Senor Franz the Bumblebee

As a part of my second communtiy-tours, I went to Schweibenalp community in Switzerland. I took part in the green phoenix conference, representing the gift-economy network and the communities-convergence.

Greta talks about her experiences and learnings from the community-tours!

Our arrival at Aurora community was just a few days before the 2nd Danube CC but we had a few friends with us and of course our friends from Aurora. So we started setting up the CC, buying food, stocking wood, bringing supplies from the city, building a tent covered dining and workshop area and preparing the logistics, role descriptions, schedule and all the printed materials to give self organization a healthy and effective form.

We also took time to ...

We arrived at the rainbow gathering! It is really a sight to see. Around 1500 people at its peak, people from across all continents. An inspiration and impulse for Romania and an opportunity for many foreigners to connect with the gift of rural traditional culture still alive in this part of the world.

.Here we met with our friends form other caravans and also with many friends form Romania, Germany, Hungary and other countries.

We organized 2 workshops about ...

We arrived at La Gugu a beautiful young community innitiative created by Sabin Muresan and Ina Curic both peaceworkers that came back to romania after 10 years of service in conflict and post conflict areas across the globe.

The project is an emarging base for their work of community building, non violent communication (NVC) and work with youth - like boy and girl scouts. They are building a cob house with green roof, growing 2 permaculture gardens, an orchard and ...

3 Aug 2014

As we entered Romania we camped in the heart of a village an hour away from the border. The next morning we realised where we were. As the cows gathered there to go to the field we slept but later we woke up in the warm reception of the friendly family living nearby.

The grandmother share with us cake made by her niece as well as coffe, fresh water from their well and finally as we started ...

Pr Nebavec is a community permaculture farm where 3 people live permanantly and many guests and friends visit and participate.
They have several permaculture gardens and have organized the whole estate to function in this way.
Being virtually self sufficient food wise they spent very little money and actually have a common pot where all of them contribute.
There are also other alternative living projects in the extended are with which they are connected and they also collaborate ...

As I said previously the neighboring projects are also amazing. The one called Krone was the first initiative started locally by Nara and others. There you can see a small caravan village with permaculture gardens, flousrishing wilderness, humanure systems, stone fridges, and speces were yurts had been assembled. The beauty of the place and the simple conforts are heart warming.

But the initial alternative impulse was given by their neighbor who has build an amazing gardens fool of stone ...

Our caravan 'Senor Franz the bumblebee' arrived in Slovenian Istria to visit the Ecovillage with the same name. It was a beautiful and inspiring visit.
There we exchanged seeds and started helping out in the garden, building more compost toilets, cleaning up the ruined house which was being re-build and refurbished with eco-materials and technology and also connected with the guests and project members.

The ecovillage is just 30 minutes away from an older community project and yet another alternative ...

After the GEN Conference we split into caravans and smaller groups. I am part of one that traveled first to an organic antroposophic family farm in Mecklemburg 2 hours north of Berlin and afterwards we traveled again to Berlin and onward south to Bavaria where we had more cars and buses waiting for us. Organization and planning are needed but without flexibility and adaptation the flow stops.

In Bavaria close to Wemding we prepared the new vehicles took some gifts ...

We started to travel from the Urban Communities Convergence to the Global Ecovillage Network gathering in ZEGG.
We are currently organizing vehicles, groups and routes. Self organization is a huge learning opportunity for grass roots action.
Several touring groups are going to travel to Romania in parallel to interconnect communities through gift economy!