Scott and I met several years ago through a mutual friend. However, it wasn’t until six months ago that we spent more than a few hours together. What we found when we participated together in the 2003 Creating Human Community retreat was that we each had a dream we wanted to pursue, that our dreams fit well together, and that we got along well with each other. Although many other people have also been involved with us on and off over the past year in developing the vision for Abundance Farm, most of them are not yet ready or not aligned closely enough to make the jump with us.

Scott and I have spent half of the past six months together. Half of our time together was in the US, and half on site researching Central America countries as potential sites for our project. When we completed the first leg of our site research together last month, we decided to set down in writing our vision for what we would like to create. Hence, this book.

Our dream is to live sustainably and harmoniously. Our dream is to have balanced lifestyles, including thinking, learning, teaching, working, writing, playing music, and childraising. Our dream is to have free time every day to spend in a beautiful place on earth we call home. Our dream is to understand our resource use and keep that resource use at a level with which we are comfortable. Our dream is to engage with technology and commodity consumption without becoming enslaved to technology or commodities or consumption. Our dream is to have regular interactions with a mix of old friends and new friends from around the world. Our dream is to participate in the development of global consciousness and the factors that support peaceful coexistence. Our dream is to grow and eat healthy food.

After many years of formal education and informal research, we are ready to create a place to live this dream. We have decided to do this by buying land in Panama and starting an agricultural and peace center called Abundance Farm (Finca Abundancia in Spanish).

Our dream is to get started. We give birth to this book, as we move into the world of living this version of our dreams.

Peter Christopher

Portland, Oregon

May, 2004

Our goal in writing this book is to illustrate for ourselves and others our vision for Abundance Farm. We recognize that reality may diverge from our vision, but we don’t consider that a sufficient reason not to write down our vision as we now see it. Indeed, we are even tickled by the possibility that this short book could help others to become part of the realization and modification of our vision.

We have categorized our writings into several main sections plus appendices. The main sections detail economic and legal plans, residency agreements, lifestyle considerations, and the reasoning for why we chose Panama. There is also a short section on the rationale and plans for the international exchange programs we plan to offer.

The appendices provide background history, philosophy, narratives, and practical supporting information. This includes descriptions of how this project fits into each of our personal histories, a prospective budget and timeline, fictional “narratives” describing future perspectives on Abundance Farm from the point of view of potential collaborators, and several philosophical writings illustrating our general worldview.

We have collaborated on the production of this book and jointly take responsibility for what it contains. Scott is the primary author for the section on ecology in the appendix. Peter is the primary author for the remainder.

Concerning language, we have chosen in this document to use the word “resident” and “project” rather than “member” and “community”. We also use “project” to refer to the physical farm we intend to create, whereas “book” refers to the current document.

We are indebted to our families and friends and teachers who have encouraged us and supported us. Thank you to the Devines and the Kaweckis (Peter’s family).

We are also appreciative of those who have offered us feedback and contributions as we have developed our vision over the past six months: Ryan Grant, Anita Loomis, AAron Godwin, Hudson Cress, Samantha Moller, Adina Gordon, Jerry Mintz, Guy Johnson, Meli Chang-Turpen, Joseph Lawrence, Lydia Petty, Vincent Hedger, Arnold Greenberg, Nanci Kuykendall, Kim Martin, Aric Spencer, Leah Calo, Daniel Lipton, Saowanee Sangkara, Vanessa DiDomenico, Laura Zanini, Chris Fitz, Andy Tarter, Dina Bueford, Galina Shavard, Jon Jonakin, Joel Gruver, Amy Stein, Ben Stein, Gilberto Alamencia, Ratibor Hartmann, Alexander Hartmann, Ron Mooney, Larry Robertson, Janet Lee, Glenn Lee, Anne Fazioli, Andrew Rasmussen, Morgan Ervin, Mara Madden, Rimmy Malhotra, Heart Akerson.

And finally, much thanks to those brave souls who have already been living their own version of the cooperative lifestyle dream. Thanks for conversing with us about your adventures and giving us food and shelter on our recent journey – at The Farm, Zendik Farm, Punta Mona, Pacha Mama, Cascada Verde, The Peace Farm, Finca Ipe, Longo Mai, Durika, Ecoforest, Falcon Blanco, Earthaven, Ganas, Finca Buena Vida.

Abundance Farm will grow slowly over 10-20 years to a maximum size of 50-100 permanent residents, plus 50-75 temporary residents. These residents will be from many countries of the world and will include a wide distribution of ages.

The initial land purchase for Abundance Farm will be 30-200 acres in 2004-2005, to be followed by additional purchases in coming years to a final size of approximately 1000 acres. About one third of the land will be used for agricultural production, one third for developing residences, businesses and common facilities, and one third retained for conservation.

Abundance Farm will aim to produce 75% or more of its food, materials for housing, and energy on site.

Temporary residents will arrange visits through informal and formal programs, living and working alongside permanent residents. These temporary residents will not be paying for their time at the farm. Rather, they will exchange labor for room and board, just like permanent residents. Our international exchange programs will be deliberate outreach efforts to bring foreign guests from diverse countries together at Abundance Farm to improve their English, to learn about global culture and sustainability, and to live happily alongside us for a period of a month to a year.

Investors will fund initial land purchases and provide capital for developing residences and businesses at Abundance Farm. Some investors may be residents at the farm, some may be foundations, and some may be friends. This structure provides an opportunity for persons of means to be personally connected to the ways their resources are employed and, in particular, to have these resources provide not only financial dividends, but progress towards sustainability and human unity.

Income from businesses will fund operating expenses and capital repairs, and possibly contribute towards land purchase and capital improvements.

If you would like to become involved, you can visit our website at abundancefarm.com. Project updates, contact information, and relevant links will be available there.

· Give investors (some or all of whom may be residents) a way to invest that supports the values of sustainability, human unity, and happiness

· Give investors return on investment and procedures for liquidity that match their investment criteria

· Allow visitors and new residents to visit and stay without paying money

· Have Abundance Farm businesses cover the operating expenses, as opposed to jobs or investments outside the farm

· Have capital available either from the Abundance Farm operating budget or from external sources for starting businesses, building facilities/dwellings, and making other land improvements such as planting trees and installing irrigation

· Ensure that residents cover operating budget through the Daily Minimum Work Requirement (DMWR), which should not total more than 40 hours per week (preferably 20 hours per week)

· Reward residents in relation to their contributions, allowing personal income from overtime labor above the DMWR

· Make use of the efficiency of shared resources when reasonable, including physical resources such as libraries, personal time such as group meals, and cost sharing such as medical emergencies.

· Administer so that expenses incurred for the pleasure of individuals or a subset of the residents shall be born by those making the choice (e.g. having children, travel, luxuries not provided by the operating budget)

· Allow for a diversity of lifestyles (including work and consumption levels and amount of personal space) but focus the main project on an environmental and social lifestyle that is fair in the sense of Kant’s Categorical Imperative applied to global economics and ecology (behave as if everyone would act just like you do)

· Conserve some land in its natural state

We plan to remain open to fixed-income loans and equity investments, although we expect that the initial land purchase will be based entirely on equity.

Traditionally, loans have a fixed rate of return and schedule for repayment and are often collatoralized with assets such as mortgages on property, whereas equity does not have a fixed rate of return or a schedule for repayment. In exchange for the drawbacks of not having a fixed rate of return or a certain method for repayment, equity usually has the additional benefits of greater control over the use of the assets and the possibility for a larger economic return.

At times, Abundance Farm will have a clearer idea of future income and may prefer loans. At other times, future income could be uncertain (as at the time of founding). Individuals may also have preferences based on their risk tolerance, investment horizon, and outside obligations. In consideration of this, we expect our preferred type of investments to vary over time.

One type of arrangement at a well-known intentional community called Twin Oaks, is to strive for an egalitarian arrangement for members. Twin Oaks requires members either to contribute the annual income from their assets to the community income or to hand over their assets as zero-interest loans to the community. We are not pursuing this avenue. In the future, we may be open to arrangements like at Twin Oaks, but at least in the initial stage of Abundance Farm, we will not have a sufficient base of equity to guarantee loan repayments. We expect that at least 50% of the assets of the farm will be equity investments, with the remainder as loans at founding and throughout the life of Abundance Farm.

