The Tribal Life

Things have been quite busy for me here at the workcamp in Germany and I have been meaning to write blogs while here. I have had so little time to write and so much to write about that it has been difficult to post anything. So then, read at your own risk because this is quite a long blog with many thoughts spread over many days that make up the whole of this blog. I also cannot spell check this either so there may be many more mistakes than usual.

This place is basically a large home consisting of a couple of large buildings and smaller caravans for many different families and individuals who have decided to give up a traditional western lifestyle for a life that is more tribal in nature. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and stay here in the community, but those that do come need to contribute to the society here. Contributing consists of many different activities, but mainly it means helping out with whatever work that needs to be done within the community, e.g.: cooking, cleaning, toy production and the construction, or rather, renovation of the community houses. Like I said, everyone who comes here is welcome, however, it is a Christian community and was started by a pastor in the 1970s who felt that his message of Jesus and God was not getting through to his church members and felt that in order to better serve and teach the work of Jesus and the bible that people had to live a life where everything is shared.

Today the people of this community do share everything they have with those that are here which includes their food, shelter, time, energy and money. There is a core group of people that run things here and make the greater decisions for the rest of the community. These people are members. Not everyone here is a member and only those that are of the Christian faith are allowed to become members. From what I understand, the only two differences between a person who lives here in the community and a person who is a member is: members give everything they own to the community and have made a vow to themselves and god that they will stay here for the rest of their lives (although this vow has been broken by members in the past). Becoming a member then allows you a vote when the community needs to make a decision about something. Overall though, the main thing that guides them is the bible and their faith, it seems. Not even the children that are born here and grow up here are members. The children that live here go to public school and are made to leave the community once they become a certain age to give them the experience of living outside of the shared lifestyle. Of course, should they choose to come back after a time, they are certainly welcomed back as part of the community. In order to become a member the entire group of existing members must vote unanimously to allow you to join. If one person does not feel like you should be allowed to be a member then you would be denied, however, that does not mean that you are not allowed to live here. From what I understand, you could live your whole life here in the community without becoming a member and everyone is okay with that.

Years ago when the community was first established, money was made for the community through "normal" jobs that the members still had working in the western world. This money was used for everyone in what was the community at the time. However, after a while, more and more people started coming to the community to live. People came that needed constant attention because they were drug addicts or alcoholics or who had just gotten out of prison and had no where to go. Over the years, more and more of the community members left their normal jobs and started staying full time as people within the community taking care of eachother. Alas, the money needed to come from somewhere so the members started thinking of things they could do in order to sustain their livelyhood. They wanted to do work that was easy for everyone to participate in regardless of their background, eductation and skill level so that all the community could help with the work. It was important to them they did work that did not harm the environment and used local natural sustainable resources. It was also very important that their work was helping not only the community but the rest of the world around them as well. It was with these thoughts in mind that the community members decided that they would construct wooden toys for schoolage children. It started out as a small experiement developing hand carved toys for sale. Today they have a large woodshop factory here next to the building I am in right now which produces and supplies wooden products to over 2500 schools within Germany.

Most of my time here in the community is spent on the renovation of one of the houses here on the grounds. This is a building where families once lived and will live once more when the work is completed. The 3 people overseeing the work within the building plan to have the work finished before December in hopes that the community population that is living in caravans currently will have a much more warm and comfortable place to live for the winter time. Work in this house consists of: taking what is called "tapetta" off of the walls in the house, which is basically a thicker form of wall paper, installing wooden beams on the interior and exterior walls, installing insulation on the interior and exterior walls, and installing bamboo on the the walls of the house. There was also a lot of lifting and moving and cleaning jobs in the first week of work here. It is now my thrid week here and I am mainly working on putting up bamboo which is a rather tiresome task. In order to do the job right would take a very very long time, but I there is no time to waste.

