One Stone at a Time

One stone. Then the next.

The last weeks went to general tasks, and one trip down to the regional capital, Ivano-Frankivsk, for the immigration paperwork. Handed in. Now the waiting, while the administration rolls at its own pace.

The summer camps are over for the season. What follows them is planning — the forest school and what it could teach, community building, the buildings themselves and what they need, a local network of communities and a circular economy on a blockchain. Ideas, shared.

The last few days went to one thing. The pathways between the buildings.

Almost two weeks ago a load of sand and gravel came up for the base. A ZIL-131 brought it — the Soviet army's six-wheel-drive with a tipper body on its back — nearly eight tons up the hill, a climb most trucks would not make. It made it.

Then the stones. The ones I could find. The ones the mountain has given. Some of them picked up and carried in by the children over the summer camps — more stones, we shouted, more stones, more stones — small ones and big ones and very big ones.

One stone at a time. One step at a time. A pathway, and no more mud on the way between the buildings — a wish many of the children carried through the summer.

More stones.

Day 73 — Aufbau — Soil and Peace
Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine
© 2026 Michel Garand | Soil and Peace | CC BY-SA 4.0
stewardship@ubec.network