Chile

Two days ago I was speaking with a group of people on a Permaculture design course in Chile. Grifen Hope, an inspiring and energetic young man I met briefly at a LETS conference in 2006, has been in Chile for a couple of years now. He has been making good use of technology recently, and setting up Skype video calls for his design students.

When Grifen wrote and told me his students had been speaking with David Holmgren and Geoff Lawton (two people in the Permaculture world that I have huge respect for), I felt honoured that he was inviting me to follow in their footsteps. For an hour I fielded questions about Transition Towns and how it is growing in New Zealand, in which my video image from their side was a dark screen with a single bright spot from a naked lightbulb.

At the end, by way of hosting them in my place, I took the laptop out into the garden and onto the deck of the house we have been living in for the last few months.This was the view which greeted them, and I suspect from Grifen's comments part of what made him a little homesick.

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