Work for everyone in the community starts at 7:30 in the morning Monday thru Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are free days for most people. I thought waking up in the early hours of the morning was going to be much more difficult for me then it is. I allow myself plenty of time in the morning so that I do not need to rush by waking up at 6:00. I make myself breakfast (some "hafer floken", which is oat meal), then I prepare coffee, tea and bread for the other volunteers since I am always the first to wake up. This seems to work out better for me compared to my other volunteer members because I am always ready to work at 7:30, but some of them have problems in the morning as they try to sleep in as long as they can and then rush to eat and get ready. Mostly, they are late and make us all look bad and lazy. Despite some of the problems with tardiness, I really enjoy all of the other volunteer participants in this workcamp. We have a wide range of people from many different countries, but they all speak English, which is great for me. They are all very nice people and we seem to all get along very well.

The people in the community, on the other hand, do not all speak English. Most of them understand a little bit of English, but not much. There are a few whom I can converse with where we can both understand eachother most of the time. The lack of communication does seem to make things difficult as it is hard for me to integrate into their community and I feel like an outsider all the time. I guess this is something I need to get used to considering I am going to be heading to China where I will not only have a communication problem, but I will be an obvious outsider based on my looks alone. Despite our communication difficulties, the people here are very nice and welcoming.

The entire community is very time oriented. There is a schedule of what is going to happen, when and they stick to it. Like I said, work promptly begins at 7:30, then there is a break at 9:45 for some tea and bread which lasts until 10:00 (for us workcampers is seems to last until 10:10 most days). Work then continues until 12:00 when lunch begins then there is a break directly after lunch which lasts until 2:00. I was unaware of this break the first day we started work and went out to continue the job I was working on. It did not take me long to realise that I had missed something, but I continued working anyway only to find that people were looking at me like I am crazy. There has been a few times when I have been working on projects that I wanted to do just a little bit more of or maybe finish before I left for a break and it almost seems to upset some of the people here that I am working during a break. This was a shock to me because the general feeling I have experienced in my work back home with regards to breaks is that I should not be taking any in the first place. At home when I take a break I feel like I am doing something wrong and I feel like my bosses are wondering why I am not working. Here it is completely different; there is something wrong with me if I do not stop at exactly 3:30 when there is another break until 4:00 or at 5:00 in the evening when work is over for the day. They live very close to the clock and a change from the schedule is an insult to them, it seems.

All of the breaks in work are filled with eating. When you are not working you are eating. Thankfully most of the food that is made here seems to be fairly healthy, but some of the food that we have had at dinner time has not been all that great for my body. I have eaten more cheese in the last week then I have compared to all the time that I spent in the UK. I suppose it is good there is so much food because we are expending a lot of energy during the day with all of our work and without all of that food it would probably be much more difficult.

The people here have chosen a life much different from that of their western world peers. They have chosen it willingly and with a lot of thought. I wish to understand what has brought each and every one of the people here to this community. I think what they are doing here is fantastic. They live a life here without violence and greed. The area gives off an auroa of safety, comfort and security. Even from the very first day I arrived here I felt very comfortable and safe. I did not and do not feel a need to lock up my belongings. Any of them could easily rob me blind, but I know that that will not happen. It is like one big family here. They are all very kind and respectful. The arts are very prevalent in the community, especially music and song. It seems that everyone here sings. I walk around and all I hear are people humming or singing. A lot of people here play the guitar. There are also drums and flutes and pianos. Twice now there have been community dancing nights which everyone is invited to. In short, their lives seemed to be centered around eachother, family and christianity.

