Two and a half years after Zuzalu Montenegro

Since Zuzalu 2023, two and a half years have flown by. I don’t know how many of us still remember those sleepless nights in Lustica Bay, house-hopping till dawn, conversations that never seemed to end. In Zuzalu Montenegro everything felt new; creativity was in the air. Keeping Zuzalu going felt like a shared promise among residents.

After that, I joined Zuzalu.City and kept building the tech side. Many friends chose another path: hosting Zuzalu pop-up cities around the world to recreate that spark. Two and a half years on, what’s still lively? After our October townhall, a long chat with one of Zukas’s founders got me thinking. He shared the pains of pushing projects forward, the hopes that keep him going, and his deep love for Zuzalu. I envy him, big visions, elegant governance models. I’m not that ambitious. But we share one thing: we’re both hopelessly in love with Zuzalu. That’s one reason I’ve kept the monthly Software Townhall going: I hope there’s always a place where Zuzalu builders can come home, shoot the breeze, and trade notes.

As a listener, I’ve quietly watched many projects rise and dip. At the beginning, I thought: if two like-minded teams team up and share a dream, that’s enough — life will find a way; we’ll keep building forever. Reality says otherwise: there’s no perpetual-motion machine. Dreams don’t pay the bills; financial sustainability is the real bottleneck.

As someone who was supported by Zuzalu, and benefited a lot , I want to pay it forward in a more direct way. I’m deeply grateful to ECF.eth - Ethereum Community Fund Pensieve for backing us financially and technically so we can launch the **ZuVillage Special Round to support ZuVillage, the public good work that usually doesn’t get funded but keeps everything alive. The pool is $800. Honestly, that’s not much, it won’t even cover one full-time salary for a month. It can feel like a drop in the bucket**.

But from another angle, $800 covered my entire month at Zuzalu. During that time, I hosted multiple gatherings and cooked many 10-person-plus meals (the kitchen grind still lives in my muscle memory). That money could also cover a community member’s Devconnect flight or lodging, or a run of community materials. In a funding winter, no public-goods team has it easy. Out in the wilderness together with limited supplies, sometimes all we can do is offer a cup of water, cheer each other on, and stick it out.

I still believe: if we keep at it long enough, opportunities will show up. To every project still grinding, may you realize your mission & vision.