Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World

Gaviotas is a village in Columbia, established in 1971 with the vision of establishing a self-sufficient community in the harshest environment in that country. The closing sentence (of the Acknowledgments) explains why I loved this book: "...the only job worth doing is making our dreams come true." That goal is what leads me to change jobs so often and to live rurally in relative simplicity. I loved reading about the ingenious solutions created by Gaviotas: the bicycle powered casava grinder, the seesaw water pumps, buldings designed to cool from the gentle variable breezes of the savanna. I praise Gaviotans for their humanitarian efforts.
One chapter near the beginning focuses on Columbia's political history--particularly relevant show more because of violence by guerillas and paramilitary is an ever-present factor in relationships outside of Gaviotas itself, and because of the support given by one president.
This book is only loosely linear. However as Pepe Gomez learned "Life is not just a linear experience" (p. 143) Each time a new person was brought into the story, there was some backtracking to cover that person's connections and role in the community's development.
I do wish Weisman had put more focus on HOW Gaviotas developed its unique governance system, where everyone has a say in decisions that affect them, and where are empowered to make positive changes. Also, there is little said about the lives of the women in the community--understandable, perhaps, for a documentary written by a man. We do hear of some women who were influential in the community, and we are also told of years when Gaviotas was primarily composed of bachelors and some wives in the beginning who left because they couldn't tolerate the situation. It isn't until sometime in the 1990's that the men of the community took over women's work for a day and realized that the kitchens lacked many conveniences and ergonomic improvements that had been implemented in the male work sphere (p.211).
I recommend this book to anyone who wonders how our world is ever going to make it thru the impending hard times.
2011 review
ETA responding to reader question:
The book didn't really enumerate where people were from. There seemed to be 2 types of people: The "engineers" who started it (mostly from wealthy educated families), and local Columbians (including Guahibo tribal members) who worked there. Both appeared to have a say in the governance & input in inventions/designs. Paolo Lugari, who was the main driving force, was born in Columbia with an Italian father. Sven Zethelius was born in Columbia to a Swedish ambassador father. Lugari invited all kinds of people out, seemingly based on their special creativity rather than their nationality, so it did also attract people from all over but not everyone enjoys the tropical climate. When the economy went bad, people who had ties elsewhere tended to leave. show less

This is the book mentioned by webfarmer in ref. to Red Trueque and the Tomas in Argentina & the movie The Take (about the takeovers by factory workers of abandoned factories -poor translation...)

Read. Interesting

This is the book mentioned by webfarmer in ref. to Red Trueque and the Tomas in Argentina & the movie The Take (about the takeovers by factory workers of abandoned factories -poor translation...)

I enjoyed this book very much.