There is one other option worthy of note: gifts. The land and capital startup costs of the farm could be partially financed by gifts. These could be made either directly to the farm (not tax-deductible) or as contributions to a separate nonprofit entity (tax-deductible), which could then either purchase equity or loan money (note the section on foundations in the Partner listing of the Appendix). The farm will also accept gifts for expenses incurred in the transportation and legal aspects of the international exchange program. But the farm will not accept gifts for general operating expenses or capital repairs.

We expect that investors will want to withdraw their investments from time to time. If they are residents, this might occur when they want to relocate elsewhere in the world. We would like to retain the standard corporate avenues for this withdrawal of equity investment. Equity and loans will be transferable to residents, nonresidents, or back to Abundance Farm itself. We would like for the purchase and sale prices of equity over time to match the value of the underlying assets. In the event of a lack of cash at the farm when an investor would like to withdraw an investment, we may be able to offer part of the land as a subdivision in lieu of cash. In general, however, we expect to be able to buy out investor shares at a fair price with cash within one year of any investor expressing an interest in redeeming shares. In some cases, these repurchases will be funded with cash on hand, and in other through sales of equity or issuance of loans to outside investors.

If the farm at some points has extra cash on hand and nothing to do with it, it is possible the corporation could pay a cash dividend to its shareholders. We do not, however, anticipate such an event in the near future.

Loans also have their own repayment terms in addition to being transferable.

Taking our goals as a basis, we have chosen a general structure of a for-profit corporation to hold the assets of Abundance Farm. Some of these details of the structure depend on the country in which we incorporate, which at the moment is planned as Panama. One country (or state) may have condominium laws that provide advantages over the corporate structure. Another country may have no condominium laws but favorable laws for general corporations. We have not yet researched these details in Panama, although we have been in touch with several individuals who think Abundance Farm can work in the form of a Panamanian corporation.

Who will have formal authority? The details of the legal structure again depend on what is available in the country where we settle. We expect Abundance Farm to have a corporate board of directors. We expect the shareholders will elect the board of directors annually, and that the board of directors will appoint the officers of the corporation (the president, secretary, and treasurer), who will formally be in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the farm. When the core group requests to take over any operational task with a reasonable method, the official corporation will transfer its responsibility. As long as the core group continues to carry out these responsibilities, the corporation and its officers will not interfere. We predict that most of the administrative tasks will be handled through various subgroups like a “kitchen committee” or through specific roles like a “tree nursery manager”, none of which will be formalized in the corporate bylaws. Among the responsibilities the residents will likely take on is the formation of residency agreements. We predict that the core residents will vote democratically on management decisions, such as the rights and responsibilities of residency, and delegation of tasks to particular individuals.

The legal entity, however, will be ultimately responsible for the use of its resources, and as such, the board of directors, acting through the officers of the corporation, will have the responsibility to evaluate the decisions of the core group and, if deemed necessary (hopefully never), the right to override the core group’s decisions.

We will strive to find responsibilities that individual people find pleasurable and in which they are capable. If we have important work that none of the capable people want to do, those responsibilities may end up being given more labor credit. In general, we’d like to use an auction system where every person bids the lowest amount of labor credit they would accept to do a particular job (per piece or per hour or per year depending on the job). Such an auction system would take place at frequent meetings that address the work that needs to be done. Some businesses and activities will eventually have their own work meetings.

Within the everyday operation of the farm, we expect to keep an experimental mindset, trying out alternatives and using what works best. This experimental attitude will apply to types of meeting processes and even types of leadership (for instance, rotating roles on a weekly basis).

One of our core values is that we want to be a working farm and not an educational facility. Certainly, education happens at a working farm and working happens at an educational facility, but ours will be based on the production of goods and the provision of non-teaching services. We don’t want to have workshops on personal development, agriculture, or lifestyle by which we earn income in exchange for sharing information or handing out certificates or degrees. We want to earn income by providing useful goods and valuable, non-teaching services to the wider world. (Sometimes it even seems that the value of the education received is inversely proportional to the amount the instructor is paid.) When we do have learning activities, we will pay our instructors nothing. See the list of business ideas in the appendix for specific possibilities. We plan to have some businesses that are able to use unskilled labor, so that our short-term residents can be productive. We also plan to have seasonal and temporary labor possibilities, for residents who choose to work many intensely (saving up work credit), then take time off without work.

We plan to have several types of residents. The main categories of residency are core group residents and extended group residents. The “core group” will live in dwellings owned by the farm, striving to keep expenditures of money and resources at a “fair share” of world consumption, working primarily in farm businesses; the “extended group” will live in their own dwellings near the farm, possibly on land bought from the farm or rented from the farm with short or long-term leases. We expect that both of us, Scott and Peter, will be in the core group, although at some point one or both of us may wish to realign ourselves as extended group residents.

The core group will have temporary and permanent residents. Some residents will be living on the premises for as short as a few weeks of every year, and the international exchange programs will bring in short-term core group residents for stays of one month to several years. When they are present, they will do work in accordance with the standard daily minimum work requirements (DMWR). The DMWR will entitle a core group resident to room, board, and use of facilities. Being a “core group resident” does not entitle a person to any equity or any other privilege, though some will begin as shareholders because of outside assets or, for doing more than the DMWR, will receive additional compensation in the form of either money or shares in the corporation.

Visitors are often a source of income for communities. Although we do want to have many visitors, we do not want Abundance Farm to be economically dependent on receiving guest fees from them. We want to put the visitors to work in the same way as permanent residents. The moment a visitor arrives at the farm, he or she becomes a core group resident. This applies both to the individuals who come on their own and to those who come as part of an international exchange program. They will be working just like we will be working. There will be no guarantee short-term residents can work “extra hours” for money beyond the minimum they will have to work for room and board, but at times extra work will be available. (In order to pay wages legally to foreigners, we will have to get work permits. This does not seem reasonable or a practical thing for short-term residents. Legally speaking, therefore, any compensation for overtime work will be classified as travel reimbursement.)

We would like to have people welcomed into being part of the project as soon as they arrive. They will be invited to group meetings, they will be entitled to vote as residents, and they will be able to participate in discussions. We suspect that meeting rules will evolve to have some minimum of efficiency, such as the establishment of a maximum percentage of time for each person to speak in each meeting. We do want new people to be able to participate, but if the participation of one particular individual, new or established, is substantially counterproductive to the conversation, we expect the meeting foreman will make an effort to bring that person into line or ask that person to refrain from speaking.

A person or small group will be empowered to coordinate short-term resident visits. This coordinator will be a contact for any questions and needs, and also be responsible for asking residents to leave if they are not abiding by their agreements with the farm. Indeed, there will be a contract that will specify the reciprocal rights and responsibilities of the farm and the individual, in general and in the specific case of the individual in question.

Initially, the basic residency agreement will be:

Provide adequate shelter to protect from weather and biting insects

Provide basic minimum of healthy food & water

Access to basic facilities

Have work available for residents to fulfill Daily Minimum Work Requirement (DMWR)

Provide safe place to store valuables (locked safe)

Fulfill DMWR

Don’t do anything illegal

Follow other rules established by core group

Being a shareholder does not entitle a person to room and board. It’s work that entitles a person to room and board. Essentially, each core group resident is an employee of the corporation.

We aim to keep the DMWR as low as possible, preferably as low as 3 hours per day. In order to do that, we plan to keep the benefits received in exchange at a minimum. Thus, initially there will be no health insurance or coverage of medical expenses, no retirement benefits, no personal allowance, no funding for individual recreational activities. We may at some point provide an “enhanced” option that includes some or all of these benefits in exchange for an increased DMWR, but we may prefer to structure the benefits separately to allow maximum individual freedom in design of personal lifestyles.

Individuals and families who have some alignment with the mission of Abundance Farm, but who wish to have greater autonomy, will reside in the Extended Zone. Properties in the extended zone will be owned or rented long-term by extended group residents, whereas all property in the core area will be owned by the corporation. Extended group residents will pay for building their own homes. They will often be financially independent of the farm, perhaps retired or working outside the farm.

Extended group residents may have arrangements for “board” with the farm proper and for other uses of the facilities. These will be paid for with a monthly fee or labor exchange. Extended group residents may be employees or shareholders but can also work full-time outside the farm. In terms of lifestyle, extended group residents may or may not seek to live at the average global consumption. Certainly, higher consumption could be fair, given a correspondingly high economic production. In the core group, however, we strive for moderate production and low consumption.

