00:00:22
I always like the definition of Calabacino as a family of families.
00:00:33
El Calabacino is a village in the mountains where everyone has their little garden...
00:00:40
their little house... but they do many things in common.
00:00:48
With many colors! It is a village with many colors, right? It is a village that has many...
00:00:53
ways of thinking. It is a melting pot of cultures, because there are people from many...
00:00:58
from many countries in the world. It is a town where art is practiced and lived daily.
00:01:19
[Music]
00:01:20
Well, Calabacino for me is an old town that was abandoned and then rehabilitated and that...
00:01:28
young people arrived starting to rebuild the village,
but already people with the idea of living...
00:01:36
in an alternative way and more in harmony with nature.
00:01:47
For me, the Calabacino, I would say, is a true experiment, from different..
00:01:53
generations of people who have tried to explore and discover other ways of living in the countryside.
00:02:01
It is not a community in itself as someone imagines a community, but rather, each one lives...
00:02:08
their life and those who want, get together with others to do different and diverse projects...
00:02:15
and, maybe, there are people who do not want to get together and others do, and all this fits, right?
00:02:20
It's like a diversity of different ways of wanting to live here in the same village.
00:02:30
[Music]
00:02:31
El Calabacino is a village...
00:02:39
that has many herbs, many trees and many animals.
00:03:03
[Music]
00:03:04
I was in Africa, in Ghana, for a while. When we returned I had a culture shock...
00:03:10
I didn't want to live in Europe anymore. I wanted to return directly to Africa but the mother, Susane, did not want to...
00:03:17
leave Europe. So we say: "Ok, let's look for something in southern Europe."
00:03:23
We thought at the end, Portugal. And on the way to Portugal we stayed here for...
00:03:30
we really came here to rest for two or three days. And of course then... Now it's 22 years [Laughs].
00:03:42
[Music]
00:03:46
Well, I'm from California, I had been living in Spain for five years in another Sierra.
00:03:55
I lived alone with my partner and then my oldest child was born. And well... we had been...
00:04:03
looking for a place to live in the countryside with more children and more families for a few... years.
00:04:12
I wanted to live collectively but, not with everything in common, but rather, that there would be a part...
00:04:16
also, of space for the individual expression of each person. Also the number of artists...
00:04:21
craftsmen, all the creativity and all the life that flowed here...
00:04:25
and I liked that a lot.
00:04:29
[Music] [People talking]
00:04:52
I was looking for something more, because I had spent a few years like... a bit lonely.
00:04:58
I was looking for a bit of community, of... people who were crazy about music, who had...
00:05:06
the same concerns as me, and when I arrived at Calabacino I was amazed, because I found all that.
00:05:12
I mean... like a desire to live, to do things... and I wanted to form something from the beginning...
00:05:20
and here... well, I found it. And the truth is that I came here for work, a...
00:05:28
two-week job and now they are... 15,
what? I don't remember, 16 years.
00:05:36
[Music]
00:05:56
I always thought that in Andalusia, almost everything was going to be a wasteland...
00:06:00
so because of that prejudice I had never approached Calabacino. And suddenly one day I came and...
00:06:08
I was amazed by the place. It turns out that I already knew a lot of people who lived and, also, being...
00:06:14
in Madrid I was already working with people who lived here in Calabacino. We did...
00:06:19
medieval, we did theater and they went from here and I went from Madrid. So when...
00:06:24
I decided to come here, I immediately found a house, I found a job and I left very easily.
00:06:36
[Music]
00:06:55
I arrived at Calabacino in 1979 and when we arrived, I arrived with my partner, pregnant and...
00:07:05
at the same time I arrived, another couple arrived with a one-year-old child. And we agreed...
00:07:10
in this town that had been abandoned since the 70s or 50s, suddenly, in the same month...
00:07:19
five people arrived. It was a wonderful place for me, a place that... that struck me with its beauty.
00:07:30
[Music]
00:07:47
And the truth is that we didn't know
there was anyone when we arrived.
