Tribewanted: Vorovoro

My name is Alejandro Arango Berrocal, Costarican, Central American, I am multi active and hyperactive person, dancer, acrobatics, adventure sports, walking my spiritual path, architect student finishing my studies.

Already working in eco-building techniques, for the last years start to involve with permaculture, 3 friends and me + permaculture specialist Itai Hauben (www.symbiosis-eco-design.com), built a project called HuertasDondeSea (Planting Gardens Anywhere), which involves workshops and different theory-practical, this initiative took us, and other eco-interdisciplinary activist, to join and build an NGO, named “Grupo Armonia” (http://grupoarmonia.org)

So, I have been working in different projects including Permaculture Design, working farms, eco-villages, participate and create different workshops, bee keeping, grey and black water systems, Composting and sustainable agriculture and others.

Why are you coming to John Obey?

I decide to be part of the tribe, because different causes, starting with my dream to visit Africa and relate myself with the roots culture. I believe community living is the way human and nature can relate in balance, so John Obey Community seems to be a perfect place to learn, exchange knowledge, observe, contribute socially and build a new way of living. In this moment there is a lot of information in how we can build community in a more conscious way, so this tribe seems a great opportunity to be part and grow in this experience.



3. Tell us about your approach to sustainable living?

I start working and relating with eco-building projects, at the same time I start to involve with some farming in the surroundings of the city and planting in my own house in the city, in the air were all the comments of an organic and greener sustainable revolution, so this was the time when permaculture came to me and there was a way to related construction and agriculture and the “hole environment”, so I did start changing my habits, some yoga, conscious food and taking courses about organic agriculture at the same time relating myself with permaculture topics and workshops.

About this time must of my friend and relatives were working together to build community, so that was time when I start working, visiting, designing, participating, exchanging knowledge, and different ways to approach a sustainable community living. I will add that Costa Rica had been a place of interest of many people with the idea of community living because the abundance that the tropical weather and the non military politics, making it the home for a lot of communities. In my experience I have work in bio-intensive agriculture, food forest, grey and black water treatments, site planning, eco building, compost and bio fertilizing, conscious cooking, and a lot of different practices that comes with this way of living.

4. What role will tribe members have with permaculture management at John Obey?

First of all, I will say the Permaculture is based on the observation of nature, culture, and its own way to flow and share needs, working forward for a more interactive sustainable way of living. So I believe that most of the rural communities in the world already have some permaculture management that relate it with the environment selected, is in this relation where I believe that we the tribe members and the community will start to discover, observe, re build, guide and reformulate our relation with the environment, building a new community and then applying this knowledge into our life.

5. What’s kind of impact do you expect to have on the project?

Remember that, since the time the 17th century, the question that our culture has asked about our environment has been, “How can we detach ourselves from nature and manipulate it to advance our own human interests?” This question has led us to our current environmental crisis and to be trapped in an economic box.

Utilizing the concept of Permaculture, the question we must ask is, “How do we design a physical situation that will work for all us and all life on the planet?” We know that we must meet the needs of the planet by practicing sustainability. We must also meet the needs of the people involved by optimizing the standard of living for all people.

So I expect to be an instrument inside the John Obey community to help the tribe start the design of a path for a sustainable conscious way of living.

6. Why are you so passionate about permaculture?

Seems a younger age I did have a lot of questions and a very sensible spirit, nature was always a big teacher, I did start an existential search, what should I, or in which way I can serve and be work full for this Planet, worried about social discrimination, economically, and environmentally; always trying to understand what the word reality, could hold, interest in philosophy, spirituality, psychology, always amassed about creativity, imagination and the building of a better way , so I did study different things till I found the study of architecture as a very holistic way to use my abilities and read and help the Planet .Finally the path took me to Permaculture, which open a new way to relate to this world, and start to observe the relation with it, in all its dimensions, reading in nature the knowledge of a sustainable way of living.

7. How do you plan to integrate your approach with local methods in Sierra Leone?

First of all, observation, learning, and start to involve with the community culture and its own ways to live, organize and relate with the environment. Second, once we can have a deeper and sensible perspective of their ways of living, traditions and our intensions, start a respectful and organic implementation of permaculture techniques, looking forward to build a community who will become an example of a responsible tourist attraction which can serve as an inspiration to local community and tribe members.

8. Do you see an easy link between rural and urban sustainable living – what’s the first think you would do if you lived in a developed city?

I my experience, there is a very very difficult way we can find sustainability in urban spaces, talking about “developed cities”.

First, because our anthropocentric way of approaching the sustainable concept, second, will be the concentration of human beings and the cost for keeping alive each of this person, is energetically unsustainable in all of its roots. Imports of every kind and the paradigm of “everyone for themselves” without taking care of the surroundings (human or Nature), keep alive the unbalance competition that we have experienced till this moment of world crisis.

The first thing that I will do, will be find the way to organize myself and surroundings and involve the community within this organization toward a more cooperative way of living.

9. What are you most looking forward to about life in Sierra Leone?

“Therefore, there must be a system approach to rescue the planet, and it must include and address the quality of life for everyone on the planet. To do this requires two things: we need a different approach for how we as people live together, and share together

and we need to move into the cooperative consciousness”, ( taken from the book: CO-OP VILLAGES, 2007, The Next Evolution, Jack Reed, Jen Chendea and Jim Costa)

I’m looking forward to walk the talk.