Guests who stay with extended group residents will not be required to work. Nor will they have the right to eat at the farm. If the guests do wish to use the farm facilities and eat at the farm, they will have to make some contribution just like extended group residents, which will be worked out with the core group. Otherwise, those guests are the responsibilities of their hosts in the extended group, not of the farm.

A common piece of advice from those who have started cooperative living ventures in the past is to begin by considering rules on drugs and animals. Here are our thoughts on these and some other categories related under the term ‘lifestyle’.

Having pets is not a priority for us for several reasons: possible disturbance to wildlife; financial outlay; noise; and allergies. In general, we will tell people not to bring pets, especially if they haven’t talked to the residents about it first. Pets will be the exception to the rule, and if there are any problems, the fallback is that the pets don’t belong. On the other hand, we don’t dislike pets per say, and provided they are well cared-for by owners and friendly to residents, we expect to be open to them living with us.

Agricultural animals are part of our vision. We will probably have animals in the fields and in shelters. We would prefer not to kill animals unnecessarily, but we might kill animals from time to time for food or because they represent a danger. Anyone morally opposed to having animals killed may propose alternate solutions (for instance, finding homes for male goats who would otherwise be sold for meat because of their lack of utility in a goat dairy herd), but that would be the responsibility of the persons with the moral qualms.

There are various levels of mind-altering substances and activities. On the one hand, we would like to give residents the freedom to make choices about their own mental and physical health. On the other hand, we have concerns about illegal activities threatening the farm’s ability to work towards its major goals. We also have concerns with different standards of behavior in a multicultural and multi-age setting. And finally, we have concerns with the net effects of drug use on human beings. Therefore, our bias is towards conservatism.

Although we do not necessarily see the wisdom of governments to create and enforce laws regulating drug use, we nevertheless want to abide by the laws of government. As such, we plan that no illegal drug use will be officially permitted. (Indeed, we favor the policy that no other illegal activities will be permitted on farm property either, perhaps unless we are willing to say in public and post on our website that we are doing it.)

We generally say that a healthy diet is “mostly raw, mostly fresh, mostly organic, not too much food, and tasty.” A healthy diet could be vegan, 100% raw, and completely well-balanced, but we don't think it has to be in order to be healthy. We do think a healthy diet makes for enjoying our own lives, and we aim to eat a healthy diet at Abundance Farm. Human society often has a terrible time with putting dietary advice into practice, and as a result humans often have major diet-related health and emotional problems. We don’t have all the answers, but we do think that we are going to try out a variety of ways to achieve healthy, enjoyable eating. Number one is that we will have food available that we consider healthy. Number two is that we will have much less food available that we consider unhealthy. Number three is that we will continue learning about health from science and from experience.

One of our goals for the farm is to make it a great place to raise kids. We aim to treat the children as much as possible like any other core group residents. This means listening to the children's desires and ideas and giving them the chance to fulfill the reasonable desires and act on new ideas. It also means allowing them to participate in "adult" life with meetings and work requirements. Since we plan to help new residents become productive as quickly as possible, many activities will be structured so that both children and new residents can learn by simply watching or asking.

We don’t plan to destroy the nuclear family or invent a new parental structure where the kids belong primarily to the farm. Generally, we consider the choice to have children to be the decision of two people who are life partners. We think the parents themselves, and not the farm-at-large, will have most of the responsibility of providing for and educating the children. We expect that some parents will be comfortable living with their children as residents of the core group, whereas others will choose the time of starting a family as the time to move to their own piece of land in the extended group area.

We will aim for children to develop the skills to be responsible, both individually and in groups. As such, when trouble comes up involving children, our general strategy will not be for adults to solve the problems themselves but for adults and children to work together to think through what to do. The model we propose is essentially that of democratic schools, which are in existence all over the world. In fact, the links to those democratic schools go beyond practical parallels. We envision the farm regularly hosting visiting children from these democratic schools as part of the international exchange program. Likewise, children from Abundance Farm (and to a lesser extent, adults) will visit those schools and communities around the country and abroad as part of their lifestyles, participating in the production and general life there.

We believe in the value of education, through reading books from all cultures and times, through travel, and through examining one’s own life. We believe education can be part of the development of clear thinking, harmonious action, and effective planning.

We may at some point have specific “children-only” areas. We also imagine a regular meeting place to discuss daily activities applicable to children. We imagine that some parents will band together to share some teaching and caretaking responsibilities. We do not anticipate having the funds available to fund higher education for children, but we expect that parents and other community members will participate in helping the young adults to develop a plan to work through higher education if that is their passion.

To some people, the value of recreation is directly proportional to its price tag. It goes without saying that we don’t intend to strive for fun dependent on this criteria. Sometimes, we’ll spend a small amount of money on recreation, and sometimes we won’t spend any. We will perform some of our own theater, we will have bands where we play original and folk music, and we will have delicious feasts, romantic and raucous. We will have some weeks when we are “in a different period” like the Pushkin Week at the School for Self-Determination in Moscow, Russia, where students wear clothes they made themselves in the style of early-nineteenth-century Russia and perform plays and dances from that era. We might also choose to be "in period" from countries represented in our international exchange program. We will have sports teams and intramural contests. And if the locals in the area like to play soccer, we may form a soccer team to challenge them. We will play chess, ping-pong, swim, hike and perhaps go horseback riding.

There are important basic questions concerning where to locate our project, addressed in the following sections.

While the first three sections are considered as if an ideal country could be designed, reality is not so prescribable. In reality, therefore, we have taken individual case examples and investigated to which extent each country matches those criteria, and how well the compromises fit together or conflict in those particular cases. We don’t go into that process in depth in this book, however. Like finding the ideal human mate, selecting a country begins as courting individuals one at a time, then forgetting the ones who are not compatible. Once we find the one who seems sufficiently compatible, we make a careful mental check to see that we are not dreaming as we are falling in love.

Thus, when you reach the fourth section, we will introduce the prospective bride, Panama. The reader may consider for him or herself whether we have selected wisely. This is your chance. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

We currently favor the tropics for several reasons. First, it takes more labor and resources to live in cold climates than warm climates, because we have to put more materials and energy into sturdier homes and use energy to keep them warm. Second, we want year-round access to fresh fruits and vegetables grown on site. It is impossible to have this in temperate climates without substantial investments in greenhouses and use of heating energy. Third, the tropics have many more species of delicious, edible fruit. We love fruit. Fourth, we’ve experienced more comfortable climates in particular zones of the tropics, in particular those with ample sun and moderate humidity. Fifth, reliable breezes, ample sunshine, and running water are also major advantages in terms of renewable electrical generation possibilities, and these are often found in the tropics.

As far as particular tropical choices, we want what we consider a pleasant tropical climate: daily highs of 75-85 F year-round, ample sun year-round, and low incidence of infectious disease.

After this venture in the easily livable tropics, we may at a later date attempt to replicate our project in a more challenging environment. But we’d prefer to start with what we enjoy and what is simplest to accomplish.

Because we both have family in the eastern United States, we have an interest in being conveniently enough located to make visits possible and affordable.

Additionally, we considered the advantages and disadvantages of islands, and prefer to not be on an island. The main factors are again cost and ease of living/transportation.

And finally, insofar as it can be predicted, we’d like a location not prone to natural disasters or wars.

We are currently evaluating social and political climates based on the following suitability template.

In addition to the obvious goals, one less obvious one contained in these criteria is our goal to have a place conducive to become a destination for a diversity of short-term and permanent residents from around the world. We think that visitors will provide the basic supply of new residents.

We want sufficient land to provide for our own energy and food consumption and still have surplus food and energy for sale. At the same time, we want to set aside land for conservation. In Asia, self-sufficient peasant farmers lived at a density of about 1 per acre. An American experimenter claims to have developed a sustainable system of gardening that provides a nourishing, vegetarian diet on about a quarter acre (reference to Jeavons). We have therefore come up with a minimum size of a hundred acres for our initial purchase, at least 10-15 acres of which are moderately fertile and well-suited for agriculture, to serve an intermediate target population of 50. This will amount to one quarter acre of good farmland per person. One hundred acres (or preferably more) can be bought for $200,000 (or preferably less).

