Les Fermes Communautaires Libres - Clos du Doubs II

clos du doubs PART 1


So, we just left the ecovillage Clos du Doubs to go to denk:mal , a selforganised school in Bern. I am sitting here in the living room now with my laptop on the couch, trying to remember what happened in the last days in Clos du Doubs before all this new impressions of this beautiful project ran over me.

Our last days in Clos du Doubs were full of amazing experiences and full of trouble also...

Well, first: we met Chaques... one of the guys who founded the first community there and also the foundation "Les Fermes Communautaires Libres" which is the owner of one farm place (where one community was living before) and the "maison orange" in St Ursanne (where one community is living now).



Next to "maison orange" is a free school founded by the community, with 12 children, based on the ideas of Montessori and Marshall B. Rosenberg (nonviolent communication). Quite interesting project also...

I wrote about Chaques before in the first article about Clos du Doubs. He was the guy who went with the false beard of a shepherd and all his sheep -and some media people -to the prison where he should go to because not coming to the armee... they just sent him away "come back another time" - whereas the sheep ate all the nice roses etc around the prison :-)

He showed us the farm place where one community lived before and where they are now building a great eco-house out of clay and straw - with a huge window showing the beautiful mountains down in the valley. Nobody lives there right now in this amazing place and Chaques explained to us that they are building up the infrastructure for young people who want to come and create something in this place.


By the time we were there they just had 2 volunteers there, who know about constructing ecohouses. Both come from France, but one now living in Spain. The guy from Spain also invited us to come to his place from December on...

Moreover we heard about Chaques' newest project: he is now building up -more experimentally than for really needing to - a company that makes your car go with 30% water mixed into normal diesel , which saves you a lot of money and CO2 emissions - and, as Chaques says, questions the view on the world that a lot of people have:
if you mix diesel with water it is getting more explosive, not less...

Our view on the world also got a little bit questioned, when Anja who was so happy as she could be going to Sri Lanka with Krishan, our oven building teacher, just fell into deep confusions and depressions and decided to go back home...

For her all the new impressions, the group process being together with so many people all the time on small space and without ever having a lot of privacy or time to rest
- together with some personal problems and and the same time stopping smoking cigarettes
were getting too much and so she couldn't go on with us nor go with Krishan.
She will spend some more days in Froidevaux, one farm of the ecovillage, where they produce mostly sheep meet and other sheep products where also one of the communities that do not exist any more was before, high up the mountains. Then she will go back to Germany.

The two other girls, Kati (the new french girl who had arrived), as well as Astrid (from Austria)
then decided to go on with Krishan to build another stove (to learn more about stove building) and join us again later on.
So Sam and me spent one more day in Nicolas farm all alone with Nicolas...
and in the morning we left we talked with him to give each other some feedback about how all the experience was for all of us. It was tiring for him as for us, but we all won't regret I guess.



A lot of things happened in this place:
...arriving there sick ...
Kati from France joining us
...Lena going back to Germany,
... Artur leaving the tour as he felt it wouldn't fit,
... Anna, Sani and Peter leaving to Lausanne because of the starting problems we had with Nicolas,
... Astrid coming back from her trip to zalp association,
...talking the first French of our trip with Kati, Chaques and the volunteers there
...the problems with Anja in the very end before we left

We learned about making ovens there
and a bit about the history of Clos du Doubs community,
about the foundation and the free school.
We learned that our group needs more structure
and a "group rythm"
and that getting up early can be more productive than to sleep long ;-)

Nicolas learned that he should put more clear signs about what he wishes and expects from his guests, but also that it can be just allright to just let things flow...
for instance he didn't really tell us one day what we could help him except oven building...
so we just cleaned up one room ourselves without him having told - which made him very happy.

Maybe we can help him a little bit now with making some publicity for his project...


and telling people that he and the other people of Clos du Doubs are searching people to help for longtime or just for a while to live in the ecovillage and help on the farms.
It's a great place. Go there :-)

...Read the rest here!

ecovillage Clos du Doubs

Clos du Doubs

We arrived at ecovillage Clos du Doubs few days ago

Since then, there has been some trouble - and a lot of good learning experiences!

