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The village

Life off the grid

No TV, no microwave, no freezer. Solar panels pump the water, wood fire cooks the food, and fabric is woven by hand. A community living lightly, and worth protecting.

A muddy lane winding between bamboo homes, with chickens wandering under the trees.

The village is built off-grid. They don't rely on electricity and fossil fuel the way I do. They don't watch TV. They talk to each other. The children play on the ground. Meals are cooked over wood fire and preserved in natural ways.

They grow plants and raise chickens and pigs as sustainable food. They even weave their own fabric by hand. I think many of us have forgotten this kind of life.

Firewood stacked high against a stilt house, fuel for the kitchen fire.
Pigs in a timber pen, part of everyday village life.
Stone steps climbing a green hillside between homes, a water pipe running alongside.
A hen and chicks foraging on a hillside path beside the bamboo homes.
Everyday life in the hills: firewood stacked for the kitchen fire, pigs in their pen, stone steps between the homes, and a hen with her chicks.

Sun and water

Their water comes up from underground through a motor pump driven by solar panels (donated, as it happens, from the USA). In the dry season the water doesn't always reach the far houses, so people come to wash and to fill tanks to carry home. They collect rainwater too, when there is rain.

It would be easy to see only the hardship. But there is real ingenuity and dignity here: appropriate technology, little waste, and a community held together by deep solidarity. It's a way of life worth protecting.

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