We would like to have available public transportation running nearby several times a day, to be within several hours of a regional airport and emergency medical facilities, to have cell phone or phone access, and have nearby markets for products. Although these are separate criteria, we approximate this by stating the land should be within one two hours of a city of 50,000.

We also need a specific piece of property that is well-suited for our project. This means availability of and rights to sufficient clean water for drinking and agriculture, compatibility with local population, some capability for renewable electrical energy generation, undeveloped nearby land available for future purchase, and some already cleared land with soils and topography appropriate for immediate food production.

It was one thing to have an initial list of criteria and to begin researching in the library, on the internet, and by asking friends for advice. It was another thing to list a slew of countries to visit. It was yet another thing to actually go to several locations in person. We expected when we embarked on six weeks in Central America that we would travel to Panama simply to give us a comparison for the advantages we predicted for Costa Rica. In fact, after four weeks in Costa Rica and two weeks in Panama, what happened was the opposite. Our choice is Panama.

Before embarking on our trip, we had considered visiting many more countries, as far away as Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand. But we only finished the first major leg: part of Central America. And yet, we believe that what we have found is a sufficiently good match that we need not explore further. Our choice is Panama.

After visiting the lowlands and midlands and highlands over 1200 meters in Costa Rica and Panama, we found that land in Costa Rica and Panama between 400 and 1100 meters above sea level on the Pacific side of the mountains would fit our climate criteria and offer properties that meet our property “necessities” and many of our “pleasantries.” This altitude and location affords the possibility to grow both tropical fruits and temperate vegetables. It has a slightly cooler, drier, and more pleasant climate than either the Caribbean side of the mountains or the Pacific lowlands, with sufficient annual rainfall (generally 1.5m-3m per year). In Panama, 80-90% of the vegetable production occurs on the soils of Volcan Baru near the border with Costa Rica at elevations over 1200 meters. Due to the cool weather at these heights, however, it is not possible to grow such delicacies as mango, papaya, pejibaye (a starchy native fruit that grows in clumps on tall, thin palms), and countless other delicious fruits. Thus, we prefer a slightly lower altitude than is optimal for vegetables and are willing to be more restricted in our variety selection for the temperate vegetables to tolerate the warmer midlands.

Panama also has excellent roads throughout much of the country, affordable domestic flights, inexpensive flights to the mainland US, and land routes through Central America back to the US.

We did consider Hawaii in our initial research, and although it was a close call, for the time being we have chosen not to visit. We currently believe that for our project Hawaii is less attractive than Costa Rica and Panama: first and foremost, because the land is more expensive; second, because of ultimate implications for who the residents will be. Central America has more international travelers than Hawaii, especially Europeans and North/South Americans. And we think it is important to remedy the growing rifts between Americans and Europeans, who we consider will continue leading the world together on the global political and economic fronts. In regards to the question of long-term residency, it is easier to obtain visas, residency and citizenship for people of all nations in Panama and Costa Rica, relative to the United States. Indeed, in both Costa Rica and Panama, all that is required is to exit the country every 3-6 months to maintain unofficial permanent residency, practically for free, whereas in the United States there is no comparable option. But, all in all, the major reason we did not need to go to Hawaii is because we have already found a suitable country in Panama.

Health insurance in Panama ranges from $3 per month ($50,000 deductible, $1,000,000 maximum lifetime benefit) to $200 per month (which includes coverage for out-of-country care). Basic, in-Panama coverage with small deductibles and co-payments are about $20 per month for a 20-year-old to about $75 per month for a 70-year-old.

We did at one point have concerns about the investment and personal security of Central American countries. Investment security is an issue because of tenuous property rights in some countries due to squatters’ rights, as well as because of possible nationalization of lands (as happened in Nicaragua and Mexico less than 30 years ago). Finally, investment security is an issue because of currency crises.

Squatters’ rights are somewhat of an issue in all Central American countries. Depending on the type of title, a person may have the right to “take over” vacated land and gain the right of possession on it, and eventually the right to the title of that land. Many properties do not have title, and this makes the problems of squatters even more threatening. However, we found that by careful research, hiring a good lawyer, buying only titled land, and by actually living on the property oneself, that squatters rights will not present a major problem in Panama.

Nationalization of lands also does not seem to be an issue in Panama. The country has a history of positive business relations with US and foreign citizens, since thousands and thousands of US citizens were employed in the Canal Zone. Many of them then bought property and settled in Panama proper. Although the politicians in Panama are generally viewed to have some measure of corruption, it is to a tolerable degree and does not extend as far as taking over private lands either for the government or for themselves. (In fact, it’s also worth noting that even the US Citizens whose land was confiscated in Nicaragua were eventually remunerated.) We are not concerned about confiscation of land in Panama.

Panama has used the US Dollar as its official currency since its creation in 1903. Although we do have some concerns about the dollar, we are more confident of it than an unlinked, developing-world currency.

Both Costa Rica and Panama have eliminated their military (Costa Rica about 60 years ago and Panama about 10 years ago), though both countries do have armed police. Yet questions still come to mind for many Americans when they think of Panama – isn’t that country drawn to dictators?

Well, it may be. But we think that if Panama (or any country we have thus far considered) ever was to institute dangerous authoritarian rule, we would realize it before it is too late and leave the country. The 1999 US Consular information sheet indicates that approximately 20,000 US Citizens were legal residents of each of the countries considered we visited, Panama and Costa Rica.

In fact, we believe that because of the US interest in the Panama Canal, Panama is particularly safe for US citizens. For over a hundred years, Panama has been in a somewhat dependent relationship with the US. Although Panama now runs the Canal Zone itself, the US is formally recognized in the Canal Treaties to have the right to intervene, should there be any threat to the US right to use the canal. Indeed, Panama seems to be slowly building its own mechanisms for self-government, but there is an attitude and comfort there that should anything problematic occur, the US would intervene on behalf of its citizens residing abroad and its economic/military interest in the canal.

We would also say that supply lines of the basics in the US are more tenuous than Americans would like to admit. If unpredictable disaster does strike, and transportation is crippled worldwide, at least people in the countryside of Central America still know how to grow food. In the US, not many people live in the countryside and know how to grow food anymore.

We didn’t have anything stolen from us in Panama. On the Pacific side of Panama, we did not feel we had to be on our guard. (On the Caribbean side of Panama, we did, however, feel we had to be careful concerning the safety of our property and selves.) Supporting this anecdotal evidence, it is widely quoted by foreigners enjoying life in Panama that the Pinkerton Global Intelligence Agency recently gave Panama its highest rating for tourist safety (though, we could not find the actual report ourselves).

The consensus in Costa Rica is that life for foreigners is not getting any more pleasant there, and indeed, it’s getting to be unsafe and unpleasant. Numerous foreign residents and visitors thought that the government would soon only give residency to foreigners with a lot of money, perhaps as high as a $500,000 minimum investment in Costa Rica. Most foreigners currently overstaying the 90 days automatically granted to US and EU citizens can simply leave the country for 72 hours (hanging out in Nicaragua or Panama), re-enter, and then receive an additional 90 days. People claim to have done this for years. This practice, however, might be illegal soon, depending on currently pending Costa Rican legislation.

When we recapped the final leg of our trip in Costa Rica leg, we felt increased clarity that while the local restaurant food and fruit selection is better in comparison to Panama, it’s not enough to outweigh the obstacles of Costa Rica: higher land and commodity prices, less compatible culture, more difficulty in gaining residency, and general nationalistic attitudes of Costa Ricans. As an example of the “gut feeling” about the cultures, we felt that when talking with (non-Caribbean) Panamanians, we could say ‘let us speak frankly’ and then we could speak more frankly, whereas with Ticos (slang for “Costa Ricans”) a statement like that would be considered just a bargaining position. Panama feels more like a melting pot of cultures and more “open for the business of life,” whereas Costa Rica is a place where foreigners stay separate, like oil and water, and are seen as major sources of revenue, over the table, under the table, and sometimes with a knife to one’s back.