00:07:50
The first night we slept on the "Kataca´s" slope.
00:07:54
There is in our 600 with the dog inside and everything.
00:07:59
And of course, we park anywhere, we stayed in the middle because we thought there was no one here.
00:08:03
Just like the road was and everything. And in the morning a boy woke us up, he was Chema...
00:08:08
Merche's partner, hitting us in the car to get us out of the way, because...
00:08:13
some loaded donkeys had to pass. That was the first time we arrived, we arrived at night.
00:08:18
[Music]
00:08:40
I remember going for the first bags of cement and the first sand...
00:08:45
going to the town. With the wheelbarrow. To the top of the town that is...
00:08:52
past Barranquillo. And nothing, there with all the morality in the world, with the wheelbarrow. We climbed it, one pulling...
00:09:01
in front and another pulling... and another pushing behind, and well, three or four wheelbarrows, then...
00:09:07
we already said... we found out that there was someone who carried beasts and then it started more like this.
00:09:19
The people who arrived here repopulating the village, the vast majority came from the city. What I...
00:09:29
have felt in common with everyone and I think we have all had in common, has been... we came in a...
00:09:37
search to return to the roots, to return to nature and to live in connection with the elements and the natural.
00:09:47
Above all, I have the feeling of arriving from Madrid with the idea of going to live in the...
00:09:55
countryside and that they were all flowers and birds, and that I planted a potato and I got a kilo of potatoes...
00:10:02
or a bunch of potatoes, and realizing when I got there that I planted a potato or a kilo of potatoes...
00:10:09
and harvested a quarter of a kilo, right? For me it was a total surprise to say, oh man, this is a lot of work...
00:10:16
and it's also very difficult. And it took me at least 6 years to get a peasant career...
00:10:21
to say... to learn, from the same countrymen because, no people from the town lived there...
00:10:29
but some countrymen did go up to work the vegetable garden.
00:10:33
The ancient people, people like Venita, Bartolo, Celedonio...
00:10:43
very ancient people who lived in a way that was very... very integrated into the environment, right?
00:10:53
Well, with its goats, with its... so with... very rustic.
00:11:00
Venita, who was a philosopher, who had never left here, I think she had gone once to Huelva and once to Seville, in her entire life.
00:11:07
And he learned about everything, everything, right? Any of their phrases was an amazing saying...
00:11:11
like this phrase that I say a lot, which is "nothing is thrown away in the countryside, anything goes."
00:11:17
Because that phrase serves me well for all things in life, right? When there are incompatibilities or something...
00:11:22
"nothing is thrown away in the field, anything goes."
00:11:25
[Crackling of dry wood]
00:11:33
They helped us a little to land, to know where we were. Because we came with all the...
00:11:40
with our impulse of... the city, right? And...
00:11:44
and until you realize where you are... [Laughs] a while passes.
00:12:02
Each one belonged to his father and mother, no one knew each other, people arrived like that...
00:12:08
without knowing each other or, perhaps, they had heard about the place but no... they didn't know the place or the people. ...
00:12:18
And we also had many very diverse things, very... but there was an affinity...
00:12:23
in the way to raise children. At the level that it was a healthy upbringing...
00:12:29
free and that there was... and that they were accompanied. I think that El Calabacino continues...
00:12:34
to be a village that has brought, especially people with children...
00:12:42
and I think that it has been a good place and that it is a wonderful place to raise.
00:12:47
We arrived here a little before my oldest son was born...
00:12:52
and we stayed because we thought it was a very good place to raise children.
00:13:01
I grew up here at a time when it was very wild, there were few people living there and the countryside was big, right?
00:13:10
And we could come and go and, in that sense, we had a freedom and a... and a margin...
00:13:17
of movement that the childrens also took advantage of a lot. Always every afternoon we had our...
00:13:21
our plans and our little adventures. I remember my childhood in El Calabacino, broadly speaking...
00:13:28
what I could highlight is, a childhood of sharing a lot in the houses, of being in different houses and...
