A year ago my partner and I bought 15 hectares of land just north of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and set out on an adventure in search of an alternative lifestyle to the one we had always experienced in the city. Our vision was to grow (organically) as much of our own food as possible, use only renewable energy sources, reuse all our “waste” products as inputs back into the farm, and offer the farm as a healing community for anyone who wants to live and work with us.

A Typical day at the farm

The day starts with yoga at 7am for those interested, whilst others walk the dogs, and communal breakfast is at 8.15am (all cooking and washing up is done on a rota basis).

Everyone works together from 9.30am to 2pm with a 30 minute coffee break in the middle. Work varies, but can include gardening, construction, tree watering, collecting organic waste from shops and restaurants in the nearby town to increase our compost production, voluntary English teaching in the local primary school etc.

Lunch is at 2pm. We are a vegetarian (predominantly vegan) community, so lunch always involves beans or lentils and usually rice or maize.

In the afternoons people are free to develop other interests and skills – music, art, crafts, or lead a workshop to share their skills with others, or just relax, play cards and chat. People come to volunteer from all over the world so there are always new people to meet and new cultures to learn about.

Evenings are usually communal events, gathered in the living room around the wood burning stove (used to bake bread and cakes) and round the candlelight (as we currently live without electricity).

We only ask people to work 20 hours a week, and so after 5 days work people have 2 days free to themselves, as we wish to strike a different balance between work and relaxation than is present in a lot of society, and offer people more time to develop themselves and their own interests.

The joys…

Eating our first home-grown crops.

The first jar of honey from our bees.

Some incredibly good friends made.

A ceremony or thanksgiving and healing in our temascal (traditional sweat lodge, using volcanic rocks placed in an open fire, and then brought into the lodge when red hot)

Seeing new people come and learn and get inspired, and take that learning and motivation with them into the next stage of their lives

And the challenges……

Getting to know the climate and the soil. There is a lot of work to be done to put back nutrients into the soil, and the winds during summer mean we had to put up windbreaks round our vegetables in order to get good harvests.

Living closely with people is always challenging, appreciating differences, learning how to communicate well to avoid conflicts.

The biggest challenge is always to remember – “tomorrow is another day,” and if a job doesn’t get finished today, just relax and try again tomorrow.

A few of the Projects we still hope to achieve

Improve our grey water recycling system and set up a bicycle powered water pump so that the water can be used for irrigation.

Find the most suitable renewable energy supply for the house so as to have lighting.

Continually expand our knowledge and understanding of organic farming techniques – organic fertilizers and pesticides, planting according to the cycles of the moon etc.

Organise workshops for people to come for a few days and learn yoga, meditation, vegetarian cooking, organic farming etc.

And the “Why?”

As two 31 year old women from the UK, what inspired us take this road? Well, we previously worked for 5 years in Kenya, in “development,” and much as it was an amazing, enriching, learning experience, it left us both with many questions about how much we were really “helping” anybody, or how much we were still part of a world in which wealthier countries seek to dominate and control others. And after spending time back in the UK, it seemed there must be an alternative to the extremes of consumerism, in which there is little thought for the consequences of continual production, consumption and disposal of goods. Through this new journey we have adopted we have found a balance and a harmony that brings us happiness – which, at the end of the day, is what most of us are looking for.

Contact us!!

We would love to hear from you, learn from your own experiences in these kinds of things, or welcome you to visit us or volunteer with us.

Check out our website www.rhiannon-community.org or write to us on contact@rhiannon-community.org