Dear friends,
First and foremost, Tam and I and the team, want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts, for the incredible donations we have received. We have been overwhelmed and humbled by the people of Aotearoa and far away. We would also like to say sorry for the lack of updates, we have been completely snowed under with preparations for our return to Slovakia, and wanted you to know, we are finally here.
The last couple of weeks have been focused on sourcing the right charities to engage with, here in Slovakia, to help with the safe relocation of families from Ukraine. We have been talking constantly with the builders that are waiting to start the build; all this while packing furiously and travelling the 19,000 Kms to get here.
We were warmly welcomed by the village who are all behind what we are doing, but also a little nervous about new people coming into their community. It’s cold here and we’ve been staying in the house, but it looks like this weekend it will return to -4 °C, so Peter, our lovely friend and village mechanic, has offered for us to stay with him.
Our project manager unfortunately developed Covid last week and has also had an in-law taken into hospital, so while he is waiting to come here, we have been busy organising the house and the school, with the help of our local workers; Julius and Danka. While we were away, we had a northern European pine marten, make the place her home. We haven’t seen her yet, but we don’t think she’s that happy we are back.
There is a lot of work to do, but we are all up for the challenge. As soon as Norman the Project Manager arrives, we can start on the main build, so until then we are preparing everything we can for the team to start and places for them to sleep.
We will keep you updated much more often, now that we are settled and we would like to ask, that if you can, please could you share the project and the givealittle page, with anyone you know.
Much love and thanks from Tris, Tam and the team at the T.M.I