00:13:39
sharing with different families. But the very positive part of that is that, it reinforced for all of us...
00:13:47
the feeling of a group and of... well, in the end, a small family, which is what we have been, right?
00:13:54
[Music]
00:14:02
The houses were always open for the childrens and one day, well...
00:14:08
suddenly... and it was all very fluid, then, today they ate here, they slept in another house, so...
00:14:15
in some way they grew up like brothers, although they also had... they knew who they belonged to, right?
00:14:21
[Laughter] But they were raised in a lot of brotherhood and that also brought us all together... the parents, right?
00:14:27
But that's something very... very magical, very different, right?
00:14:31
to be able to run around naked, go there to the neighbor's house to jump into his pool.
00:14:38
[Music]
00:14:49
I think that we will all really agree that the word...
00:14:54
that defines it is "Freedom", we had enough freedom to do whatever we wanted...
00:14:59
we had the largest garden in the world . [Laughs]
00:15:03
I remember a lot about the cabins, right? Always setting up cabins there with the... making...
00:15:11
a hole, over a tree, under a bush, stuck in a cave, wherever it was always making...
00:15:18
cabins everywhere. All day exploring from one side of the mountain to the other, without limits, totally...
00:15:25
free, and the security too, of being able to go out on the street, go away all day...
00:15:32
and return home at night and there was no problem, right?
00:15:34
It is a place that is very safe, there are no cars. So, children can be outside the houses and...
00:15:40
between the roads nearby, and of course, as they spend many hours playing and a lot...
00:15:48
time among themselves, they, from a very young age, learned to solve conflicts.
00:15:56
Until you don´t get out a little of these stress life , of living in that maelstrom of... that...
00:16:05
that doesn't make sense. That you earn money but you don't even have time to enjoy it and a lot of stress.
00:16:11
I was already... It was surpassing me, a
lot. So coming here to raise my child...
00:16:16
it's easy, it's breeding in a herd, you´re raising with more women and with more families...
00:16:22
so it's not that hard, you have other people to educate your child too...
00:16:27
from love, that we all consider ourselves family and that they see your son grow and you see...
00:16:32
the other children grow... well in the end we are all a family.
00:16:35
Sociologically, since there are people...
00:16:37
who come from all over the world, you also learn much more from a young age that they exist...
00:16:41
to respect the difference. To respect the difference and value it.
00:16:45
And there are people who have come from Japan...
00:16:46
as there are people who have come from Germany, there are people who have come from a lot of parts of the world and...
00:16:51
in my case, everyone brings their music, their way of understanding art. . So since I was very little...
00:16:56
the truth is that I don't remember where or how or when, I have always been playing music.
00:17:02
[Music]
00:17:14
I think the fact of having that world so close has enriched me a lot. I think that all of us...
00:17:22
have drawn on super artistic or nature work.
00:17:25
Because it is what we have moved on since, always.
00:17:28
With a lot of contact with nature, a lot of interaction with it as well.
00:17:32
Knowing how to take care of it, knowing how to take out from it, right? That healthy relationship with nature.
00:17:36
Go get shit from the donkey in the neighbor's garden... Go get manure.
00:17:41
We have learned to taste...
00:17:42
to do the jobs that our parents didn't
want to do, those were always ours.
00:17:46
[Laughs] Of course, it was very funny because my classmates' homework was...
00:17:51
to make the bed, and my homework was, go get sticks for the tomato plant in the pine forest in front...
00:17:57
go pick up shit from donkey with your brother to the farm in front...
00:18:01
go plant chives, and it was like... there I felt a little... unhappy. (clean the chicken coop!)
00:18:06
But after, I have been grateful. When you get older, you know how to plant...
00:18:09
onions, or you know that you have to put a stick on tomato plants.
00:18:12
[Music and laughter]
00:18:29
In 2017, in March, the first complaint came, the police came here in November of that year.
00:18:35
They already brought us, in January I think it was or in February, the letter that we were already...
00:18:41
like with an open process. Then we received the first summons to Aracena to go to court to testify...
