Permaculture....I realized I haven't elaborated on what it is exactly. It's not easy to define, but in class we called it a "design approach to create a sustainable human habitat and planet".
Essentially, we have been learning a little bit about many different systems and aspects under permaculture, and how to put it together into a design for sustainability. This could be for one project (ie: making a pond) and how to make it sustainable; or it could be for a whole farm, or even urban living. It would be impossible to cover every detail in this 2 week course, but it is quite extensive and gives enough information to be able to (with practice) create a fully sustainable piece of land.
We are learning about building soil; composting; aquaculture; natural building; rain water harvesting; grey and black water purifying; cropping; seed saving; forest farming; biodiversity; animal husbandry... So much. Though we are only receiving an overview of these individual subjects, the real point of the course is to understand how to "design" the land so all these parts can be connected and work together with as little input from people as possible. It's extremely fascinating, and both Ben and I have been really inspired to learn more. It's really the direction out planet needs to go; creating the skills and resources to be able to meet our own needs at the local community level. To be independent of corporations, synthetic products and imports from china. Everything we are learning makes perfect sense and is much easier than most would expect it to be. did you know that you can get chickens and pigs to till your garden for you? That you can easily build a water catchment system in which you will always have free water and it could be pumped by the kids playing on the teeter totter out back? So many ingenious ideas... Really fun to brainstorm.
The course is taught by an american with a lot of experience in permaculture, especially in the developing world. There are 12-15 students, the 3 in question come and go depending on their schedules. Half the class are locals or native Indians. Very exciting! The rest are fellow travelers, mostly from the states; and then one from Israel and one from Mexico.
We just finished day 5 out of 13 and we both love the course. We have a day off and we are finally going to make it to the temple where the famous Bodhi lives. We still haven't been there! We haven't had a chance having been sick and in class.
Spring is in the [polluted] air, and It's getting really hot here (100+degrees). In the summer, it can get up to 130 dgrees! Admittedly , we are both really looking forward to getting up to the mountains of Dharamsala soon. Hoping for fresh Himalayan air...oh, the mere thought!
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