From February last year to March this year, Yauwarat Patkhong did her longtime volunteer service at Transition House and the climate change project “Kurze Wege”. Yauwarat, usually called Nana, was the first volunteer ever at Transition House. She was a great support to us with her open and warm nature, always willing to give a helping hand.

When she started, the Transition House was not yet open. The major construction work had already been done, but there were still a lot of furniture to be renovated or built. Nana worked with other volunteers to sand and paint our café furniture, to organize the kitchen and create the Umsonstflohmarkt, Papierpilz and the Transition library in the café.

In spring, Nana also started her first own project, “share to grow”: In cooperation with our partners she set up plant exchange boxes in the neighborhoods Hammerstatt, Neuer Weg, Glocken and Saas and thus enabled a contactless platform  for exchange of seedlings for home gardening.

With the re-opening of the Transition House and the “Tag des guten Lebens” (day of good life), Nana has been a constant support to our large and small events and the daily operation of the café, Umsonstflohmarkt and the rental-store LeiLa. She brought her love for cooking to the VoKu (Kitchen for All) and shared with us highlights of the Thai cuisine like spring rolls, green curry and white coconut soup. She also co-organized the event series on international coffee and tea culture: “In 80 cups around the world”.

Nana also organized workshops for us, e.g. the kimchi workshop with Pascal and Andreas at Hammerstätter Hof, and when we went into the next lockdown she herself jumped into the role of a speaker for a do-it-yourself online workshop Thai Green Curry Paste.

Dear Nana,

we are grateful for your energy, your ideas and especially for your incredibly big heart. You have supported us enormously, broadened up our view of the world and especially of your home and touched and gifted us with your cordial way. It was wonderful to work with you and we are happy that you feel like you learned at lot with us. The times under lockdown with a closed Transition House, which often coincided with the particularly cold winter for you, were in particular a hard time for you and we put you through a lot. We are very grateful that you made the best out of it and developed more and more alternatives online and/or in teams of two. You are a power woman and world citizen whom we have taken into our hearts! We wish you all the best for your time in Thailand and maybe in the future back in Germany and looking forward to seeing you again in the future.

Maria & David for the Transition House Orgakreis