Wednesday 25 November 2009

at 08:32 Labels: Posted by WanderingFamily

"... You will have a great time here because the house is situated in countryside of breathtaking beauty and the people are lovely and everything is so tranquil and peaceful. ..."

This passage is from an email sent to us by a WOOFer who was staying in a Vegan commune in the mountains. We decided to make it our first stop in France, on our way north.

The name of the commune translates to 'Friends of Gentleness and Harmony', and though it was never a problem being vegan in other situations, we were happy to be in a place which is vegan by definition, where we never have to ask questions and verify ingredients, and where the usual diet related conversations and jokes could be skipped.

After a few hours ride from Barcelona, we got off the train at Perpignan. Waiting for someone to pick us up, we spotted a man carrying in a self-made sling (from two rings and a piece of cloth, similar to ours) a diaperless child and a cloth shopping bag... Hmm.. he must be going where we are going... and indeed once a truck painted with doves showed up, we all approached it.

We found many things in common with Wayne, who with his family is in search for a suitable community to settle. He was very progressive in his ideas of how he wanted to raise his daughter and live his life, and many things we talked about were new and eye-opening for us. He was also vegan and his daughter was born at home, just the three of them.

After a stop at an organic produce distributor, getting wholesale organic fruits and vegetables(!), we started the ascent to the Pyrenees mountains. El-Faitg (pronounced El-Fatch), the name of this farmstead, is 850m above sea-level, 60km north from the coast. It was indeed breath-taking to stand there, and look around - snowy mountains, huge forest, no neighbors to be seen or heard, just birds, singing all day long.


The house was huge and we've probably only seen half of it. There were many rooms and levels, each one painted differently, usually with bright colors, doves, long-haired people holding hands, and words of virtue such as compassion, order, humor, honesty, etc. The house even came with its own chapel which they converted into a Christ-free spiritual place.

It's been quite comfortable in our room because we could leave Omo locked in the closet for the whole day (we don't carry a play-pen) and she was such a happy girl once we opened the doors!

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