CAN PIPIRIMOSCA

Walking towards utopia

travelling by communities and ecovillages

CAN PIPIRIMOSCA

www.pipirimosca.com
+34 977606006

Can Pipirimosca is a mixture of youth hostel, school farm, cultural centre and permaculture farm. It belongs to Pere´s family, who proposed in 1998 to manage it so it could be used to start a non profit oriented project. In addition to Pere as the only permanent resident throughout the years, some volunteers live there from some days or weeks to a few months, being able to reside from 3 to 20 people, according to the time of the year and tasks to make.

It´s 2 km far from Valls and 20 km far from Tarragona (Catalonia, NE of the Spanish Estate). It has a great extension, with two houses (common house-hostel common and house-office), module-scene, workshop, hen house, WC-compost, swimming pool (without maintenance), orchards, fruit trees, pinewood, zone for horses, etc.

First stage consisted of equipping with minimum living conditions, also taking place in the farm meetings around music and other artistic activities, as well as in the social scope. Nowadays, and since 2003, it counts on the collaboration of wwoofers, that, beside other volunteers coming by other ways, work in this second present phase. The efforts, apart from the work in the orchard, are centered in being equipping with suitable infrastructures to be able to welcome groups regularly (activity room, communal bedrooms, stage, kitchen, store room, library...). Also in this stage meetings take place periodically (workcamps and seminars of the International Civil Service, organic farms network, story tellers, musicians, popular celebrations, training for activists for non-violent interposition in Palestine...). The following phase of the project will be the consolidation of a greater food self-sufficiency and the habitual welcome of groups for the celebration of activities in diverse scopes.

In addition, in Pipirimosca you can find a complete carpentry workshop, musical instruments, equipment of theater and other scenic arts, construction with tires or "earthship", bank of seeds, recovery of food of supermarkets... The great project for 2006 is the construction and first passages of a bakery.

As I already said before, in certain way the farm is a kind of temporary community of volunteers, organized daily like a workcamp. Each has the possibility of choosing what to do between a lot of tasks, falling the tasks of coordination to Pere and long term volunteers. The international and multilingual character causes that you can coexist with people of diverse origins (mainly from Europe and from U.S.A., Canada and Australia). Also activities are lodged some weekends gathering up to 40-50 people.

Between cultivated products they are calçots (Catalan typical onions) and pumpkins. The diet is basically vegetarian. In my stays, I have been with horses, dogs, cats, hens and geese. Spanish-Castilian, Catalan and English spoken, and what volunteers of the moment contribute. Phone and internet access.

“Rescuing” food in supermarkets (see photo)

Once upon a time there were two people travelling without money and eating the waste of the supermarkets and other shops. That people were in “Pipiri”. When I arrived for my second stay, I saw a surprising system there. So during some months I shared with other volunteers the exciting task of getting what the System threw out. Probably, if you have never heard something similar, perhaps you think it´s a bit disgusting… But continue reading, you will have a big surprise…

The task consisted of, at some moment of the morning, to drive to Valls (about 20.000 inhabitants-consumers) and to do the route of 4-5 big supermarkets. We took a look at the waste thrown to the rubbish and we took the food which we could make use of it. Progressively, we only went to the two supermarkets with more and best waste. We spoke to the responsible person of one of them, and in the other one we had problems with the workers. Back to the farm, we began with the process of selection and washing. We did three divisions: the really good food (suitable for humans), the bad food (to the compost) and the rest (for the geese). Most of the “rescued” food was in perfect conditions to eat it, part of them to eat the next days. Besides all kind of vegetables, we also took yogurts with an early out of date and precooked food. We rescued enough food (together with products of the garden) to feed 10 people.

The i-logic of the system: A bad orange in a bag means all the oranges in the bag to the rubbish. A product with a stain does the same. Bananas from Surinam and other tropical fruits travel a lot of km, with damage to the environment, and finish in the rubbish. Goods in perfect conditions and with an extensive expiry date are rejected because new goods come to the supermarket and need the same space. Since that is what the food is: goods. The food has lost its primary and basic value in the production chain (to feed) to convert into benefit.

Note for “absent-minded” people: Hunger is a politic problem. It´s false that there isn´t enough food in the planet to feed all its poblation. According to the UNO, 10 children die (killed, I add) each minute in the world because of hunger and bad nutrition.

TRAIN / BUS: Valls

STAY: October’05-February’06, August’04

WWOOF member

Link to PHOTOS

ANNEXE: “Goals of the association ADELA”

The Associació pel Desenvolupament Local i Alternatiu (ADELA – Association for Local and Alternative Development) is set up at the end of 2005, with headquarters in Can Pipirimosca and with the next goals:

1. To promote local and rural development through activities with values of sustainability, environmental respect, responsible consumption, recycling and organic agriculture.
2. To plan efficient systems of energy, of small scale and low energy use, together with the use of renewable energies and natural resources.
3. To contribute to the maintenance of the natural richness of the area sowing fruit trees of local varieties and creating a bank of local, traditional and old seeds for recovering, looking after, multiplying and promoting their use.
4. To promote recycling and reusing of resources through recovery, transformation and creative use of still usable rubbish.
5. To follow the permaculture philosophy, based on the observation of natural systems, the wisdom of traditional productive systems, and the modern, scientific and technological knowledge, at the same time that designs sustainable human communities, bearing in mind microclimate, plants, water, human needs and possible relationships between all these elements.
6. To create a space of knowledge exchange basically with practical courses and meetings of other associations, promoting ethic values of cooperation, self-sufficiency, environmental sustainability, organic agriculture and responsibility of the community, spreading like this knowledge on different fields (arts, ecology, volunteering, peace culture, music, craftwork...).
7. To promote handmade manufacture of basic products (yoghurt, bread, kefir...) as the basis of a self sufficient lifestyle.
8. To spread a rural and sustainable lifestyle through the hosting of local and international volunteers.
9. To help the integration of people from excluded, impoverished or marginal collectives.
10. To look for channels for the cooperation with impoverished communities anywhere of the world.
11. The association is non-profit.