00:18:46
suddenly you think about many things, right? Damn, now that we have just started, that we have finally...
00:18:51
found our place, that we want to raise these people here... and of course, the first feeling like that is...
00:18:57
a little like fear and frustration but it passes quickly . Then come on, let's...
00:19:04
move pieces, let's see how we can solve this and there we are. And all this ends up in the...
00:19:11
environmental prosecutor's office in Huelva, right? She is the one who denounces us, she asks for two years in prison for me...
00:19:17
another two years in prison... for each crime, which is two crimes, that is, four years in jail for...
00:19:24
me and four years in jail for my partner... a fine and the demolition of the house.
00:19:34
We saw that something had to be done, if we didn't do something, well, the most normal thing is that...
00:19:40
they were taking it case by case, strictly applying the law and we thought that this was a case...
00:19:46
a little special, not... It wasn't just anyone who had arrived and made a house where...
00:19:50
he wanted in the countryside, right? It is an old area, a historic center...
00:19:55
so we started trying to make this a... that would lead to something that...
00:20:01
would be positive for everyone, right? We have to create an organization from which to work, and...
00:20:06
that's where one of the circles of Sociocracy emerged, the circle of resilience...
00:20:10
that was going to be working only to ensure that no one here has to leave and all thous of us...
00:20:17
who are, we will finally have our legal house if that is what they want. We discovered a legal figure...
00:20:22
which already exists, called disseminated rural habitat. It is a legal framework for the qualification...
00:20:29
of the land, which is used and has been used in different towns and settlements like ours.
00:20:36
And the important thing about this legal figure is that it would allow us to continue being an eco-village...
00:20:42
it would allow us to continue preserving the rural character of the town. The situation is that...
00:20:47
we have reached an agreement with the prosecutor's office and with the judge to... well to make a...
00:20:54
postpone the demolition... which is one of the parts of the sentence, five years. Which is a way...
00:21:01
in which the judge himself urges city councils or institutions to fix these problems.
00:21:19
[Music]
00:21:22
We are the first ones who want to take care of this ravine and that... and that this continues to be preserved...
00:21:29
in good condition, but what did not seem good to us is that they were attacking the weakest part...
00:21:36
which was us, the neighbors. And... suddenly, the first complaint, this one that...
00:21:42
was previously reported, asked for more than two years in prison and... the demolition of the house plus a fine.
00:21:49
It did not seem to us, nor does it seem to us, neither demolition nor jail, fines are being paid and all those who are going through trial...
00:21:57
are paying their fines but... but we consider that the easiest and most peaceful thing...
00:22:06
is to find a solution.
00:22:09
We have finished paying the fine and... now we are still on...
00:22:18
probation, as I have said here, for five years...
00:22:22
and... and in dialogue with the administration.
00:22:26
If common sense does not fit into the legislation...
00:22:31
What do we have to change, the legislation or common sense?
00:22:34
Well, I understand that an effort will have to be made, on the part of...
00:22:39
the legislative bodies, to accommodate the legislation, in the way that is necessary...
00:22:47
so this situation has a legal fit...
00:22:51
and the people who are doing good does not receive a sentence as a reward.
00:22:58
I think this is so elementary.
00:23:05
[Music]
00:23:14
[Music]
00:23:44
In view of the problem we have of depopulation, not only in the mountain ranges but in Spain in general...
00:23:55
we cannot allow any family to leave. And that is what we are fighting for...
00:23:59
that they do what they want but that no family leaves.
00:24:03
Fighting against rural depopulation means...
00:24:05
freeing the rural world from the corsets that have been placed on it over time...
00:24:10
because the main agent responsible for rural depopulation has been the state...
00:24:17
and autonomous policies, which have been carried out since the last century and a half.
00:24:26
All macro industrialization began.
00:24:30
And here, as always, cheap labor was needed.
00:24:34
People exchanged their family land and their family home...
00:24:38
they exchanged it for... for a rented room in a house.
