Website URL: http://www.sacredsuenos.com

Having just gotten back from Sacred Sueños farm near Vilcabamba, Ecuador, I´m quite happy to have hope that simple dreams are possible. Starting with one man, a mission and a little money, a mountaintop is gradually being nurtured into an organic homestead.

Yves, an ex-patriate Canadian, left the loosely-affiliated OM community in 2003 in search of liveable land abroad. His goal wasn´t what most foreigners look for in foreign farms - fertile land that they can over-farm and deplete, extract all possible profit and leave the land to the locals. His approach was the exact opposite, which was to find land that had already been depleted and rebuild it into a fertile healthy farm.

His chosen site was a mountaintop 2 hours walk from Vilcabamba, Ecuador, which was previously host to over a century of destructive slash-n-burn farming. Starting out with just a tent and a tarped kitchen structure, he has in three years built a permanent kitchen/common building, a 4 bedroom dormitory for wwoofers and volunteers, living quarters for himself and Trini (the other permanent resident), a composting toilet and a large garden bed. Regular help and donations from wwoofers and friends has made the project possible, as well as the regular hard work of the donkeys Pacito and Bonnita, and Joe the horse.

While the farm is not actively producing much yet (forcing both members and volunteers to contribute to a food fund, with regular resupply runs from town), fertility of the soil is quickly improving. The farm serves as an example of do-it-yourself permaculture techniques in action: roof-water catchment, greywater systems, composting toilets, solar electricity and direct solar water heating. It´s a great chance for visitors to see concepts that they´ve likely heard about actually working to provide for the needs of people. And they´re simple! A solar water heater can work as just a long black water pipe coiled into a spiral - the water inside the pipe gets quite hot in just half an hour of sunshine!

Decisions on the farm are largely independent. While permanent members have the right to block any decision or eject problem visitors or volunteers, in practice this rarely happens. Most volunteers are free to pursue their own projects on the farm, learning and making their own mistakes as they go. This has led to some interesting results, sometimes not the most efficient, but proving that letting people choose their own initiatives can lead to more motivated, willing workers.

Despite the lack of most modern conveniences (refrigeration, electric lighting, city water and sewer service, heating, and scores of other things city folk often take for granted) there is no shortage of volunteers willing to ¨rough it¨ to help out with the farm, and help contribute to the cause as well. In talking to the dozen some-odd wwoofers I met in the 2 weeks I was there, without fail all of them were glad to have had the experience of living on the farm for a while, and more than happy to have contributed their labour and a bit of money to the cause. All of us have left the farm in one way or another inspired to make something creative happen in the world.

While land in Ecuador isn´t accessible to everyone, and those wishing to stay in Canada unfortunately look forward to a much higher price tag for land purchase, Yves´ success with Sacred Sueños proves that a simple DIY homestead is more than possible, and it doesn´t take a large permanent community or rich benefactor to make it happen. The lesson from Field of Dreams seems to apply: ¨If you build it, they will come¨
Cheesy, yes, but also true. All of the wwoofers came to the farm with minimal knowlege of what to expect once they arrived. Coming from all the corners of the world and from a certain diversity of backgrounds, they came together to form a dynamic community, a temporary autonomous zone, and lived in more-or-less harmony with each other and their environment.

I hope one day to do the same!