Hejhej!! I got back yesterday from an awesome week-end trip: Vaxjo (with 2 dots on the a and the o – pronounce “Vaekroe”), the greenest city in Europe, then a place called Mundekulla, sort of conference/’retreat’ place in beautiful woods. (photo link at end of post).
Last week was action-packed with a lot of group work, presentations and test, which called for some celebration on Thursday night... Karaoke!! Anyway back to the trip story:
Departure point: BTH (uni) in Karlskrona at 7:30 Friday morning! A big double-deck bus took us straight to a presentation just next to one of Vaxjo’s lakes. On the menu; how it came to be named the greenest city in Europe, what they did to their surrounding environment, policies and energy management, budget allocation etc... As far as the 1st point is concerned, it was the BBC who wanted to make a show about the “greenest city in Europe” and they were pointed to Vaxjo... hence the city got more and more attention, which in turn made them take the idea onboard and take further actions to stay that way.
Some impressive things we saw there were buildings essentially built from wood, including structure, walls, insulation etc... we’re talking 8 storey buildings!! It was quite impressive. Energy for the city is 90% renewable, mostly bio-energy, some solar, wind, hydro etc... We visited the local power-plant; similarly to the bagasse in Mauritius, they basically burn wood-chips to run a turbine. Following the visit they gave us a presentation. I must admit I don’t remember anything because I was dosing off and struggled not to be a disgrace to the presenter hahaha!!
During the 1st presentation of the day however, it was said something I really liked: "we don't need to wait for international consensus to move forward, why wait?"
More information here, it's worth checking out:
We got to walk around Vaxjo for an hour and we took off for Mundekulla, a retreat centre 10km southwest of Emmaboda.
Photo courtesy of Mundekulla: http://www.mundekulla.com/
This ‘retreat centre’ hosts conferences, seminars, music festivals and other gatherings. All the buildings are made of wood, including oak, and along with the surroundings the place feels really warm and suited for relaxation, conversation, and... party!! We stayed there Friday night through to Sunday afternoon. Our group being quite big we stayed in different houses. I stayed in the restaurant house (top of photo), where there are a few rooms with 2 to 4 (5?6?) beds/mattresses, and a big room upstairs with about 8 mattresses. Our workspace was in the building to the right of the photo – will post a link to a photo album soon.
Friday night we enjoyed our 1st copious organic (vegetarian) meal, and then the owner – Peter – played some music for us. I can’t really remember what most of the group did after... they must have stayed up playing music or something like that. A few of us decided to go for a sauna session!! On the photo above you can see a small pond (bottom left). The sauna is wood-fired, in a little wooden house (yeah everything is wood!), there is grass on the roof too which looks awesome. After melting (I had puddles of sweat at my feet after half an hour) in 52 degree heat some of us jumped in the pond... worst thermal shock ever!!! I must have been out faster than I fell in and raced back inside where it took a few minutes to feel warm again haha. By that time I was more than ready for bed...
Saturday we had a group assignment: present ‘stories from home’. The idea was to make groups by continents or region where you have a sense of belonging. I was in the Africa group, with 3 girls from Gana, Nigeria and Tanzania (Charlotte, Fumilayo and Evelyne), one South-African (Andrew) and a fellow Mauritian (Jovin). We had to talk about the uniqueness of our region, the achievements, the challenges, what it might look like in a desirable, sustainable future, and what might be done to get there i.e. what to keep and change. We talked for most of the day, learning a lot from each other on the differences and common points about our countries. The thing is we had little time left to prepare a presentation!... We followed the instructions structure, and Jovin suggested a Mauritian dance to finish with: ‘Li tourne li tourne’!!!
After another superb diner followed by a race to finish washing up (we had to do the dishes there) and rehearse our dance, presentations started at 8:30. The variety and creativity used by the different groups was amazing. ‘Canada’ used a flashback idea, where they were in that sustainable future, reminiscing today’s challenges etc... ‘Europe’ had struggled to agree on many things, which in the end they acted brilliantly in their presentation! ‘USA’ adapted a song (anyone who was there please remind me the name if you know it!) and other groups all had clever ideas of getting the story across to the audience who had a lot of fun.
Peter played more music for us afterwards and made us dance which was really cool and the party kicked on with drums then ‘disco’!! A group went to the sauna, including some till 5am, nice work!! I was out of action at about 1am. Group work and day-long discussion really take it out of you!
Sunday after breakfast we packed up, washed, went for a walk in the surrounding woods (seen the most cartoon-perfect mushrooms) and had lunch (hehe, more food :D). Later we had a ‘Leadership thread’ session; talk and exercises on deep listening, and U Journey, a succession of questions aimed at clarifying one’s situation, aspirations, and progress. Great stuff... we went over schedule limits though so we cleaned as fast as possible and left for Karlskrona at about 6:30.
Note on the owner of the place (Peter, with Anne his wife on the photo above) who was super cool and inspiring. At 26, after studying the native Americans, he returned to Sweden and decided he wanted to live closer to nature, rather than having a ‘career’ in a big city like the rest of his friends. His family had an old holiday house near Emmaboda, where he lived very alone for nearly a year. In 1998, with is dad they bought the Mundekulla property (not named then), restored the main 200yo house with the help of the region funds for historical heritage, and slowly acquired ‘recycled’ modules for new buildings. In his time of solitude he also created a lot of music, which surely helped with the project. I was impressed by his far-reaching aspirations and ability to work from his vision. He told us how he learned from the native Americans; ‘think for the 7 following generations’. Many thanks for the experience. Mundekulla btw means ‘World on the hilltop’.
SOME PHOTOS: http://picasaweb.google.com/105026054672533308619/SeptemberMSLSFieldTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCKjsyL2hm86M6wE#
PS: I think I’ll skip telling the story of the 1st few weeks I haven’t talked about. It seems appropriate to write about them later, as a ‘flashback’. In general it has been filled with classes, group work, getting to know the individuals in our group (ongoing process!) and getting used to our new home. I feel extremely lucky to be with such great people, in a stunning place and high quality education for sustainability, which I believe is the only way for humanity to progress on many levels. I will post a summary of the core concepts soon.
Hey Xav
ReplyDeleteEnjoying reading your adventures!
bisous
Jo