00:24:42
These forced movements that are made to meet the needs of capitalism, right?
00:24:49
I believe that it is extremely necessary and that we should encourage the settlement of the smallest nuclei...
00:24:55
that are being most affected by the generalized depopulation of the entire interior of Spain...
00:25:00
and that also affects, very seriously, the interior of the... of Andalusia and specifically to...
00:25:06
the Sierra de Aracena which... which is, within Andalusia, the region that is losing the most.
00:25:17
Of course, for the towns to revive, we cannot go back in time and pretend that...
00:25:23
the people of 50 years ago return to their youth and inhabit the towns as before. Well, we are people...
00:25:29
in many cases coming from the city, without much rural culture, who are re-inhabiting these places...
00:25:37
and we are doing it in the best possible way. Using bioconstruction techniques...
00:25:44
permaculture techniques, dry toilets, water cleaning through green filters,... which are things that...
00:25:51
a law from 50 years ago does not contemplate, but 50 years ago there probably wasn't either...
00:25:56
that need. So it is making visible, not only for our people, but for the entire society...
00:26:01
that there is another way of living in the countryside, which is possible, which is very positive and which is the only one that...
00:26:07
is feasible today in day. That to repopulate the countryside we need these people...
00:26:12
who do things differently and also respectfully.
00:26:16
Most of the population centers are...
00:26:19
and especially the smallest ones, the villages, are inhabited by people of a range of ages...
00:26:27
quite old, quite people... they are quite aged villages...
00:26:32
with a clear trend towards depopulation...
00:26:34
and El Calabacino is the opposite, it is a young population center...
00:26:40
with very dynamic people, with a variety of very diverse economic activities and who also...
00:26:46
do not ask for what the others ask, is to go against the current with respect to today's world.
00:27:16
[Music]
00:27:17
The good thing about this phenomenon of the recovery of abandoned towns is that there are...
00:27:22
very different experiences, it is almost like a field of research in which, I believe...
00:27:28
many things can be done. And that may be the germ from which they learn...
00:27:33
other towns, in which there are still people...
00:27:35
and that allows them, well... I don't know, at least to maintain themselves.
00:27:40
I would like us... to start looking at the rural world...
00:27:44
not as the world of the rednecks, but as the treasure...
00:27:49
that we have left behind and have not been able to appreciate.
00:27:53
And I think that sums it up.
00:28:01
[Music]
00:28:39
When I arrived here, there were people who had been there for almost 30 years, right?
00:28:43
Living and doing things together, and shortly after being here, talking with each other...
00:28:48
I realized that, the young people who were arriving, we brought that...
00:28:53
information that the people here did not have. Many people who did not want any way, any method...
00:28:58
the slightest, no matter how horizontal it was, very... I don't know. No matter how much it was their way of thinking...
00:29:04
they didn't want any method, of any kind.
00:29:06
It was never defined, why we are here, what we are here for...
00:29:09
how we organize ourselves. Everyone was always like that, well... there it goes, right?
00:29:19
And... and that... that...
00:29:22
mmm... makes...
00:29:24
I mean, it allows relationships to be very flexible and that...
00:29:28
and that there is not something that you have to adjust to.
00:29:32
And of course it is a way that has had the virtue of allowing it to grow...
00:29:40
and that a moment has come when... when it has been seen that it is no longer enough, that we have to define ourselves a little.
00:29:45
It's too soft, it's too... to face certain situations.
00:29:52
And then yes, seeing that there were so many people, there was a moment when they took tools, to
00:29:58
be able to continue having a common order of things and respecting each other and such...
00:30:04
and that... the sociocratic issue entered, to put a little guidelines there...
00:30:10
and... and it has been very good, there are also people...
00:30:13
younger or new people who have arrived and then it has served as a tool...
00:30:18
and it has served to be able to put a little bit of... of that into this, to continue working together.
00:30:28
We went to the RIE meeting, in Amalurra, there... at this meeting, the Calabacino entered within...
00:30:37
the RIE, the Iberian Network of Eco Villages.