Panama allows many foreign nationals to visit for 30, 60, or 90 days with no visa (and allows for one-time extension of many of those stays from within the country). This “unofficial residency” route taken by many in Central America will likely be a popular option for residents of Abundance Farm. However, Panama does offer a variety of possibilities for official residency, including “person of means” (at least $200,000 in the bank), retired (with a known pension), forestry or investor residency, student visas, missionary visas, working residency, and even immigrant farmers demonstrating agricultural competency. We have been in contact with one Panamanian lawyer who has suggested that it is feasible and inexpensive to set up a school that could facilitate student-type visas for the exchange programs. We believe that over time we will be able to develop relationships with the Panamanian government to streamline our visa and residency issues. (Two institutions have already accomplished this: the Peace Corps and the Smithsonian Institute, and we are happy to learn from and follow the examples of others).

Legal fees in Panama tend to be low – less than $1,000 to set up a corporation and half that per year for legal expenses, for instance. Property taxes are next to nonexistent. Income tax is low. (Taxes can remain low partly because the Panama Canal provides a dependable and significant revenue stream). And while some properties can be many thousand dollars per acre, an ample supply of good property is available for less than five hundred dollars per acre. We expect that we can purchase a property that fits our criteria for less than $2000 per acre.

After returning to the United States, we are reaffirmed that life outside the United States could better support our values of sustainability, human unity, and happiness. In terms of sustainability, the United States has invested billions of dollars in an unsustainable transportation system that depends on cheap energy and enormous road and vehicle maintenance expenditures. Life and economic activity in the United States is highly dependent on this transportation system, and we would prefer not to devote 20% of our average income to pay for automobiles, gas, insurance, and new and improved roads (although carsharing in US-based communities could go a long way in saving money and energy). We understand that cars provide people freedom to change locations rapidly, but this movement is dependent on major sacrifices of time and energy for the underlying structure. And we can’t ever build roads big enough. In Atlanta, L.A. and cities across the country, rush hours find thousands upon thousands of cars backed up on sixteen-lane interstates. Of course, the US transportation system is just part of an overall level of consumption in America which is the highest in the world. In terms of overall energy use, the United States is consuming 25% of the world’s fossil fuels each year. Guaranteeing current consumption levels and being able to fulfill the average American’s expectations for what he or she is entitled to consume is dangerous ground to tread in terms of global politics and “homeland security.” There is truth in the argument of critics of the war in Iraq that it’s all about oil. Thus, in terms of human unity, we would prefer not to pay taxes to support the exorbitant military expenditures or the expensive border controls to maintain our high wages and material abundance. We support Americans who try to change the practices of the US government and the US people, but this is not a fight for us. We think there is a need for Americans to live in the third world for the purpose of citizen-to-citizen diplomacy and mutual cultural exchange.

In Central America, most people get around on buses, a great example of sharing a physical resource. Buses are not as immediately time-efficient as personal vehicles, but when well-utilized are a more sustainable use of energy and materials. Indeed, Central American buses are usually full and thus obtain a higher ratio of passenger mile to energy expenditure and material use. You only find a four-lane road in Central America when the Pan-American highway approaches and passes through the major cities. As we explained above, we also prefer the winterless tropics because of the permanent growing season and ease of constructing and maintaining comfortable housing.

We hold that informal and formal international exchanges are important to the increasing peacefulness and harmony of the planet. Suppose that Stalin and Hitler and Bin Laden and the Bushes and many of the Russians, Germans, Americans, and Arabs who support them had developed friendships with people from each other's countries. Suppose they had at least met some people from each other's countries who visited them and sang songs with them and listened to them and said, "What is your favorite fruit?" We recognize that the effects of such meetings are hard to quantity. However, we do not consider the challenges of measurability to be a reason for not doing the work. Particularly if we enjoy the work. The wars that are fought today may have to be fought today and we don’t claim to be able to stop them, but we do aim to contribute to reducing the likelihood of future wars that may be fought in 30 and 50 years.

We expect that people from all over the world from diverse backgrounds will spend days, months, years, or entire lives at Abundance Farm, living simply and happily. We aim to be a location where international exchanges are regularly taking place in the context of living sustainably. We think there will be children and adults coming in ones, twos, and dozens, spending time with us.

We do not aim to receive general budgetary support for running these programs. Abundance Farm aims to support its own operations. We do plan to accept donations to support the legal and transportation expenses for the programs, but this will not cover any operating expenses of Abundance Farm itself. We also plan to put the short-term residents who are part of these international exchanges to work alongside us in our businesses.

We expect that getting to know other cultures will present many challenges and many pleasures. We hope to develop the attitudes and tools to embrace these challenges, working together and relating to each other honestly and kindly.

During my sophomore year of high school, I had an epiphany that now seems so simple: I thought happiness was possible with less consumption and less work. I even thought that self-reliance in meeting basic needs might be vital to happiness and survival and fantasized about becoming a farmer one day. At that time, I thought this would be a great escape from the 9 to 5 treadmill. I did not seriously pursue this fantasy, however, until three years after the epiphany when I worked on an vegetable farm in Wales for a month. It wasn’t nearly as romantic as I had imagined, but I continued farming and gardening since then, setting up a community garden on my college campus and becoming involved in the university’s student farm. Recently, I toured parts of Latin America learning about and taking part in tropical agriculture.

Now, I have a dream about a single place to call home. I want to walk the fields, forests and furrows with an intimate knowledge of the plants and animals and microbes and seasonal changes, not just as a hobby, but because that knowledge will be useful to the purpose of living harmoniously and sustainably from sunlight. It’s a tantalizing project, that is, to try to create mental models of ecological dynamics, to use the mind as a kind of conscious mirror of an infinitely complex hundred or so acres, to revel in these patterns and make use of them.

My family wants me to find a home in the US. I do have an emotional and intellectual attachment to the hills here in the Southern Appalachians and, if Peter had not e-mailed me last October about a list-serv he created called “living our dreams,” then I would be planting tomatoes as a caretaker of a friend’s farm in east Tennessee at this very moment. For two years leading up to my college graduation, I spent hours in the libraries researching the possibilities for an innovative farm in the southeast US. Right now, the most likely plan for me is to return to the southeastern US in 4-5 years after pioneering the development of Abundance Farm. In fact, as I am writing this, I have just completed researching the purchase of property in East Tennessee, North Georgia, and Western North Carolina for possible purchase by my parents, which I could eventually call my home. But, for now, I’m going to leave that purchase for the future and focus on Abundance Farm. Indeed, one of my weaknesses in the past has been to take on too many projects at once.

Who knows, maybe Panama will be my ultimate home? Or maybe I can be like a migratory songbird, spending a portion of the year in the temperate climate when the land is really fruitful and returning to the tropics to sing, work, and harvest when not.

On the one hand, I’m scared of sinking my assets into a place I might want to leave. It seems like my whole life has been a process of waiting for the good life to begin just as soon as “this crap” ends. I think of my seventeen years in public schools (of course, not entirely bad years at all), watching the hands of the clock go round and around from another desk. This pattern continues for me: my dissatisfaction and feeling of imprisonment and sense that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. But I also know this desire to “move on” is natural for some people. Humans have a long history of migration and entering lands never explored before or sparsely populated. Successes in these migrations reinforced the desire.

On the other hand, I would like to have a share of Abundance Farm, because I really like and trust Peter. I was fortunate to receive a scholarship to North Carolina State University that covered all of my tuition and living expenses, which is where I graduated in 2003 at the age of 23. My parents decided to give me the equivalent funds they would have spent on my higher ed, since they had given money to all three of my sisters for school. So, having traveled for almost a year since graduation, spending over 7 months in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Panama, as well as a portion in the eastern US, I still have about $50,000, and I will probably invest half of this in Abundance Farm. Although my parents would prefer that I saved the money for graduate school, they still support me. I have decided not to attend another university unless one of two factors occur: I decide my role in society should be in the policy realm where an advanced degree is necessary; or, I decide that the higher ed infrastructure is necessary for a research question I want to answer.

It’s time now to make my thinking about agriculture and humanity more of a reality. And to just see what living is like beyond a desk.

Scott Devine

Roanoke, VA

May 2004

We can develop clarity in our dreams, but I suspect that in order for those dreams to be realized by us, the dreams must be continuations of already-existing trends in us.

Adina Gordon captured well several of the trends in my life, when she wrote my personal mission statement at the 2003 Creating Human Community retreat:

This description touches on both the deconstructive and constructive tendencies in my life. I’ll expand upon these themes.

