I'm leaving in just about three weeks, and I didn't know I could get this excited for something! As stressful as getting ready for this semester has been (especially since I am doing it all from Eagle River, WI, at camp) I am starting to feel ready: flight's been booked, applied for my student visa, started making introductions via email with the other 3 kids, and am making some headway on my pre-semester assignments. I've been doing a lot of reading, and just finished the first draft of my first "learning journal entry" so I thought I would share it with you all. I titled it "The Eco-Village Attitude":
For the last year, since I’ve known I would be spending a semester at Kibbutz Lotan, I have been subject to countless jokes about the “mud hut” I will be living in, and the waterless toilets I will be using. Many of these jokes are my own, however I know that what I am about to experience is far more than taking eco-showers and cooking in a solar-oven. An eco-village is an attitude; a kehilah (community) that says “we can do it” when facing a challenge.
Kibbutz Lotan, a member of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), specializes in environmentally friendly practices from composting and recycling organic waste to alternative building materials and an eco-campus neighborhood. The people at Lotan have committed to the concept of tikkun olam (repairing the world). However, just as in many other ecovillages, Lotan is dedicated to not only environmental activism. Residents of Lotan are also passionate about social justice and equality, striving to raise quality of life for people both on and off the kibbutz. This ecovillage is one of only two kibbutzim in Israel that is a member of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, and written in Lotan’s Mission Statement is an effort to create a “progressive expression of Jewish religion and culture into our day-to-day life through mitzvot.” Lotan’s vision is irrefutably bright, yet like all other ecovillages and kibbutzim, Lotan faces many difficulties.
There is no universally accepted definition of the term eco-village; they vary from traditional communities attempting to maintain small footprints to research retreat centers to living laboratories. However, most have many commonalities: Firstly, maybe most importantly, work in ecovillages is about process (not product). This means that ecovillages are not perfect, completed places, but instead communities on their own path towards success. Even the Findhorn Foundation eco-village, the community with the smallest environmental footprint in the modern world, is not entirely self-sustaining; “...if everyone on Earth lived like a Findhorn Community member, we’d still need several planets to support our lifestyles” says Daniel Greenberg. Eco-villages are also linked by a number of features including group decision making, mindfulness practices, ecological designs and interests in social justice.
Many of my friends and family were surprised that I would be interested in spending four months at an eco-village. I am coming from a stereotypical suburban life––I “can’t survive” without my daily Starbucks coffee, hate bugs, and spend more time on my computer than is healthy. Nevertheless, I think that mine matches the eco-village attitude. I am strong willed, and when I set my mind to something I almost always find a way to achieve success. I am passionate about social justice and equality, and am creative in finding ways to solve problems. I love to learn hands on, and my experience with theater has helped me to appreciate a process-over-product way of thinking. Also, my time at a Jewish camp for 11 summers in a row has taught me the value of community.
I hope you will continue reading as I start to post more regularly when I get to Israel! It's weird trying to write papers from camp... not exactly the same mindset here as at school. However, it has been fun to start exploring what my next four months will be like! Here's a picture of the "dome-atories" I will be in.