It’s a utopian fantasy- discover a ghost town and rebuild it
in line with your ideals-, but in Spain where there are nearly 3000 abandoned
villages (most dating back to the Middle Ages), some big dreamers have spent
the past 3 decades doing just that.
There are now a few dozen “ecoaldeas” - ecovillages - in
Spain, most build from the ashes of former Medieval towns. One of the first
towns to be rediscovered was a tiny hamlet in the mountains of northern
Navarra.
It was rediscovered in 1980 by a group of people living
nearby who had lost their goats and “when they found their goats, they found
Lakabe”, explains Mauge Cañada, one of the early pioneers in the repopulation
of the town.
The new inhabitants were all urbanites with no knowledge of
country life so no one expected them to stay long. At first, the homes weren’t
habitable so they lived 14 in a large room. Slowly they began to rebuild the
homes and the gardens.
When they first began to rebuild, there was no road up to
the town so horses were used to carry construction materials up the mountain.
There was no electricity either so they lived with candles and oil lamps.
After a few years, they erected a windmill by hand, carrying
the iron structure up the hill themselves. “Even though it seems tough and in
some ways it was, but you realize you're not as limited as you think,” says
Mauge. “There are a lot of things people think they can't do without a lot of
money and there's never been money here.”
In the early years, they generated income by selling some of
their harvest and working odd jobs like using their newfound construction
experience to rebuild roofs outside town. Later they rebuilt the village bakery
and sold bread to the outside world.
Their organic sourdough breads now sell so well that today
they can get by without looking for work outside town, but it helps that they
keep their costs at a minimum as a way of life. “There's an austerity that's
part of the desire of people who come here,” explains Mauge. “There's not a
desire for consumption to consume. We try to live with what there is.”
Today, the town generates all its own energy with the
windmill, solar panels and a water turbine. It also has a wait list of people
who’d like to move in, but Mauge says the answer is not for people to join what
they have created, but to try to emulate them somewhere else.
“If you set your mind to it and there's a group of people
who want to do it, physically they can do it, economically they can do it. What
right now is more difficult is being willing to suffer hardship or difficulties
or… these days people have a lot of trouble living in situations of shortage or
what is seen as shortage but it isn't.”
(Source)
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