00:30:40
And... it was amazing, that meeting,
because I discovered that there was a movement...
00:30:47
that... that we were a star in a
firmament, right? That there was a lot of movement of...
00:30:52
eco villages, that what they were doing
was advocating to open up, right?
00:30:57
And thanks to that push, we included ourselves in eco villages and, at the same time, we trained in three point zero sociocracy...
00:31:04
and there was a consensus of the vast majority of the village, who wanted to use that tool.
00:31:11
And with that tool we have been able to organize ourselves to carry things out, right?
00:31:17
Sociocracy is a way of organizing that is horizontal, that is, there are no hierarchies...
00:31:23
but there is a clear definition of what the tasks are.
00:31:26
In sociocracy it is organized in circles... right?
00:31:30
And each circle has a task, for example the maintenance circle, its task is...
00:31:35
well, to maintain the infrastructure, the roads, which would be more material...
00:31:40
the conciliation circle, well, it would be to offer those mediations and...
00:31:45
take actions aimed at the psycho-emotional well-being of the village, right?
00:31:50
There is always a special treatment for objections...
00:31:53
that objection, that doubt or that refusal, will always be seen as a positive thing...
00:31:59
because if that person has something to object to, possibly about that... about that situation...
00:32:06
you can get something broader.
00:32:09
So many of the things that... we have been proposing were to make us see...
00:32:14
that we have a lot in common and that from that commonality we can build something organized.
00:32:21
[Music]
00:32:35
Good thanks and many afternoons to come, dear neighbors...
00:32:43
of El Calabacino and La Calabacina.
00:32:46
Spontaneously, a group of people came up with the idea of...
00:32:51
organizing the official El Calabacino festivities, three days of festivities...
00:32:55
and of organizing concerts and organizing things. Popular food, cabaret, everything.
00:33:02
[Music]
00:33:22
And here I believe that... the party has always gone ahead, right? Like we need to feel...
00:33:30
feel the joy, feel the expression and from the first moment until now like it's something that...
00:33:41
that identifies us a lot as a collective.
00:33:44
The issue of the parties here at El Calabacino has been something...
00:33:48
very influential, due to the union, right?
00:33:54
A party is a place where everyone gets together and has a good time...
00:33:58
so, having created the festivities of El Calabacino, which is already something traditional that is done...
00:34:03
in the same month, more or less at the same time , with a pre-established program.
00:34:09
That... that's where a culture begins, for example.
00:34:12
That's the beginning of culture, you know, of creating customs and traditions.
00:34:15
The fact is that the inhabitants of El Calabacino have reasons to celebrate...
00:34:22
that this magical place gives shelter and life to all of us...
00:34:27
we have reasons to celebrate that we live surrounded by beautiful people...
00:34:32
and that there are many more things that unite us than those that separate us.
00:34:36
That's why I say high, very high! Very high, huh?
00:34:40
Happy festivities Calabacino and Calabacina!
00:34:44
[Celebration]
00:34:47
And it was after that, after those parties, that... let's say that this desire to bond and do more things in common...
00:34:55
it seems like they have grown. So in some way it seems that the parties...
00:34:59
have generated a bond, which is not only to have parties but also...
00:35:05
to fix the town or to... to live in greater connection with the neighbors.
00:35:11
[Music]
00:35:28
[Music]
00:35:46
[Music]
00:36:14
Let's see, natural resources are not in the cities, we have to bring everything from outside.
00:36:20
That is a waste for climate change, at the level of fuel at the level of time...
00:36:25
transportation of... well the obvious, right?
00:36:28
I think that people... need a more... more related medium, right?
00:36:32
A medium that gives you a little bit of... of that, quality of life, right?
00:36:35
To have a quality of life in a city you have to have a lot of money...
00:36:39
well, most people don't.
00:36:41
The truth is that the reality that we are experiencing...
00:36:44
many scientists say that it is very possible that we have already passed the threshold of...
00:36:47
going back in global warming and climate change, right?
