Clarehalliday

Having been back at Guba for three weeks, it’s finally time to continue my blog! Time has passed much too quickly, and I fear it’ll only speed up as time goes on. I’ve really settled into a good routine now, and feel like I’m slowly becoming a fixture within the workings of the farm! As I described in my first post, Guba has been designed around permaculture ethics and principles (http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/). It’s not just talk - they are true to their word! The team’s knowledge of, and dedication to, permaculture has surprised and delighted me, and every day I seem to learn something new. The farm incorporates every aspect of a typical closed permaculture system - vegetables, herbs, trees (fruit and native trees), animals (chickens and pigs), and of course water conservation, energy production an... read more

GUBA: meaning “To dig” in Siswati, the native language of Swaziland. This is a truly special project, and quite unique, I think, in its impact, its ability to evolve with the needs of the community, and its scope. It’s a small not-for-profit set up just 5 years ago with limited funding, by an amazing British couple who’d simply had enough of working in NGOs filled with bureaucracy, politics and corruption and who wanted to make a real difference to the quality of life of people in Swaziland. Guba’s mission statement is “Alleviating poverty through training in sustainable agriculture, natural building and natural resource management”. And it's absolutely true to every word. Guba is run entirely on Permaculture principles - the space is laid out in a permaculture way - the garden is farmed using permaculture techniques ... read more

I'm staying at Sadhana Forest in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India for 4 weeks as a volunteer. Sadhana is a reforestation project that is aiming to replant 70 hectares of Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest, a highly diverse forest with around 160 woody species, of which only 0.01% of the original remains. Much of the land that was originally covered with this forest has turned to desert and the water levels have dropped so much that people find it hard to reach fresh water and many streams and rivers have dried up. A local tree nursery provides young trees for the project and thousands of volunteers come to work at the project every year – there are currently just over 100 people staying, but people arrive and/or leave most days. Around 1/3 of the residents are long-term volunteers ... read more

I’ve spent 3 weeks at Sunny Meadow so far and how time has flown! I’ve crammed so much into my time here already and learnt a lot about farming and also cooking – how growing food and eating organically is a great way to live healthily, and new ways to cook good, wholesome vegetarian food. At home there are a few meals I usually make, nearly all of them to go with pasta or rice. Here, I almost never eat those staples, sticking instead to meals full of vegetables, eggs, potatoes and bread in different combinations. Every lunchtime we make soup, usually from scratch using veg straight from the garden, or creating something using cooked veg from the previous day. Nearly nothing goes to waste here – mouldy veg is thrown to the chickens or put ... read more

After being delayed an hour, having seen my bus from Galway drive off whilst still sitting on the bus from Limerick, I arrived at Sunny Meadow farm around 6pm, thanks to Dermot, my new host, picking me up from Loughrea. I met the German and the Italian – both very nice girls around my age. The German, Ester, is in her final year of a nutrition degree in Germany. The Italian, Mara, has just finished college. Dermot is a friendly, smiley Irish guy who has two little girls, who are very sweet. Sunny Meadow farm is commercial, with 3 polytunnels, around 50 chickens, Lil Texas the horse, Scooby Doo the dog and two outdoor cats. Dermot does a veg box scheme and sells his produce at Mountshannon market every Saturday. So I met the other WWOOFers ... read more