow up. You grow up."
but I saw "No! I don't grow up, I stay as I was when I was young"
Anyways, I feel young
Here is the place, as you see
Simple
I made this with volunteers who came
who found us on WorkAway
I built it last year
This material is called *greek word*
and we cover it every year around the walls
It's very good smelling
and I cut it from the mountain
Hi!
Here we are, yes!
it's like a nest for people
Here is an oven, yes.
come on, let's go there
What a pity it's empty
One beer, and one whisky for my friend who came from America
but, sorry no one is here haha
next time
This is Sueeta, because Sueeta was good all the time
Look how I was building here
a double bed
and bamboo around
Another build, a hut.
oh yes, here is the shower
Hot water from the sun
We have solar up stairs
Our Philosophy here is to save energy
5 days ago
a friend brought me a lot of material
because I have this, I built this
new, it's very very new
For the tree house and we have the tent, and I have to finish this
Here this building I built it
All this project, I built it, me, with three men from Albania
And I am very grateful for them
There are four bedrooms in the old style
They stay very cool in the summer
because they are made from stone
The other floor over there is a big music hall
Here we are in closed kitchen of course we have simple things
all the necessities
oh we have over there, the garden
we have tomatoes, cucumber, aubergine, peppers
I like very much these activities over there
Let's go, come on upstairs
We made an open kitchen
Sometimes we have cooking lessons
We have another over here, it's another kind
Yes!
and this is
a place in which we smoke
the meat with herbs
for example look here
It's finished, let's go up
If I had to pay for everything here, I would have never finished this project
That's the truth
And I'm thankful
I'm thankful for everyone that helped me
to do it
and I'm thankful with myself
because I found all these materials you see around
In a place and a friend told me
"take it, because I close my shop and I don't need it"
and I had to put it here
And it's very interesting and very important for me
I want to show to the people who visit us
That there is another way to live
to save energy
to live simple
in small houses, small rooms
the life in the past, as I remember it
it was very simple and the people
were more joyful, more happy
*Greek saying*
The meaning is that it's very important for your life
to be every day, every morning, laughing
to be laughing, to have a smile in your mouth every morning
when a new day comes to your life
Nice