00:36:54
And this is a proposal that comes from
people, without coming from institutions...
00:37:00
that understand that inhabiting the planet is having a responsibility with it.
00:37:14
[Music]
00:37:21
The problem is that this system, the way it is organized, and capitalism...
00:37:26
makes you believe, and you are born already believing, that you are independent...
00:37:31
and that you can do it alone, you don't need anyone else.
00:37:36
What dominates this system a little is stress, the feeling of stress of...
00:37:41
of going there all day at the limit of your capabilities, boom, boom, from one place to another, without being able to stop without being able to give yourself a...
00:37:49
a day to... to give yourself some time, a little time for yourself, which is super important, right?
00:37:54
Have time for yourself to be with you.
00:37:56
One of the most important things...
00:37:58
is that the person's mood is influenced by the quality of...
00:38:02
the social connection, you know?, and the quality of the social connection in the cities...
00:38:06
is low due to anonymity. . In cities you feel very anonymous...
00:38:10
anonymous in the sense that people don't recognize you, you know? You're not going to see...
00:38:15
the same person twice so you are, almost constantly, surrounded by strangers. .
00:38:18
[Traffic noise]
00:38:48
This meaning is... going to change us again... this non-happiness that most people feel now, right?
00:38:58
Automatically in this you begin to look for something worthwhile. Where is my happiness?
00:39:04
Where is my good self, right? And when you follow this impulse, you will find.
00:39:14
There are alternatives, different ways of making a living, of working, of raising children...
00:39:22
without so much need for so many things, right? Sometimes I find that...
00:39:28
with fewer things, one finds more... maybe more free.
00:39:34
I think it is also important, in these times right now...
00:39:38
well, in some way, to set an example of being able to live differently, right?...
00:39:43
to be able to live with less damage to the environment, by being able to live in...
00:39:48
in self-managing with your neighbors in certain things, in being able to do different projects.
00:40:00
I'm glad that... that Calabacino has opened and...
00:40:04
that other projects, other eco villages are opening up more, right?...
00:40:07
we have begun to interact more with other villages...
00:40:10
you know ?, also seeing what they are showing to the world and we also seeing that we can show...
00:40:17
and continue respecting the differences we have, right?, without...
00:40:20
it being necessary for us all to think alike in order to share learnings from the life, right?
00:40:31
At many levels there is awareness that eco villages are models that can be...
00:40:36
a model for the future. Because it is a sustainable model, it is a model that takes care of the earth...
00:40:42
it is a model that takes care of people and... and well, it is... it is what we need now.
00:40:48
I also think that we have a very big responsibility because...
00:40:52
the world is really collapsing...
00:40:54
the structures that currently exist are not going to last long and... on many levels...
00:41:00
we are going to need answers for situations to come. which we have never faced before,
00:41:04
and I think that well, from the eco villages we can really contribute something important.
00:41:17
We have to continue inventing and experimenting, right? But there are a lot of projects...
00:41:20
that are coexisting right now on the peninsula, that are making reality...
00:41:24
that are transforming the management of the territory, the dynamics between people ...
00:41:28
and I think that they are support... they are places to lean on right now, and that I think we have that responsibility...
00:41:33
to welcome all diversity and that it can be done in many ways, right?
00:41:46
The RIE basically arises from the need to see that there are other groups like ours...
00:41:52
and that we are not alone in the world and that somehow our stones eh...
00:41:57
have resonance in many other places.
00:41:59
When you are in the Network you build energy channels that enrich all those paths, right?...
00:42:06
That is, from here to Los Portales, from here to Calabacino or from here to Arterra...
00:42:10
they are created as energetic paths that go like nurturing those paths and in the long run...
00:42:14
they bear fruit, right? Yes, in a certain way I think that the earth is calling very loudly...
00:42:21
that it is saying "I can't take it anymore, I need you to change many things if we want to continue living together"...
00:42:27
but, I do think that it would be very beautiful if people could understand that we need...
00:42:31
to transform ourselves a lot inside, to be very active in the change that is coming, right?, and to be very...
