THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN FROM MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, FROM A SUBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW AND WITHOUT THINKING TOO MUCH ABOUT ALL THE RUMOURS I HEARD ABOUT TAMERA BEFORE. PLEASE NO DESTRUCTIVE COMMENTS AND DISCUSSIONS LIKE IN THE ARTICLE ABOUT ZEGG.  I WILL NOT CENSOR THIS ARTICLE AS IT IS WRITTEN FROM MY HEART AND AS OBJECTIVE - AND CRITICAL THE SAME TIME - AS I CAN BE AS A HUMAN BEING I AM JUST TRYING TO EXPRESS WHAT I SAW AND LEARNED AND WHAT IMPRESSED ME…

We said goodbye to our new friends of gaia in Almoreiras/Odemira and left - early in the morning to Tamera community, to meet the people of the “place of the children” there, that Rita (whom we met in the gaia place) is working together with.

We had had a great meeting with her - about education, skillsharing, her work at as Portuguese teacher at the school of Tamera and the education and skillsharing meeting she is organising every year in Portugal, and she had arranged a meeting for us at Tamera.

(more about the school in the end of the text)

We didn’t really know what to expect as Rita just told us to be at the big Aula at 10.00 o clock in the morning and that we would meet the people there to have brunch and talk together.

We had this imagination in our minds that Tamera would be similar to Schloss Glarisegg in Switzerland where we had the first contact with it (one woman who was living there before lived in Tamera for some years, some people of ZEGG in Germany were there, which is a sistercommunity of Tamera - see older posts!).

To explain this more clear: Glariseeg was a nice place with nice people, but very very commercial (as they had money problems) and also their definition of “community” didn’t really get quite clear to us - there seemed to big definition and communication problems amongst the people there.

Tamera is totally not like this.

It is, well… impressive! I am very happy that I saw this place and quite sure that I want to live and study here for some months one time in my life. I am hundred percent sure there is a lot of things to learn from these people and just to be in this nature for a while could be one of the biggest gifts I can receive from life.

The nature and permacultural design they set up there, including artificial lakes, is incredible. The technics they are experimenting with are amazing. The place attrackts old people the same way as it attrackts young people, and also families.

The infrastructure is more then amazing and the people we met were all really open and hospitable, trying to introduce and integrate us from the very first moment and offering help all the time. It is a very special way of treating each other.

How can this be possible? There is a lot of explanations and some are really pessimistic - many people in Germany blame ZEGG to be a sect with a lot of hierarchies, etc.

I was only there for 1 day and I cannot judge, but I got a very different picture about this.

I will try to put it into words…

We came to Tamera through the jungle of “dirt roads” which are leading there- of course too late!

We met a friendly (German) guy in the children space who knew who we are, looked on his watch and said : “oh, then you are quite early”. I was not sure if he meant it ironic, but he explained us where to go to hang out for having some coffee, a place next to the big Aula. We were confused and went there and found a nice room with people, also children, hanging out on couches and colourful carpets and having breakfast, some children playing next to it.

We went to the bar to find out what was happening and met Rafael, who worked at the bar - the (German) guy (from Munich), who very first invited us to Tamera via myspace as he was very interested in our tour and then did not reply any more.

We had a small talk, wondering still if we should not got to the Aula, until we asked someone and they said: “oh, but it is only 9 o clock!”. Haha… we had confused the Portuguese time and set Carlos alarm on the mobile that still had Spanish time one hour earlier instead of one hour later. So instead of being to late we were much too early, as we had won 2 hours of time!

We were surprised and happy about this funny coincidence and stayed a while to chat a bit with Rafael. At 10 there was a “Matinee” in the Aula, that looks a bit like a crazy expressionist kind of church, with benches etc. The Matinee is some kind of communication thing, reminding me of a weird mixture of a church, a school and a TV-show, with a pretty blond (German) moderator, an old (German) professor type of guy talking about how great the solarvillage is and in betwen singing some songs in a strange language about tsunami waves… whatever… in the end they have some announcements about events that take place in the next days.