When we first came here we espected a big ecovillage community,
but we found an empty farm with one single person living here, which is Nicolas,
who has inherited some money and from this bought this farm some years ago.
Nicolas is a guy with a lot of travelling and community life experience
and I think this place here is a really good place for learning a lot of different wise stuff:

For instance: why chairs are making our society sick,
how to build a stove of clay
or about the African languages and how they effect the Africans view on the world ... :-)


We arrived here most of us quite sick
and not very fit to work


So there was a communication problem in the first days:
Nicolas had told us he expected about 4 hours work a day for staying here, having food, etc...
but he also said he wanted us to be happy while working and that this was the most important thing to him - so we shouldn't do anything that we feel it's not good for us

Well, so the sick people stayed in bed and didn't do anything
whereas most of the others were working busily and happily on a stove that is being built here
together with Nicolas and Krishan, who is an oven builder who lives half the year in Sri Lanka and has an Ayurveda centre there


Somehow we fucked up the communication about the people who didn't do anything as they were sick - and we also fucked up the communication among ourselves totally
missing any kind of structure, totally different sleeping rhythms without any meetings of all people, etc...

so Nicolas was very sad and hurt
and told us after only two nights he would appreciate when we leave
as we are costing him too much energy...
in the end 3 people left with the white bus to Lausanne

5 of us stayed - after each one talking with him if that is ok - and are working on the oven still,
sadly making a pause every few hours when our strict boss is telling us again that it is time for tea :-)

Everything is quite fine now with Nicolas and he apologized for being rude
and today actually he has to learn about how to express his feelings without hurting anyone
and told us he is very happy that we stayed
and told us "thank you" for that he could just be like he is
without being punished for it
and that we just took everything as it was, trying to communicate and make the best out of the situation, so that it could be a good learning experience for everyone.
Thanks Nicolas,
for teaching us in your open way, that our group didn't havea good "rhythm" as you called it-
we realised this before, the situation here propably cleared up a lot
and we will work on it :-)
it was all really clearing communication here in this place I guess

Tomorrow we will hopefully finish the stove
and then we will also meet the people
who originally founded the first community here in this beautiful area...
They will come for dinner and hopefully we will by then have the first fire in "our" oven



So, by the way, about the ecovillage Clos du Doubs:
there is basically 3 farms here,
one of those is Nicolas farm.
There have been big communities in the 70s,
but now there is only one community left and in the other two farms there is only few people,
among those mostly travellers and one (or two) people livin there.
The ones who founded these old anarchist communities was Chaques and his sister.
They bought a farm and made a community out of it belonging to a foundation.

Chaques was quite well known for publicity actions,
like goin to the local prison (where he should be sent to because of not goin to the army)
with the beard of a shepherd in his face and with all their sheep goin with him

The police of course sent him away so...
but the sheep had eaten all the nice roses etc in front of the prison

2 years ago Michi and Remo (whom we also met in the Schule mit Herz) and some other people left one of the farms, they told us it was a very nice time and very good place, but not the place where they wanted to get old and so they had to leave...
since then all tries to establish a new community in the old farm house failed

But actually the people here - especially Nicolas - are longing for community
and there is enouph space, food and work for a lot of people in this beautiful place.

The mountains and nature are amazing
and life is very quiet up here...

We are enjoying it
and having long discussions about why most people prefer living in big cities
to this clearness up here...

and - even though we know that life here means hard work too (well, about 4 hours a day ;-) )
- in a way can't really understand it ...

-Anja

CLOS DU DOUBS PART 2

Falling ill
05.11. As we don’t wanna use word – problems – by itself (positive thinking, hehe), then I should say - we are having right now new challenges here:) One by one and by now almost all of us - we are falling ill,,, :/ It is kind of hard to be with our ideas on the move when the nose is full with shit and stuff. And as everywhere we go we are also helping out with many things which mostly takes physical power – it’s hard,,, At some point it feels that it has been just too much,,, And if you believe that the body is connected with your mind and all what comes from mind reflects in your body then it’s getting even more interesting. How much in common we actually have and how much of this collective unconsciousness works for us. I would say we are on the same flow for sure :) Just not sure where it will bring us…
06.11. Only today I realized why I wrote this previous text yesterday’s evening, kind of with no purpose as it doesn’t really fit anywhere, more just like reflecting my emotions. Now I know, as this morning came with some unexpected changes for all of us… We had some really tough morning – Nicolas wanted us to leave. Partly all this messy situation was connected a lot with us being ill – if you look for the root of this problem. And whether you look at the illness as a physical or mental weakness, he didn’t like it and made his statement clear for us. Then the situation started to unfold and even like reflecting us as a group he pointed out our strengths and our weaknesses. That was a gift – something we really needed at this point, and hopefully it will bring in us some good input in the future. Present situation also changed. As a result of what happened Arthur left our group, but the rest of us split in two groups – one left, going further, but other stayed after some negotiations with Nicolas till the moment the stove will be finished. We didn’t expect this to happen with us, however I really think that what happened, happened for good and all of us can learn something from this and as well that this really will change things for good in our future.

-Sani

...Read the rest here!