Return to the land in Aljezur

The road is wild, the green of the hills, the river that one needs to cross – all are part of the adventure in this journey. In fact, when Welsh couple Christopher and Christine Lewis arrived here in 2006, the scene was very different. The area was pockmarked with the ravages of forest fires.

They began by clearing the land and building their infrastructure. With the help of friends and neighbours, came the idea – a project, a desire to share the little lessons learnt every day.

“This all took shape four and a half years ago. We didn’t come here with the idea of constructing an educational project. It all simply just happened”, Christopher Lewis relates.

“We started to realise there are a lot of people who have a small garden, or plot of land and who would like to live life through permaculture”. But there aren’t so many opportunities for people to learn about this way of life.

Permaculture is a concept that originated from Australian Bill Molinson, in the 70s, as an answer to the negative impact of consumerism and industrialisation.

“Permaculture is a new word, and it’s also a new way of life that is recuperating a lot of what people knew in the old days” and which became lost with the onset of industrialisation and the general exodus of populations from rural areas.

Thus permaculture embraces a lot of techniques and practices that, over time have allowed many communities to survive in locations with scant resources. All these principles are used in farms, allotments and communities like the one at Várzea.

“Another thing we’re working on is a way of storing water within the soil. It’s key to the long-term life of the earth, and also a way of countering the severity of droughts”, Christopher – an ecology graduate from Edinburgh University, and now licensed in permaculture – explains.

In all, €380.000 has been invested here, along with countless hours of labour. There’s now an intelligent water system that precludes soil contamination.

Visitors can stay in an Indian tent (tipi), and there’s even a classroom. A future project is for the construction of a solar-powered de-hydrating machine, to make dried fruits and medicinal plant preparations.

Educated on an organic farm near Stuttgart, young German gardener Jakob Friecke, 24, considers “Portugal an excellent country for agriculture – particularly in the south, where there’s a lot of potential.

Just as the Moors knew 600 years ago, this is a very rich land. Contrary to Northern Europe, there’s the best chance here of producing food all year round”, which is also his personal objective.

Among the various courses held here, in August there’s to be a course in Permaculture Design (PDC), which takes place over 72-hours (spread over 9 days), and involves theory and practice with qualified instructors.

The majority of pupils for the last course came from Lisbon – with ages averaging out at around 30. Architects, IT professionals, biologists – there was even a geologist. “It’s good to see that there are young Portuguese people interested in returning to the land where their forebears lived and worked.

Many are coming to realise that the life they want isn’t to be found in towns and cities”, says Christine Lewis.

“The general feeling is that there are less and less people interested these days in cement and concrete”, says Gaynor Stanley, an expert in traditional construction. As a consequence, the courses here have found many followers.

“If you think about it, the earth gives us all the materials we need to build a house. Taipa (rammed earth) is perhaps the only material that hardens with age. Clay pastes are very good for insulating interiors – all that you need to do is keep them dry.

As long as you have a good roof, they’ll last forever. Even so, we see old houses where the roof has long since disappeared, but the walls are still standing. Even today, it’s possible to find bricks from Roman times”, tells Gaynor, who used to restore medieval buildings in the UK.

“We try to make our courses as accessible to people as possible, because we want to give students, and people on tight budgets, the opportunity to come here and learn”, adds Jakob Friecke.

But what is life like “day to day” in Várzea? Silvia Rosa replies: “Our existence here is based on mutual respect. We try and respect each other’s philosophies, instead of defending just one. What unites us is the common interest in becoming self-sufficient in an ecological, honest way for us all”. “We are all independent and yet we work together”, adds Christopher Lewis.

Work on the land, in the organic garden, starts early. At lunchtimes, each person takes care of his or her own food, but in the evenings, dinners are made communally. On Friday, the fire’s lit and it’s time for socialising. Bread and pizzas are baked.

There’s live music, and neighbours are invited over. On the first Saturday of every month, they play the African drums – and every Tuesday, there’s a small biological fruit and crafts market.

“A good thing is that a lot of foreigners have bought land here and brought with them a new sense of community that had been lost”, says Christine Lewis. “Many aren’t buying a second holiday house for the summer. They’ve come here just to work on their land. It’s a lifestyle choice”.

In the future, “we want to bring schools here. We’d like to give institutions the chance to bring children here for the day, to enjoy activities in the garden, play with the animals, be at peace”, says Silvia Rosa.

“In our dreams, we’re trying to see how we could inspire, or even influence” a new generation. “It’s not easy because the institutional point of view continues to follow capitalist logic”.

“I would like to tell people in general that anyone who has a small back yard can produce their own healthy food. If they simply spend an hour a day working on a small garden, they can eat organic vegetables. Why should they give their children the rubbish that’s sold in supermarkets?” Christine Lewis concludes…