A Leap to the Unknown: Budva, Crna Gora (Montenegro)

Darko left his job as a graphic designer at a big company 10 years ago. He decided to live an off-grid life in the mountains in Budva, nearby the Adriatic Sea, and started a goat farm. This in a land that he inherited from a close friend.

He was already raising goats at his home, 45 minutes away by car, downhill. The grief of the loss brought the blessing of a bigger space to make his dream come true.

I was supposed to learn from him about how to take care of goats. How to milk them, to feed them... To communicate with them. Some hours before my arrival, all the goats, 30 to be precise, got lost in the woods. Only one came back by the sunset.

The next two weeks, Nico (the other volunteer) and me tried to find them. We learned more about survival with little resources, how to move in the forest, and, above all, be resilient in the unpredictable weather.

In the gaze of Darko I could notice his deep pain. He would ask me or Nico to join him to search for the animals.

Most of the times, he would go by himself though. We would delay him because we didn't have experience in the terrain.

His frustration was transmuted in a silence that could be cut. 10 years, in which he had developed a new breed of goats, according to him, with the characteristics of mountain wild goats and domesticated Spanish goats.

Chirping, he would try to call them. The desperation was obvious.

While he went home in the night, Nico and me would remain in the land, camping under a tipi with tents inside, mattresses and sleeping bags. Despite the relative comfort, we could feel the cold inside us.

The conditions were so rustic for me that, instead of staying a month as I was supposed to, I left after two weeks, when Nico’s time was over. He was already there some days before my arrival.

Darko was always agreeable and kind. He, with his family, showed us the level of hospitality that one can receive in the Balkans’ countries. I cannot be grateful enough. He even sent me to one of his friends in Belgrade, Serbia. There, I would live very different stories.

He could find 20 goats by the end of December.

Thanks to Worldpackers. I found this volunteering opportunity there.