In terms of the deconstructive, I have sought to be in touch with the mechanisms of how I operate, mentally, physically, and socially, and how the world around me operates. I have done this by putting myself in situations that scare me, by being courageous in my actions knowing I will make mistakes, by trying to acknowledge and remedy those mistakes, by questioning conventional assumptions and positing new ways of understanding experience, by seeking out those who have and are living unconventional lives on their own, and by learning from diverse traditions. I attended a private highschool (Northfield Mount Hermon) and a private college (Hampshire College). In both those contexts, as well as in my self-designed informal education since then, I have sought to benefit from institutions and also to go beyond their limits, taking responsibility for my own education and being.

On the constructive side, I have been active in founding several new entities (both short-lived and ongoing). This began ten years ago as a college student with the Alternative Higher Education Network (defunct), the Experimental Program in Education and Community (ongoing), and other similar programs. It continued in “the real world” when I started Hurricane Hill School (defunct), a summer educational program in Vermont.

Then, for one year, I took leave from constructively creating social/educational programs, accepting a job at Amazon.com as a software engineer. That was constructive in its own very different ways. Since I left that job, I have been living in assorted homes in the US and traveling around the world, learning informally and engaging deconstructively to understand myself and the world. I fortunately still have about $350,000 from my Amazon.com stock option earnings. Overall, I have the chance now to combine my skills and experience, with my present energy, and resources to help make Abundance Farm a reality.

Throughout these years, I have also been a writer, lover of children and friends, runner, and gardener. I have not published any of my writing, but I think I may make an effort in that direction over the next several years.

Last fall, on a trip in Morocco, I wrote:

I find myself more and more comfortable relating to people who are married, with children, with a place they call home. I recognized this transition last year, and related to that, I brought together friends in several email groups, beginning with living_our_dreams, and continuing by planning the Creating Human Community retreat in December of 2003.

At that retreat, I wrote the following as my conceptualization of the common vision Scott and I shared for community:

I am confident of some of my abilities, though I realize I also have a variety of weaknesses. I am able to bring people together to confront obstacles and create. I am able to take responsibility, to learn, and also to sit back when others are being responsible.

I recognize that it is likely I will be the majority shareholder of the corporation, simply because of the funds I have available. I have also been the most active throughout the entire project, having visited the most comparison projects, started the email lists, organized the Creating Human Community retreat, and written most of this book. Due to these factors, my influence in designing the project is more than Scott’s, and Scott’s is more than anyone else’s.

I do hope that what we create will be a wonderful place for others to visit or to live, and where others can have a role in making Abundance Farm an expression of their dreams as well as mine and Scott’s. But I don’t intend to unilaterally hand over my assets to people who are new to the project. As I have invested my own time and money, others who likewise make contributions will also correspondingly find this project to be an expression of themselves, perhaps some of them some day having more influence than I will then have.

I think Scott and I can have a wonderful farm even if it is only the two of us who are permanent or semi-permanent residents. On the other hand, I also look forward to the many people who may join us, who together with us will raise Abundance Farm from wonderful to ecstatic.

Bring your dancing shoes.

Peter Christopher

San Francisco, California

May, 2004

(Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter refer to the US calendar usage of these terms.)

Fall 2003 – Initial discussions of project on the internet group living_our_dreams.

Winter 2003/4 – “Creating Human Community Retreat” at Ganas in New York. Creation of email group trailblazing_green_community. Onsite research of communities in the US.

Spring 2004 – Peter and Scott in Central America for 6 weeks of research with Anita, Joseph, Meli, and Ryan, then back in the US. Writing of this book, a chance to step back and become clear on our vision.

Summer 2004 – Peter in Panama: selecting a lawyer, preparing for incorporation, continued research of local land, climate, culture characteristics within Panama, local agricultural techniques. Scott working at an organic orchard/vegetable farm in Virginia.

Fall 2004 – Scott and Peter in Panama. Incorporation. Investigating specific available properties.

Winter 2004/5 – Purchase of 100-200 acres of land in Panama.

2005 - Initial cultivation of crops and planting of trees. Construction of initial housing. Beginning of tree nursery, using seeds from local suppliers and suppliers around the world.

2006 – Initial development of farm businesses on experimental basis. 5-10 permanent core residents by year end. 50% self-sufficiency of food production, 25% of material/energy self-sufficiency by year-end.

2007 - First formal international exchange programs. One or more businesses selected for focused implementation.

2008 – Businesses producing operating income sufficient to fund all operating expenses and most capital improvements by year-end. 10-20 permanent core residents by year-end.

2010 – Additional land purchase completed, 50-1000 acres. 20-30 permanent core residents by year-end. 75% self-sufficiency of food and seed production, 50% self-sufficiency of material/energy consumption.

2015 – 40-60 permanent core residents by year-end. 75% self-sufficiency of energy and materials. Maximum size and limits to growth considered. Possible other projects founded.

We have written several fictional narratives, from the point of view of persons at several points in the future sharing their perspectives on Abundance Farm at that time. The only “nonfiction” names are Peter and Scott. The dates indicate when the narratives are hypothetically written.

I am Marguerite. I grew up in France. I am 41. I met Scott and Peter in David, Panama, one day in October, 2004. I had been traveling a lot, trying to figure out how to live a lifestyle I felt good about. I was ready to stop. I first met Peter at the market and decided to come with him and Scott to visit the piece of land they liked the most and talk about their vision for Abundance Farm.

I was intrigued by the project and fell in love with the land, although the accommodations left much to be desired. Scott and Peter paid for the land in late 2004, and the three of us moved onto the land January 1 of 2005. The only building when we moved there was an old wooden shack. Everybody slept under it on the rare nights when it rained, but mostly Peter and Scott slept out in the field and I had the ratty shack to myself.

I had a few thousand dollars from savings, but I didn’t want to put it into stock of the company. I thought I might want to return to France someday and need those savings to get settled back in.

I was already knowledgeable about raising animals, and we all agreed that I could be in charge of the animals for at least the first several years. Almost the first thing I did was go to town on the bus and buy chicks with money from the farm budget. Scott was the official treasurer, so I had to go to Scott to get the money from him. Scott recorded that, like he recorded all the financial transactions.

After three months, Scott and I finished three basic lean-tos which is where we each had our belongings and beds. In the meantime, Peter constructed a kitchen and planted many rows of plants. This whole time, everybody was working about six hours a day and nobody thought much about the official work requirements.

Around that time, I brought up the issue of Daily Minimum Work Requirments (DMWRs) in a group meeting and suggested that since everyone was working about 6 hours a day, that the DMWR be 6 units per day, since one unit should be worth one hour, except when for some reason it is worth more or less. I also proposed that everyone receive $1,000 for the work we had done thus far. Scott and Peter disagreed, explaining that people only get paid if they work more than the DMWR. I therefore revised my proposal so that the DMWR would be 4 units per day, and that everyone receive $1 per hour backpay (90 days x $2 per day = $180 total backpay per person). Everyone agreed, and Scott paid out the money.

That first year, Scott said he realized he didn’t like being the treasurer, and I said that I didn’t like it either but I was willing to do it for double pay (1 unit per half-hour). Scott said he wouldn’t want to do it unless he got triple pay, and Peter said he’d need 10x pay. So I became the new treasurer for the time being, and Scott took on a new, invented position, paying at par (1 unit per hour) - “labor coordinator” where he kept track of hours everyone worked, instead of monies spent, which he had been doing as treasurer.

I sometimes worked just the DMWR, then for months on end worked 5 extra hours, 5 days a week, building stuff for the farm. One dollar per hour isn’t a lot, but it’s the going rate that everyone had decided upon, and it’s the basic wage of Panamanians, so it’s what worked. It is still the basic wage at the farm a couple years later. The basic DMWR covers room and board, and the expenses for when I go to town for official business. It didn’t, and still doesn’t, cover health care expenses. Luckily, we don’t get sick much, and when we do, we know how to take care of ourselves.

At the end of 2005, I was confident enough about the project to invest $1000 of my cash plus the $400 I had earned into stock of the corporation. As a group, we also decided that since we were all better at our jobs, that we got a raise, kind of, in the form of a 25% bonus for our hourly work, because of being more efficient. From that point on, some of my work that was previously valued at par was now valued at 1.25 units/hour, although what was already paid above par (for me, only the treasurer job, at 2 units/hour) remained unchanged. In the first half of 2006, I earned another $600 from excess work, got a gift of $10,000 from a deceased aunt, worked at an outside job at the neighbor’s for $200, and decided to invest this entire $10,800 in equity in the corporation at the end of 2006. The corporation accepted the investment, although shares were selling for 15% higher than the original share price due to the increase in land value and improvements to the property.

