Day 20 - Tamera experience

After breakfasting at our van, our day in the community begins with a speech held in the common room called the "Aula". It is a beautiful, warm, welcoming wooden construction which holds over 350 people. We are amazed to find out that it is a straw-bale build! It turns out that Sabine Lichtenfels went on a pilgrimage to raise the 40.000 € they needed to build it - and here it is.

What a structure, and what a space!

Nice big solar cooker too!

Since we know this project is mainly run by Germans, we wonder if we will be able to understand much. Ana is particularly impressed to find that a third of the room's seating offers headphones for foreigners, with interpreting into English and Spanish! And they have two proper interpreting cabins at the back of the room! Swoon! I find out later that they built them especially in time for the Summer University.

We are fortunate to be here on Day 7 of the University, just when the theme of the day's speech is... Ecology! Totally up our street, of course - synchronicity in action! Allow me to explain some of what was said - I will not add photos as there are many on their site...

Given by Silke Paulick, the Director of Ecology at Tamera, the speech is entitled "S.O.S. Planet Earth: The Ecological Aspect". Silke talks about Planet Earth as one organism, not separate from others, and how, to experience peace and have capacity to co-create, we need to reconnect with the whole. Humans nowadays are in conflict with ourselves and with nature - reflected in the conflict with nature (animal experiments, pesticides and chemicals, forest fires...). Planet Earth needs a new ecology, and human beings need a new concept of ecology. We need to experience love and compassion when walking over the Earth. From the awareness that we are part of Planet Earth, and that we have a cellular memory that can help us take care of Mother Earth, can rise a new concept of ecology.

Silke goes on to remind us that people who are busy with survival, because they suffer war and hunger, have no space in their lives to work on this. It is those of us who are not struggling to survive who need to be working on it.

She explains that sexual flow must also be allowed, not controlled like the rivers and their healing powers have been (dams, canals). She says that love should be irrespective of gender and should be love for all creatures, and that places where these connections can happen are necessary, to achieve changes of consciousness.

Wondering where this is all going, we are glad to hear her explain next the concrete actions that are taking place in Tamera. It seems that there is a huge focus here on the spiritual and humanist side, but that now those areas are steadily developing they are wanting to concentrate more and more on the ecology of their space.

Tamera is in an area that suffers from the threats of desertification and pollution of water and earth. They wish to "read from the book of nature" and rediscover nature as a huge source of inspiration. Their main action is to build up a water landscape, and under the leadership of expert Sepp Holzer they have embarked on an ambitious plan to build five lakes as retention spaces in which to collect and cleanse rain water - what we can see here today with the lakes is work in progress, but it already looks great.

They also recognise the need for an autonomous food supply for all their members, independent from the big supply system, and have begun work in that direction, creating edible landscapes around the water areas.

Tamera wish to develop a globally applicable model to which interested visitors can come to learn and exchange, and apply the knowledge back home. They wish to help develop a new ecology in touch with new technology. They wish to study and improve the information that water carries out into the world.

They propose cooperation with all beings, and Silke explains that they carried out an experiment with rats: they told the rats they did not want to share their living space, and that each should have their own. They built them a Rat Temple and told them to go there instead. Apparently they do. (It has to be said, we did not investigate this claim...;)

Silke spoke of a spiritual ecology, in which we recognise that Earth, like us, has organs, power lines, meridians, energies... and that we need to rediscover these, to create conditions to fully re-unite and re-connect with this living organism that is Planet Earth.

The speech was reinforced by a song, sung by the community choir, called "We are born from the connection between Heaven and Earth".

After a break, participants go off to work in one of the workgroups that have been created for the week. Danny decides to join the Solar Village group, while Ana goes for the Social Activism group.

Part of the activism group

Don't ask!

(lots of healing going on here)

Another activity was a play put on be the children living at Tamera called "The Dark Shadow"

The usual man with guitar at the bar

... and of course no peace event would be complete without the Buddhists

Dinner time!

Bookshop and cafe

go on, give me a hug!

Day 19 - Arrival in Portugal

At 6am a motorbike roars up to us and revs up repeatedly, pointing its front light to our van... we lay still... and as soon as the night rider leaves, Danny throws in our camping chairs, hops into the front of the van and drives us away! Nice getaway, Dan, 30 seconds flat! We decide to follow our instincts in future...

After driving for a while, we stop for coffee in a small village, before the Portuguese border. Here we see the locals eating huge pieces of toasted local bread (tostas they call them), and we succumb to trying them - especially when we discover that TWO cafés con leche and TWO tostas add up to 2.40 € ! Alright! On leaving, a group of girls on a hen night (or rather, hen day since it's about 1pm!) are singing down the street. Cheap and cheerful, this is la España profunda!

Driving into Portugal through Rosal de la Frontera is seamless, and we are happy to drive along a beautiful country road, with no other cars in sight...

When we stop at a petrol station to fill up our almost-empty tank (we did not fill up before leaving Spain, thinking everything is cheaper in Portugal), we realise why there is no-one else on the road - they can't bloody afford to! Unleaded 95 costs 1,53 € a litre! And Spanish truck drivers are striking over the rising prices in Spain?? Eeeek! So, let this be a warning to all of you - stock up on petrol if you are coming to Portugal!


We stop for the hottest hours of the day at Beja, a very pretty town with a village feel. We are beginning to realise that the Portuguese are big on tiles... on the outside of houses.

We discover that the library offers free internet use, so we get up to date on our emails - thanks so much to all of you who have written! It's really great to feel your support and hear your news.

We are heading towards Odemira, in the Alentejo (which means 'South of the Tejo' river, Tajo in Spanish). Here we aim to visit Tamera, Healing Biotope I. This is a project that sounds very intriguing indeed... It seems there is a community of 200 people living here permanently, with the aim of "creating peace knowledge". At the moment, they are holding a Summer University, entitled "Be the Change - Youth for a Future Without War". When we contacted them, they invited us to come and join in with whatever is going on for a small daily fee.

The Tamera logo:

In the evening we arrive at the quinta (finca) Monte Cerro, where Tamera is located, and head for the guest car park. Some organisers we speak to tell us to make ourselves at home and go mingle. So we wander around, taking in the caravan accommodations, large tents of different shapes and materials, various buildings large and small, all gathered around a lake. Our walk takes us to "Aonda", the evening meeting point/bar, perched on the edge of another smaller lake, where they serve all sorts of organic drinks. We get an organic beer, chat to the waitress, Cecilia, who welcomes us, and settle down amidst dozens of people of all ages and origins, all looking rather...well... peaceful!

A daytime shot of "Aonda" bar (note the XL solar cooker on the left!):

Nice... Suddenly people start raising their hands in the air and all fall silent - and as the hands come back down a man speaks to introduce a slideshow on a large screen. What follows are photos from a pilgrimage carried out last year by a part of the Tamera community in Israel and Palestine. The images of both landscapes and people are very powerful. We are sitting next to a very nice couple who were on the pilgrimage, and they give us explanations and answer our questions. About 80 people, including 8 children, began the three week pilgrimage for peace, and by the end there were about 250. Along the way they met with Palestinians, Israelis, Beduins... All opened themselves to their message. What an experience for everyone... It turns out that peace pilgrimages are one of the actions the community carry out, under the name of GRACE, and led by Sabine Lichtenfels, one of the three co-founders of the Tamera community. In fact they are planning one next October to threatened peasant villages in Colombia.

Fascinated by what we have heard so far, we go back to our van, cook ourselves a meal while we discuss our impressions, and look forward to a full day ahead of Summer University... We cannot even begin to imagine what lies ahead...