Viva Alentejo ! Leila Dregger Dear friends in the world, the third week of the Global Campus Portugal was dedicated to our neighborhood and the villages and projects close by. Each day we made another trip, returning to Tamera in the evenings. Also the group constellation changed each day, and with this some more people could participate in the Global Campus at least for one day. Vale Rodrigo with our neighboring communities and sites opened new views on possible cooperations in inhabiting and planning this valley together. We visited local producers in Odemira and Sao Luis, producers of cheese, organic wine, honey, olive wood products and even chocolate. (On that day we went together with four of our children - so this was a bit the exercise of taming wild animals.) We visited the last of originally 270 windmills in the Odemira municipality. The miller is 77 and works additionally with diesel and electricity as even the winds are not the same anymore. In former time the people took their cereals to the miller once a week and received the flour for the bread. Today nobody is baking their bread anymore, everybody gets bread from the bakeries, and most of them get the flour from the industry and the wheat from India. We could understand the critical situation of Reliquias much better after listening to our new major Daniel when he shared about the history of the local cooperative. Today everything that people need in this village has to be transported into the region: as the population has grown old and most young people left the region, the cooperative has no producers anymore. But Daniel is sure: In future young people will return from the city to the countryside and they want to cultivate the land again. They will not have the knowledge how to do that. We have to be ready to support them, this is our duty. Daniel´s grandmother Tia Inacia was a special woman: Before the revolution she went with her donkey from door to door, selling everything what people needed, from eggs to scissors, and people paid with what they could give, be it goat cheese or tomato pulp. She took it and sold it to the next ones. People travelled even from Lisbon to buy from her, and she connected villages and farmers and created a huge network of exchange. Today we have the task to again create a network, and instead of Tia Inacia we need a new idea for an economic exchange. On Global Grace Day we had an extraordinary beautiful morning gathering in the Stone Circle. Some children made candles for every country where the Global Campus is active. Sarah spoke a prayer which connected us deeply with mother earth, but also with our revolutionary willpower: No more war! We invited our regional cooperation partners to the celebration at 10 in the Aula. Only one couple had come to the talks and the celebration - but afterwards they came, and for lunch there were quite some farmers, producers, local activists, the major with three ladies from the cooperativa. And two musicians. Suddenly during lunch - Ina had made traditional xixero vegetables - they started to sing wild and seemingly quite cheaky songs, love songs, dance songs and mockery songs about politicians, that the terrace transformed into a chaotic dance floor. It was an authentic Portuguese piece of culture - and quite different from the melancholic fado style that we normally hear. This is more the working class music, loud, wild and without any respect. Birger and Fátima invited for a sharing with the local network, and it was beautiful to listen to them and to hear how much Tamera means to them. Also Birger, Ina and Jörg from the food department Tamera could present their work. Thank you for this day, it was a brillant and promising day for the regional network. Leila
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:43:38 +0000
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