Living and Growing in an Ecovillage – Merlyn Dunderdale – 7 months volunteering in Spain
Name of the project: Living and Growing in an Ecovillage
Date: 09.10.2022 – 02.05.2023
City/Country: Finca Los Portales, Spain
I’m Merlyn from Tartu, Estonia and I feel I’ve been very lucky to have had the opportunity to participate in an ESC volunteering project that reflected my interests. I spent my long-term voluntary service in an ecovillage called Los Portales in the South of Spain and it was an experience of a lifetime.
This is me in all my glory surrounded by the beautiful nature of Los Portales. Photo by my beloved friend Dario.
My project was called Living and Growing in an Ecovillage and that’s exactly what I did. First, I would like to tell you a little bit about Los Portales in general and after that I will talk about specific activities of my project.
Los Portales is an ecovillage. This means the goal of the community is to live together in a sustainable way. A way that respects mother nature and its resources and a way that respects human nature. This particular ecovillage was founded about 40 years ago and its philosophy is inspired by Jung’s work on dreams. So this community has a focus on sharing and learning from each other’s dreams in order to develop the self. Seems fascinating to some but alienating to others! However as a volunteer in Los Portales you can choose your own focus because there are plenty of options available. I will tell you about what my main activities were, but be aware that if you decide to volunteer in Los Portales (which you totally want to do!), then you will be able to contribute to the community and your personal development in a way that suits you. Every volunteer in Los Portales has their own unique experience but of course there’s plenty of common ground too!
A view of the building
The surrounding nature
As to my experience, I was mainly helping the community to look after their garden and orchards, which in total are about the size of half a hectare. The garden has 4 large greenhouses and I was sharing responsibility with another volunteer for taking care of one of them. I learnt some useful techniques of sustainable gardening and permaculture. If you want to contribute to the garden, then there are plenty of opportunities to learn more about sustainable ways of growing food.
Tomatoes and pumpkins in the greenhouse I was responsible for
Preparing the soil for seeding new plants
Breaking up firewood in the early hours of dawn
Renewing an old greenhouse
I also spent some time helping in the kitchen to cook meals for almost 50 people! Sometimes the whole group would get together to make jam, sauerkraut or acorn paste! When you work in the kitchen you can just help out, but if you have a passion for cooking and want more responsibility you can also try out being the chef!
Another thing the volunteers do together is harvesting olives and acorns. The olives are used for making oil and acorns for milk and paste. The olive harvest especially is a lot of fun!
Making acorn paste together Pleased with ourselves after olive harvest
Los Portales also has a bakery, where they bake several varieties of bread all made from locally grown cereals adapted to the warm dry climate of Andalucia. I had a chance to help with the bread baking too! It really made me appreciate the bread more because I went through the whole process of baking it!
The ecovillage also has a lot of animals. They have pigs, sheep, dogs, horses, cats and last but not least, goats! One of the ways volunteers can contribute to animal care, as did I, is by taking care of the goats. This means milking the goats, gathering food for them and feeding them and going goat herding, which is a beautiful experience!!!
Preparing to go goat walking. Photo by Dario
The goats grazing peacefully in the evening sunset
I have to talk about free time, because if you decide to volunteer in Los Portales, you will have plenty of it. And that’s great because there’s a big bunch of wonderful volunteers to spend that time with. The nature around Los Portales is stunning to put it lightly and there is a lot of beautiful nature to explore: mountains, caves, waterfalls. If you want to travel somewhere that’s also possible. I travelled a lot with the volunteers during my experience in Los Portales.
New Year’s in Malaga My first trip with the volunteers was to Cadiz
Another thing is that every Saturday is festive so everyone gets a chance to relax, eat good food, dress up and dance. If you want to dress up there’s plenty of garments in the community available for volunteers to wear.
Sombrero squad preparing for saturday night fiesta! Feeling festive on a fiesta night
The volunteers and Happy the dog huddled around the fire!
Field trip to the local cave!
I would say what the most valuable things I learnt were, unlike what I initially thought, more to do with self-development and less with practicalities of sustainable farm life. Of course I learnt about permaculture, cooking and animal care too, but the main things were to do with myself. I learnt about who I am, why I am the way I am, how I interact with others, why I need a community and how to resolve conflicts. Resolving conflicts is a big theme in ecovillages because if you live together and spend your days working side by side, then you just have to find ways to get along with each other to be able to coexist in a functional way. This aspect of ecovillages was what fascinated me before I started my project and what fascinates me still. I had a very valuable and profound experience when it comes to conflict resolution.
All in all, happy times and many good memories. Thank you Los Portales and thank you to all the volunteers who made this experience so memorable!
This Project was financed by European Commission’s European Solidarity Corps Programme.
