Sunday, March 13, 2016

Update for farm volunteers

Community living in paradise!

Location: Valle Chirusco, Barrio Tumianuma de Vilcabamba, Loja, Ecuador 
Map: http://www.vilcahike.com/map/files/file/110
Minimum Stay: 2 weeks
Languages: Spanish, English, a little of almost all others and the unspoken languages we all share
 
See more photos and like our Facebook page, also at neverlandfarm.org 

Neverland farm biodynamic community and farm
"Living amongst people who are sharing and loving life communally!"

This is the Deal

Neverland accepts students, interns, apprentices, volunteers and families from all over the world. Volunteering at Neverland isn't a 'number of work hours required' kind of place, nor a business that has volunteers. You will be expected to live and laugh and work and play, sharing this community as a member for the time you are visiting. We eat meals communally. We share food and kitchen privileges, and economic booms and crashes. Everyone participates in the daily activities of a small but busy rural Ecuadorian farm. The farm does much outreach to the local community, teaching and with lots of hard work in service to our local community (built a preschool classroom, participated in building new church tower, community center w free internet and agricultural resource center, multi use sports courts, going to neighboring farms to make compost and work organically, helping other abled neighbors get to medical resources...). 
And there is always something to do on the farm, large orchards to care for and harvest, gardens to be weeded, pastures to be weeded, goat and cow milking, making cheeses, producing amazing meals, working with horses, burros, pigs and chickens, did i mention some weeding?! Its an experience in sustainable and shared community and life. 
The farm is a unique and popular place for the backpacker, student, intern, and small non-mechanized farmer, a sort of hybrid agro-eco-café-philanthropo-voluntarism. Our housing is rustic, but comfortable, and we have wifi in one location for students to keep up and everyone to write home and stay in contact. Unless there's an urgent daytime need, I prefer Internet and wifi use to happen after 5 pm, anytime on weekends. Each day we have help in learning how to work in the cafetales and garden fields. We harvest fruits, garden produce and keep a small herd of milking goats to sustain the farm folks. We share our production with our neighbors. Those who come here learn about the old way of agriculture: no machines (oops, not completely true, we now have a weed whacker and a chain saw), we are completely 100% off grid, gravity fed water systems, solar wifi repeater, we use profound conservation practices. And lots of  language practice. It’s not unusual for conversations at our lunch to table to take place in 5-6 languages. We’ve had up to 14 nationalities represented at once, so Neverland farm is also a community and shared living experience. We keep our price as low as possible and try to not charge at all for Ecuadorians, so that everyone can learn about living and sharing life, laughter, work and fun in an off grid sustainable manner. This has been happening for more than 17 years. I’ll never get rich like this, but my life is one of joy and abundance.

Accomodation

The farm is located in Tumianuma in the parish of Vilcabamba in the province of Loja, Ecuador. We are exactly located in the Valley of Chirusco, on either side of the quebrada (year round creek) Condorhuana (quichua for where the condors live). We have waterfalls and nice cold water natural jacuzzis in several places. We are rich in water! We also have a great outdoor hot shower.
The farm has a large community kitchen, fully stocked with stainless and cast iron pots and pans and baking pans- everything needed to prepare fabulous food for many! Our houses are mostly outdoorsy, very rustic, truly nothing to write home about, but we ONLY sleep there! The rest of the time we are outside- in the fields or the creek, at the kitchen or milking the cow or goats... Outdoor showers and bathrooms, composting and flush! We were nominated for best poo with a view for 2013!

What Else

We ask all volunteers to participate economically, currently the minimum donation is at 35 usd a week. This helps maintain the farm for all and keeps us in hot water, great food and clean linens and keeps our community service work going as well. We eat like royalty most days. Ecuadorians are especially encouraged to visit and we can often offer economic assistance for them.