I’d like to stay here forever. I may even be more committed than Peter and Scott, who have the additional flexibility/complication of more assets. And, although I will always be only a minor shareholder, after 10 years I hope to own 10% of the corporation, which should be worth about $60,000. I don’t plan to sell it, though. I’d like to become the president of the corporation. People here already think of me as one of the founders, alongside Peter and Scott, even though I was never a trailblazer and contributed no money at founding.

Here are a few more details. When Scott and Peter bought the land in late 2004, Scott invested $25,000 and Peter invested $100,000. The land was $100,000. We also spent an additional $10,000 on the expenses during the next year of building basic infrastructure. Two years into the project (now - 2007), an adjacent piece of land has become available. Peter is talking about lending $100,000 as a mortgage for the corporation to purchase this new piece of land, paying 5% per year (interest only) with a lump payment in 5 years (2012) of the balance due of $100,000. In the meantime, he would use the 5% interest he would earn per year to buy more stock in the corporation. The farm, in turn, would be producing sufficient operating income to pay the interest, and eventually the principal on that mortgage. If the businesses don’t do as well as we predict, some of the principal will have to be repaid with additional equity investments or by selling land.

Peter has also been considering moving back to the states for personal reasons, which, as I understand, is related to agreements with his family. We’ve talked about that as well, and Peter has offered to sell his stock back to the corporation for $180,000 cash in 3 years. We strive to have the flexibility to allow each person to leave the project with their assets at fair value, rather than having to sacrifice their assets when they leave.

I am Fred, 29. I joined the “trailblazing_green_community” and “living_our_dreams” list-serves one day in 2004 because I was searching for an intentional community to join. At the time, I had actually never visited an intentional community. I enjoyed being part of the lively discussions online and several times also on the phone. I thought the people active in the group were putting their money where their mouth was by trying to find the right country to start their new project. I found myself unsure of my own commitment level, yet I took some vacation time from my job, and joined Peter and Scott as they were traveling in Costa Rica and Panama.

I realized on that trip that I was not ready to be involved full-time with their project, and yet on the other hand I wasn’t comfortable making the compromises of allowing the more committed participants to make the major decisions without me.

All in all, it was valuable for me to make the trip in 2004. I’ve kept in touch with them. I just never took the jump in my life the way they did. It’s harder to make a huge lifestyle change like that than I thought. I’ve visited several other communities now. I’m still considering making that step. I am planning to visit Abundance Farm in the next year and see how things are going for them.

I am back in Germany after six months of traveling in Central America. I have dual American-German citizenship, and actually grew up mostly in the States, but I’m here in Munich because I got my Master’s degree here and also have a great job and boyfriend here. Last month, I spent a week at Abundance Farm before I flew from Panama City back to Munich. I had found their website from Germany when I was researching my trip to Central America. I didn’t e-mail the group until I arrived in Central America; actually, I didn’t e-mail them until a week before I arrived, from an internet café in San Jose, Costa Rica. I don’t usually plan very far ahead.

They responded to my email a couple days later, and I read their response in Buenos Aires, Costa Rica, after I had been checking out this other community in Costa Rica. Marguerite from the “residency committee” said they had several beds available, and that I could arrive on the date and stay for the week I’d proposed. She also attached a short description of their expectations for visitors and a warning that the accomodations would be primitive. Well, that was fine with me, so I emailed them back to confirm. After a few more days in Costa Rica, I crossed the border into Panama, took the bus to some arbitrary place on the Pan-American Highway three hours towards Panama City, waited an hour in the sun, took another bus up a hill for a half-hour into the mountains and got off near the entrance to the farm (I had to tell the bus driver in Spanish, “Quiero bajar del bus a la entrada de Finca Abundancia.”) Then I had to walk a kilometer along a dusty road to the property. It was the end of the dry season.

I asked a couple people for Marguerite, and in short order found her. She was building some chicken tractors out of bamboo, trying to reduce the amount of metal needed for each one. It seemed to be slow going; she said she had been weaving bamboo and wires for two hours but it looked like she hadn’t done more than a quarter of one. I think she should have just bought chicken wire and not worried about it. Most of the others there agreed with me, but she quoted Edison: “Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.” Whatever her commitment to perspiration, (and her shirts always indicated a practical commitment as well as a philosophical one), she happily took a break from her work to orient me to the farm. She showed me to the new guest quarters to drop off my stuff. It had a roof and one wall, but basically everyone there lives in lean-tos; this one still didn’t have the last two walls (no privacy for me there). The guest lean-to they now use has six beds, each one with some storage shelves underneath for people’s stuff and a mosquito net above. There were two other guests sleeping in the lean-to and three other guests sleeping in their own tents elsewhere on the property.

Then we went to the office, which is the only building there that actually has four solid walls. I locked my passport and wallet in the safe. Marguerite is the only one who knows how to open it. She said I wouldn’t need any money while I was there. She was right. I didn’t. She also said that the core group residents don’t usually spend their own money on anything and usually don’t buy luxuries - just basic necessities. And she said that officially the farm doesn’t have guests or visitors, it only has core group residents. Anyone who stayed on the property was implicitly agreeing to the standards of being a core group resident. I read a document that described those standards. It was all fine.

At first, I did have some concerns because there seemed to be a private language, which it took me a while to get used to. They had heir own words for everything - “core group” and “corporation contact” and “chicken captain”. They used these words like they actually thought there was such a thing as a “chicken captain” (this was one of Marguerite’s jobs). I suppose it could be just like any other local dialect. When I brought this up in a meeting, Peter said he didn’t like the “title” or “role” of Chicken Captain either. He said my comments provided him just the excuse to propose we do away with it, and we spent five minutes brainstorming alternatives, but no one, including Peter, came up with anything any better and so the discussion was shelved. But two days later Marguerite said that she wanted her title to be “Animal Husbandry Wife.” She also said she wanted to be in charge of the goats again; she had had enough of a break from them. Scott said it was fine for her to take over that responsibility again and so it was all approved.

They do sometimes get into rather personal discussions in the meetings, but they seemed to enjoy that.

They have meetings every morning at ten o’clock with breakfast, six days a week. Sometimes the meetings last just a half-hour, but they can run as long as two hours. This is after four hours of work, since most people work from six to ten in the morning. They also have separate “work meetings” for as long as it takes (usually a few minutes, but one went on for half an hour) every day of the week when people plan out their work for the next day, if they don’t already know what they have to do.

In my first few days, I had been mostly doing “forestry” work in the mornings, which consisted of cutting down bamboo from a neighbor’s property and cutting it to size for construction. I was working with Francine. We had fun and worked hard. I got sweaty, which I was used to after six months of traveling in the tropics. But after three days of doing this every day for four hours, I was needing a break from it (the daily minimum work requirement (DMWR), was set at four units every day, seven days a week and I was working ‘at par’ which means I was getting one unit per hour, though Francine was getting ‘par plus 50’ which means 1.50 units per hour of work).

I brought this up at the work meeting, and Buddy, the work coordinator, said the farm needed the bamboo now, and since Francine said I was doing good work, I could bid up to par plus 50 if I did it for two hours a day, and another hour of cooking at par would fulfill my quota. I agreed to that. Then the next morning I brought up the issue of the secret code language at the group meeting, and how it was hard for guests to integrate in with the existing residents. “We don’t have guests here, we just have core group residents,” Marguerite said, smiling, and everybody laughed, which I found frustrating at the time, but now I realize what the joke was, and that it wasn’t on me but just on words.

Then Francine suggested that I be put in charge of updating the “Translation Manual,” which is supposed to be helpful to new arrivals since it provides a translation for all the words. The work coordinator said the job was worth 3 units altogether or at par if I wanted to work hourly, in either case a unit of extra work was a dollar, which sucks, but I figured what the heck, so I took that job too, and I chose to do it for 3 units not hourly. This all seemed to happen quickly at the group meeting without any votes, which seems odd because they claim that all decisions are made formally.