00:42:37
present. In fact, we are already experiencing important changes, aren't we?, and I think they are going to be increasingly...
00:42:43
more important. And there, I think that humans are still not up to those changes.
00:42:50
[Music]
00:43:00
The way in which human beings organize themselves to do activities together favors...
00:43:05
some values or others, depending on the scheme of this organization.
00:43:09
So, I believe that the community can create a framework of security and trust where...
00:43:15
people feel listened to, not judged, they can open themselves to other levels of sharing...
00:43:19
and well, I think that is one of the things that We all long in some way to live like this.
00:43:24
Living in trust with each other, but the scheme we have...
00:43:29
as we have created it, does not favor those types of values, right?
00:44:02
I think that deep down, human beings would love to be able to trust another human being...
00:44:07
and to be able to feel that we are all in some way involved in the same thing... in the same boat so to speak...
00:44:14
and well, that by joining efforts it will be easier for everyone, and that doesn't have to be...
00:44:20
necessarily in a place like this in the middle of the countryside, I believe that any group of people...
00:44:25
in your immediate surroundings, with your relationship, in your family relationship...
00:44:29
in your professional relationship, you can search, you can try, build this kind of trust.
00:44:51
There is a very beautiful story about an African tribe that is, with an identity song...
00:44:57
that is made together when a person is born and to which...
00:45:01
the entire biography of that person is added, because there is no punishments, when a person does something wrong...
00:45:06
what does the community do? It sings its song so that it remembers who it is.
00:45:10
Because maybe he is not doing things right, because he has lost his identity.
00:45:17
Well, when we arrived here, at first we felt like outsiders, of course...
00:45:23
but then, over time, we started to take root. Well, we will become old and die here...
00:45:31
as there are also other people, who have already left feeling part of here, like...
00:45:40
the village was their home. Since I arrived 35 years ago, when my children were born here, many have been born...
00:45:47
I have seen many children born, and well, little by little it has become a kind of roots...
00:45:55
well, from people who are native, born here, who are also already grown up and there are some...
00:46:03
who also already have their children, like my grandchildren who were born here, and so it has been created...
00:46:09
more and more a feeling that we are a people, of well, the place is... we are from Calabacino!
00:46:20
For me I always see, like, a little piece of land in which it is taken care of, right? Not mine anymore but...
00:46:26
that of the entire valley, of the entire village. It's like, here we have this protected and...
00:46:30
we can't cover much more but, what we cover, is cared for and loved, right?...
00:46:35
and I feel that the earth gives it back to us, with all this abundance that we have.
00:46:40
I want to thank my parents for making me... for having decided to raise their family there...
00:46:45
Yes!
00:46:46
I am super grateful...
00:46:47
Totally. the most grateful I am in life.
00:46:57
[birds chirping and a saxophone]
00:47:02
Well I don't know what the world needs, man. It needs... the usual, that everything be distributed a little more...
00:47:09
even intelligence, as someone told me the other day.
00:47:13
But... well that, a path that is a little logical.
00:47:17
In other words, breaking the... the pattern that... that you always have to go for more, right?...
00:47:23
that... that the... the cool thing is to consume more and spend more and [laughter] have more.
00:47:34
[Music]
00:47:41
Because there happiness is always... in consumerism it is ephemeral, always.
00:47:48
Why do people sign up for NGOs, why do people sign up to volunteer, why do people...
00:47:53
sign up to take transformation courses? Because people want to realize that they live...
00:48:00
they want to have every moment of... of their life, right?, as something that adds up and as something valuable.
00:48:14
We humanly are, not alone, we are together. The human being is a being that wants to be together...
00:48:21
so happiness is... it has a lot to do with the happiness of your environment.
00:48:45
[Music]
00:48:46
There is that option, right?, to use our freedom and do what we want in life.
00:48:53
That life flies by but... step by step is how we choose and each... each step takes us, right?
00:49:04
That... that we choose well the steps we take and that they are the ones we want.
