[Scpg] a wonderful story

[John Calvert]

Permaculture Community Restores Hope After World Social Forum

Monday, February 07, 2005
  IPEP, Bagé, Brazil

The day the World Social Forum ends, a heavy rain falls on Porto  
Alegre. It is as if the city is cleansing itself of all the dust,  
sweat, commerce, and human drama it has endured. We say good-bye to our  
host and his family and friends and head to the Forum to meet up with  
the folks from IPEP (Institute of Permaculture and Ecovillages of the  
Pampas) who have invited us to their site.

We find the folks from IPEP huddled under their bamboo shelter, eating  
mangoes and starting a fire in a tiny cob oven. We approach them and  
ask for Guillerme, the person with whom we’ve had most contact. Bira, a  
wiry guy with blackened, calloused hands shoves two papayas and a knife  
at us and explains between spastic hand gestures and fits of laughter  
that the van is broken, we won’t leave until six , and we’d better eat  
something because we have a lot to do. We spend the rest of the day  
breaking down bamboo structures and stacking hay bales then race to the  
station to catch the bus to Bagé.

  Six hours later we stumble into the open arms of Andreu and Cristiano,  
the IPEP residents who stayed home to care for the land. They welcome  
us with a warmth I’ve never experienced anywhere, showering us with  
hugs and kisses and babbling excitedly about how happy they are to  
receive us. Andreu leads us up two ladders to drop our packs in our  
loft, then insists we join everyone for tea and a midnight snack. When  
we finally crawl under our mosquito nets, we sleep like rocks.

In the morning, we awake and wander outside into a permaculture  
paradise. Though it's only three years old, IPEP has two completed  
earth houses and two more under construction; a lushous veggie and  
flower garden; composting toilets; a biodigester; an organic rice paddy  
that produces 800 kilos annually; fields of yucca, black beans, and  
other staple crops; and huge areas of regenerating native forest.

I spend the morning mulching a field with Joanna, a young woman from  
São Paulo who has come to visit her friend Jessica, who lives at IPEP  
and teaches yoga in Bagé. We exchange histories as we work and discover  
many similarities in our personal journeys and world views. As Joanna  
describes her academic migration from Economics to Psychology to  
wondering if any university program can teach her what she wants to  
learn, I nod continuously. Her eyes light up when in response to her  
intellectual journey I tell her it makes sense to me that studying  
economics would make her wonder how our brains could come up with a  
system that assigns a higher value to gold than the clean water and  
fresh air our lives depend on. She tells me most people are confused by  
her transition.

At lunch we gather around one long table, our plates heaped with rice,  
black beans, deep-fried polenta, arugula, cucumbers, carrots, beets and  
tomatoes – all grown on site, except for the tomatoes. Over our meal we  
discuss what we need to do to prepare for the week long, 100 person  
natural building course that begins in a few days. Some disagreements  
arise over how to prioritize chores and how many scoops of saw-dust  
should be tossed in the composting toilet after each use. But the  
arguments are more entertaining than divisive: Those in disagreement  
imitate one another, they make histerical facial expressions and bring  
up funny stories from the past to prove their points. In the end the  
room explodes into laughter, with everyone hooting and hugging and  
walking away shaking their heads. I try to imagine our world leaders  
resolving their differences this way- Bush cupping Hugo Chavez’s face  
in his hands and kissing his forehead between fits of giggles...

We have tons of work in very little time but our hosts insist that we  
find a nice place to relax after lunch. Andreu explains, “Now we rest.  
One hour. In Brazil we call this sesta. Then we work until
dinner”. We crawl into a hammock and nap until Joanna appears with a  
armful of burlap sacks and says (in English), “Come, we’re going to  
catch beans.”

We follow our hosts through the rice paddies, up the hill overlooking  
the earth houses. Along the way we stop to look at an area where  
they’ve planted avocados, sweet potatoes, and leafy greens beneath the  
native climax species. “We are showing that you don’t have to clear the  
forest to grow food,” explains Cristiano. “Most people here are too  
impatient to wait for this tree to grow fully and die back so they burn  
it down. It is uneccessary. If you wait for it to die back all the  
matter that it drops adds nutrients to the soil, helping the next cycle  
of life.”

  Just past the forest garden Cristiano points out a gulch with  
hand-woven dams at 15 ft. intervals. “For erosion,” he tells us. “The  
previous owners mistreated this land. They cut down all the trees and  
grazed too many cows. So the rain causes a flood and it cuts this  
trench. We’ve planted species with strong root systems on both sides to  
prevent the banks from receeding further...and the corn in the gulch  
itself. The dams catch the soil, water, organic matter. And we eat the  
food.” Cristiano flashes us a smile that reaches from ear to ear. We  
respond with a thumbs up, a sign Brazilians use all the time to express  
both delight and gratitude.

We follow the property line to the upper fields. Hardly anthing grows  
on the neighbor’s side. There is only stubby grass and a shrinking,  
algae covered pond. Some cows stop grazing and stare at us. “They wish  
their owner did Permaculture,” someone says and everyone nods and  
laughs.

We harvest black beans until sunset. I do not think of what we are  
doing as work. We are amongst friends, sharing dreams of a sustainable  
future, exchanging stories, joking about Mayan calendar signs. At one  
point we ask one another’s ages. Everyone turns out to be between 22  
and 24 years old. Andreu (who is somewhat easily excitable) raises his  
hands over his head and begins cheering, “Nossa generacion! Nossa  
generacion!” (our generation) His shouts make me feel ecstatic. They  
erase the saddness that the chaos and commercialism of the World Social  
Forum had left me feeling. Whereas the Social Forum made me doubt that  
another world is possible, watching my generation growing food,  
building earth houses, sharing meals, and resolving conflicts restored  
my hope.

http://polyculture.blogspot.com/2005/02/permaculture-community- 
restores-hope.html


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