Carlos and Sam were wandering round in the back and looking at all the infomaterials and stuff they sell there, Sam bought some books. Carlos couldnt understand any of what the people on stage said, as he didnt sit down where they made the translation as he would have been supposed to …

Waiting for the people to come and get us we looked at some of the great permaculture designs made by/inspired by Sepp Holzer, the lakes with all the small lines of vegtable gardens going around it… very beautiful and impressive

After we had the brunch (that we were invited to) and a meeting with a (German) guy from the childrens place, another (German) person from the solarvillage team and a (German) girl who is organising a youth gathering in Tamera in this summer (who is as we later found out the doughter of Dieter Duhm).

The meeting was quite interesting and inspiring for both sides I think and I hope the people in Tamera will start to play skillsharing games all the time

We heard a lot about the place, how it is organised and so on…

The place was founded by Sabine Lichtenfels and Dieter Duhm about 15 years ago - and for this comparably short time it has developed an incredible infrastructure and group dynamic. Especially after travelling so many other places I can say this..

Most of the people - of which about 80% are Germans- live in their vans, some also built own houses or huts, the students share big sleeping halls. Also it seems to be quite to change your living place - if you have an own space - every once in while, like every few months…

To live in a van or not have an own space at all can be quite comfortable I guess, as there is lots of great and well organised community spaces - a working example of functional living.

The ecovillage is growing quickly and at the moment consists of 200 people and 25 children.

The organisation is quite structured and touph: Tamera organises in 5 groups: 1. the solar village, this includes all kind of technical infrastructure. 2. The place of the children, this includes the school and building a childrens community in Tamera with own spaces for the children to organise themselves. 3. The media team, including all kinds of publicity as well as fundraising, etc, 4. Then there is one team that takes care of the very basic needs, like food, gas, etc. 5. the carrier circle, which consists of at least one person from all of the other groups and takes basic decisions about the project.

All of the groups have own “forums” every day (!), the main information system in Tamera - this means: meetings where they can talk about everything, also their feelings, fears, wishes, etc and show themselves in a honest way, without having to hide. Rafael explained to us that it looks like this: people go in the middle of the circle of people and act their feelings, without being themselves by that time. hen the others mirror him/her what they think is going on with the person.

So the people get to know each other in a very intense and close way.

There is also forums sometimes where all the people of Tamera come together, then there is the Matinees and it seems there is cultural events, workshops etc almost every day.

Unlike Glarisegg, the people share almost everything, from their skills to their houses, without money being part of the game.

There is a kind of big financial collective for the basic needs like food, etc, and if you are a member of the community you have full responsibility to care for the common household.

How do you get a member of the community? As far as we found out there is 4 statusses you can have in Tamera: a guest, which means you pay 10 Euros a day including everything, or a student, which means you pay 450 Euros a months including everything plus a deep education in everything you want to learn there, or a co-worker, which means you are working for the community and are already in the financial collective, taking lots of responsibility. And last: a full member of the community.

I could not fully figure out how you get to a higher status but what is sure is that you have to start as a student and that it will be a long process until you are fully accepted.

One of the most interesting, most well-known and discussed facts about Tamera is that they try to prove that Monogamy is not the best way of living community life: the “free love” in the community.

As Rafael puts it: “we are creating a love network here. The woman I love is together with a man that I love, and he is together with another woman he loves. Another man is together with another woman I love” and so on ….

As an article about Tamera sais: it is not about fuckin round, it is about a love and trust that stays even when you fall in love again…

As Rafael sais: many communities dont work because they dont work with the most basig topics that make communities be strong or break: love, sexuality and trust.

In Tamera, it seems to work.

You are free to have as many and whatever kind of realionships you want at the same time - people will respect it and help you to learn about it. The freedom of the individuum is worth a lot, and you are kind of expected to work on yourself and try to get rid of your feelings of possesing other people.

After the meeting we got a guided tour through Tamera by Simon, (a German) of the solar village, who moved to Tamera with his mother first time when he was 13 and feels connected with the place since then. He is now about our age, a student and about to become a co-worker. He looks very urban and stylish, like most of the people here - unlike in many of the other places we visited, where people often dont give so much about their look - or at least have a totally different look!

People here sometimes look a bit hippy, but not too much…

Being asked the question how it feels to get here and seeing this other kind of love when you are used to a “normal” society life Simon just sais: “well, I dont know. I grew up with it”. But he imagines it to be quite confusing. Some people come here in search of exactly this free love and deep community- others come for other reasons and here they are confronted the first time with “free love” and a deep interaction and honesty in between people.