The people here in the community look at the western world and feel that there is something wrong with our way of life. They believe that they have found a better way, and I tend to agree with them. I feel that they are certainly on to something very good and important here. To me it seems to be a return to our roots when people lived in small units consisting of many families. Perhaps it is just bred into us that this is how it has been done for centuries and this is where we feel right and proper. Somehow the industrialization of the world has ripped us apart from what makes us human and we have become so transfixed with the accusition of money, things, wealth and power that we have forgotten what really matters. Seeing these people and how they live gives me hope for the future of mankind in general. These people know nothing of greed. The things they do in their lives is for the good of all the people around them, not just for themselves. However, they would not be here if not for their religion and their complete devotion to God and Jesus; for me, this is a little worrisome. It is sad for me to think that the only reason most, if not all, of the people that choose to come to this community do so because they feel it is what God wants them to do. If these were non-religious people they would not be here nor would the community exist. I cannot help but wonder what types of lives these people would be leading today if they had no religion. I would like to think that the people here would have found a way to live a life like they are doing here, but I do not think that would be the case. I feel that they would still be living a traditional western life-style...although I could be wrong and I hope that I am.

Christianity is the main driving force of this community. When there is a question to be answered the people pray until they are given and answer by God and Jesus. What ever answer they are given by their faith is the answer that they go with. This form of problem solving worries me. To me it means that it is not up to me as the individual making a choice and solving a problem, it is up to God or Jesus. When a choice is made and things are done, they are not the decisions made by a people or person but rather by God and Jesus. I feel this is a disconnect from responsibility for ones actions. Like so many other people in this world who make decisions and take actions not in their own name but in the name of their religion this community does the same. Their actions are not their own, but of their faith and their religion, therefore it is much more easy for the mind to justify immoral or unethical social behavior. Thankfully there are no suicide bombers here in this community that I have seen, but their line of thought is a cut off the same block I am afraid.

I find it especially interesting to speak with the youth of this community. Not just because most of them speak better English then their parents, but to see their views on the western world and the state of our society as a whole. They never grew up in a traditional western household so they have a unique position to be able to view us objectively. They look at us and cannot understand why we live like we do. Why we choose to disregard our fellow man and live a life of selfishness and isolation. The youth feel very privliged to have been born and raised here. If you ask them whether they wish they were born into a traditional western family they all say no. All except one of them, apparently. I have yet to speak with the person about it, but apparently one of the children resents being born here. I am very eager to speak with him about it and obtain his views on this community. I hope to be able to do so before I leave.

I feel like the way people live their lives here is a step in the right direction for the people of the western world, however, there are some things that I do not feel are right here in the community. Mainly the problems revolve around the youth of the community. I was very surprized and pleased to find that the children here are not home schooled, but are sent to public school. School is about the only time they have away from the community though. The children here are only allowed to leave the community for 2 weeks out of the year. One girl in particular here has friends in the south of Germany that she rarely ever gets to see because she cannot leave. To me this seems a bit to much. I understand that work needs to be done within the community, but to only give your children 2 weeks out of the year to be away from the same thing day in and day out just seems a little to restrictive. There is also a rule that no child is allowed to date which basically means that if you are a child that lives here and you have yet to finish with school and leave the community you are not allowed to have a relationship with any other child. To me this rule represents a fatal flaw in the thinking of the community as a whole. The rule was made after a young couple within the community accidentally got pregnant. Due to this incident it was then decided that no child within the community shall be allowed to date until they leave, period. First of all, I do not believe it is a good idea for any parent to make a rule that is impossible to enforce and seeing as how the children are away from the community most of the day during school time this rule becomes impossible to enforce. Secondly, I believe it to be extremely important for children to learn and explore relationships especially once they are around highschool age. There are important life lessons to be learned with regards to relationships and I feel the sooner these lessons are learned the better of the person will be. Children here do not have the opportunity to learn those lessons until they leave the community.

It is now my final week here in the community. Most of the volunteers have already left. I will be leaving this weekend to go somewhere else in Germany before heading to China the following weekend. It has been a different experience living here without the other volunteers. Before there was always something to do and something going on after the work of the day; now there is nothing going on in the evening most of the time. In a way it is good because I then have time to write this blog which I started two weeks ago but have not had a chance to finish. I do miss the other volunteers though and there are times when I wish that they were still here.

Overall this community is a very pleasant and interesting place to be and live. I could not see myself living here in this particular community, however, I can see myself living in a place very similar to it.