Well, you might assume by reading my blog so far that it's all fun and games here. And you might be right, but we've also been preparing a proposal for the community on how they can further move toward sustainability. To give a little more basic information:
This property was purchased almost 20 years ago, although legally this has only happened recently. The community is made up of seven houses and 10 families (some with just one person). The youngest person in this community is 70, and they are all American born. They also all worked for or have a connection to the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) which is an international organization that focuses on community and leadership development, often in impoverished countries. Three of my dad's siblings spent time working with them. This group of people gradually formed with the shared value that they would like to live "lightly on the land" (on the beach in Mexico) and were one of the first to develop this area. It has since turned into a community of approximately 50, mostly gringos, but this particular corporation is the 10 families, who cooperatively own the property. Only six people live here full time, two of which require constant care or supervision by their spouses or others. This creates a divide between the wants of those here part time and the time constraints and interests of those here full time, left to care for the projects. We interviewed almost every community member for 1-2 hours about their current level of sustainability and what sort of projects they would be interested in for the future. Everyone here uses rainwater catchment almost exclusively, and they all have solar power, but now they're on the grid and that energy goes unused. They "compost" by throwing their organic waste into a hole in the ground and eventually digging a new hole, or in buckets which devolves into black muck, then is tossed on some plants.
We calculated the sectors (external forces that could affect our design) and zones (the movement of people, how we can design to increase efficiency) and took into consideration the interests of the members, and eventually came up with a design to include safety issues, centralized composting and recycling, a living fence and improved gates to keep out one unwelcome horse, a fire pit with cob benches and oven, a mandala shaped garden in the central community space, with mainly herbs, a food forest and some other small projects and recommendations. We will only be here for another 4 1/2 months, so we needed them to prioritize.
The annual community meeting was a three day extravaganza this year, the first day to give reports and proposals, the second to divide into task forces to develop a final draft, and the last to reach consensus and decision, and all of them for the celebration of community. The broad spectrum of community organizing and facilitation experience makes it a very interesting process to observe. The one point I would mention is their incorporation of joy and play into what could be a mundane meeting while maintaining a high level of structure.
By day two our project was honed down to two compost structures, a fire pit, a small food forest, and some private herb gardens and raised beds for vegetables as needed. The third day saw our project accepted with a $1000 budget. Woohoo!
Let the work begin.