These other topics people come for are for instance: great technical developments, like a solar water pump or a greenhouse that produces hot oil to cook or produce electricity. An amazing permaculture landscape, that will only get more and more beautiful in the next years when the fruit trees grow…

And amazing arts, like the ones we saw in the arts place up on the hill, where we also talked to Mara (the girl of the meeting before) and another (Portuguese!) girl again, and where we also climbed on a tour with a great view and got invited for some nice Spaghetti.

For just having planned to stay for some hours for a meeting is was quite late already, so we decided not to leave on this same day.

We talked a bit with Rafael again, about how he build up the internet network here, electricity supply (by now Tamera is not connected to the public electricity net!) and also about brueckenschlaeger, our partners in Berlin, which he was very interested in (and hopefully gives us some feedback about corporate identities ).

Sam and me then just fell asleep in a huge tent with sports matresses where we were woken up by a bunch of (German) children, singing: “2 Felixe, 2 Felixe” and by the guy we met very first, who told us how to get to the Aula. The children wanted to do sports, so we got up and left the place. We spread some tsolife flyers all over Tamera and went on…

Some more words about these children and their school:

the schools concept is great. The way it works is quite dynamic, the children moreless decide by themselves what they want to learn. The adults try to support them.

There is some “teachers” there who are their trust persons, they can come t and talk about everything, they live very close with each other and know each other well. Those are e.g. also the persons they can come and talk about sexuality.

7 of the children took part in a pilgrimage in Israel and saw all the children there suffering - they decided they have to do something against this. What they did is to make a theater play, tour through Germany and play it.

Then they decided they want to play the theatre in Portugal too - this is how they got motivated to learn Portuguese and this is why Rita, who brought us to Tamera, is working there: she is Portuguese teacher.

The children now also found out, that there is TV and icecream in the other, the state school, of the region, Now they want to go there. “Why not?” the adults say, and arrange that they can go.

“They have to find out themselves if they want to stay there” the teachers say “and if they stay, they will learn Portuguese!”

There might be many rumours about Tamera, I could not find any of them be true.

Which does not mean they are not, but I am sure they are not for the biggest part of people there.

People there are all different, all very individual, all seem to be very free spirits.

Asked about hierarchies in the community they say there is the kind of natural hierarchies that grow out of responsibilies and knowledge hierarchies, but they wouldnt know what else.

The statement that the role of the women in Sabine Lichtenfels philosophy is quite bad - a sexual object for the man - for me didnt prove to be true. Women there seem to be selfconfident, proud and happy there. I will definetely study some of the texts to get deeper into it, but for me it seems Tamera is just experimenting with roles, instead of trying to ignore their existance, like many other gender groups tend to do.

I was only in this place for a day, but my impression is an overwhelming one.

I met 2 people that were a bit stange (which happens to you in any place!) and all the rest of the people were great, undogmatic and more open than in most other places I visited. Whenever people asked us how long we want to stay it turned out to be only for organisational reasons or for helping us along, never for questioning that we are there.

Tamera has big plans: its main aim is to create knowledge, for another society, knowledge that can be of use in all over the world, like for example simple solar technologies that can easily be used in the third world.

They want to create -and alreayd offer- a realistic alternative, which means: one, that is attractive for people. One, that fulfills their need for a certain live standart, that they would have to give up in many other alternative places and offers a higher security than the normal society can offer to them.

In the “Global Campus”, a network of ecovillages, it should be possible in future to learn all about sustainable living in communities.

Tameras main research: community building, love and trust. Creating knowledge and tools for a community structure that works.

Asked if he thinks that knowledge which is created in Tamera is kept secret and blockes Rafael answers that he is very sure about this. Also he thinks that all these media campaigns against Tamera are part of this.

I cannot tell, but I know for sure: I wish them the best luck with their experiments

and hope they will create a lot of knowledge to share.

Last 5 posts by anja

• Que pasa? - December 15th, 2009
• project update - July 22nd, 2009
• erste Infoveranstaltung in München / first info event in Munich - June 21st, 2009
• back in the land of rain - June 6th, 2009
• game over ... the last day - May 31st, 2009