Well, this is all pretty technical and political and maybe you want to know about some of the other things going on there. They have an incredibly beautiful piece of land. I loved it so much. On a clear day (most days were clear in the morning but not always clear enough) you can see islands in the Pacific Ocean from most of the lean-tos. There is a stream and an old dam. The stream has enough water for agriculture even in the dry season; they have plenty of water, including the 30 acres of agriculture they think they will one day have. There are two common meals a day: breakfast at ten (at the meeting) and lunch at four in the afternoon. Meals are mostly vegetarian, but there were two days when Marguerite prepared meat (rabbit one day and chicken the other). They are also talking about building ponds for aquaculture, which means growing fish. Actually the food tasted good for the most part, although a few dishes were questionable (This includes a salad I made one day that was bitter. I was embarrassed, but Marguerite said not to worry because the chickens would love it, and later, when I fed it to them, they did eat it all up).

Scott and Peter were trying to become cheese-makers; they were the most intent on starting businesses (this is probably because they have made the largest investments and don’t want to lose money). Scott and Peter had cheese-making contests, and the residents were voting on how much credit Scott and Peter each received for the cheese-making. The better the cheese, the more labor units for the cheese. Scott was using fresh goat milk to make one kind of cheese that I did like; Peter was buying milk from a neighbor’s cow (and talking about buying the whole cow) and making a cheese I did not like. Most people liked Peter’s mozzarella-like cheese better, but, ironically, Peter and I liked Scott’s hard, moldy goat cheese better.

Francine told me that Panama has a lack of good cheese, which is why Scott and Peter think it will be a good business.

They have maps describing plantings of hundreds of fruit and nut trees, as well as an oil palm plantation. They have also started growing these trees in their own small nursery, but all the trees are still in small containers.

There are some great people there, and I miss them, especially Francine and Marguerite. I actually miss Peter and Scott, too, although I never took the chance to get to know them. I guess I was scared. Now that I think about it, I miss all of them, and I definitely miss the land. It is a hundred acres of paradise.

The neighbors seemed nice. One day I tried out my Spanish with them and managed to talk a little about where I was from and so on. I think it’s going to keep getting better for the farm, as they get more people who decide to stay, and more people who can be involved with their international exchange programs they are planning. All of them (8 semi-permanent or permanent residents) are European or American now, but they say they want to be more diverse than just that. I wish they could pay 2 or maybe even 5 dollars per unit of extra work, not 1 dollar. I only made 3 dollars while I was there.

I recommend it as a place to visit for anyone who wants to have an experience in the countryside, who wants to see what it’s like to grow your own food and build your own buildings, and who wants to see what its like to start something new. If I was serious about living in the tropics, I’d give Abundance Farm some serious consideration. I’d probably go for a longer visit before making a decision. I learned a lot even in my brief visit. I had a lot of energy for it, and I’m good at getting to know new places quickly.

Hello. I learned English from Maria at Finca Abundancia—at least how to write it, because I had to learn to speak it in the Canal Zone when I lived there for three years working for a retired American officer. I am Manuel. I have been the neighbor of Finca Abundancia for ten years, since Scott and Peter moved here. I am Panamanian. I have mostly Spanish blood, but some Indian on my mother’s side. I am thirty years old. Several months a year I work at Finca Abundancia for money, but usually I don’t because they prefer to employ residents.

I like the people there. There is nobody I hate. I did dislike one person, but he is gone now. They asked him to leave. He was always giving me and the neighbors bad looks and trouble. He left, so it’s over now.

I am a laborer. Peter and Scott call me a handyman. I own my own house and live with my wife and two children. We have a TV, which is normal even for poor Panamanians now, but it is not normal at Finca Abundancia, where they have only one TV in the media room that they use for watching movies, sometimes movies they make at the farm. Also, there are some families in what they call the extended group who have TVs. But they are not the same as the Finca itself. They are neighbors and friends, like us.

People at Finca Abundancia sometimes meditate, but they don’t pray much. This is what my priest says is atheistic, and so we know there is something different in the way they think about God and humans. I used to think it was because the people living there might have problems, but I don’t see a lot of problems there, not more than what regular Panamanians have, so I think we’re all just different.

Speaking of differences, there are a lot of different people who come to visit Finca Abundancia. They often arrive on the bus with someone from Finca Abundancia who has met them at the airport. Most people in the Panamanian countryside ride buses. The visitors to Finca Abundancia stay for a couple months, and they speak many languages and some of them dress even stranger than Peter and Scott, who dress very informally. Peter and Scott don’t even buy new clothes when the old ones are worn out, even though they have so many dollars from the businesses. At least they know to wear long pants going to business meetings, which they didn’t used to do, and some people from Finca Abundancia still don’t do. I don’t understand everything about how the Finca works. But Peter and Scott say they don’t know either. They are good guys and funny.

My sister has graduated from Panama University, and so she understands better about Peter and Scott. She is helping them because she lives in Panama City and works for the government. She is helping with the international exchange program, because Panama has to accept foreign visitors. My sister knows about how to get the visas, and they pay her $200 for each one.

I know that some neighbors think Finca Abundancia is different, because they aren’t Catholics, only some of them speak Spanish, they eat a lot of salad and fruit and no rice and very little meat (Panamanians love rice and meat), they share possessions that we don’t share together, and their businesses are not common, like the rubber business. Also, their marriages don’t last long. They don’t know how important marriage is. I know how important marriage is because I have a wife and two kids. I love my family. When one marriage breaks up at Finca Abundancia, another one is always starting, and sometimes it is even with three people or with two women and no man. You can see why some neighbors think this is strange, because it’s not like us. Scott and Peter actually agree with me about this.

But the Finca Abundancia residents think we are all the same. We have it as a joke now, “we are all the same.” Scott and I laugh about it all the time, because Scott and I both talk about religion. We see how funny it is, the Finca and the people there. Even though he lives there, he knows about the values of the Catholic Church, because I think his parents knew better than the parents of some of their residents. That is what I tell my friends. We actually talk about Finca Abundancia a lot, but not as much as we talk about TV, our cows, America, Panama and the canal. Panama always was an important place, a land bridge between North and South America, but now it is becoming an important independent country, so we want to understand our country. I sometimes think we should join the United States, and so should the other countries here in Central America, but my sister disagrees because she says we are not ready. I say we will all learn. She tells me that I talk too much to Peter about human unity and that’s my problem.

So you can see, Panamanians have our own disagreements. Speaking of Panamanians, now Peter is a Panamanian. He decided to become a resident, then to become a citizen. Most friends who stay at Finca Abundancia are legal residents or are crossing the border to Costa Rica every 6 months to get another tourist visa, but Peter decided to be a Panamanian. He said it will be pretty soon that he is a United States Citizen again, because he also thinks that Panama will be a state. We agree that having too many countries in the world is not easy for world politics. We are all Americans here, in North, Central, and South America, and we don’t need to fight each other any more.

One great thing about Finca Abundancia is that the people there work hard and sweat. This is different from many of the gringos who live in Panama. Many of the gringos just drive big cars, build big houses, eat big meals and don’t work. I’m a laborer, so I respect the hard work of residents at Finca Abundancia.

Although the residents of Finca Abundancia don’t go to Church, my friends and I still respect their honesty and good intentions. They also sell good fruits and vegetables. I am glad to have them as friends and neighbors. Especially Scott and Peter and Maria. But anyone there is my friend.

I was seven years old when my family moved to Abundance Farm. Now I am fifteen. We had been homeschooling for two years already. My mom actually likes to call what we do unschooling. She likes to be a part of movements, especially rebellious movements that challenge “The Man.” My mom is an amazing woman. She’s important now at Abundance Farm. Her name Is Katy. My Dad is Jim. I usually call them by their first names. Jim is important too, but I don’t think he’s as important. He runs the orchard. My mom runs the international exchange programs and also she is the Local Contact when there are issues concerning neighbors. My little brother Wolf is 12, three years younger than I am.

We had lived in Texas and Costa Rica before we moved here. Katy had been working on setting up her own community, but I think she was never meant to be the head person, just an important person - like the CFO or the COO of a company, but not the CEO. She isn’t the kind of person who will start something, because she doesn’t lead that way. She likes to be part of a group. So this is actually a perfect place for her because it’s a group and it has an existing mission.

Katy doesn’t like a few things about the place, usually related to Wolf and I, but I think she is over-reacting. For instance, she doesn’t like it that she and Jim have to do more work per day (DMWR) than the other people, just because they have kids. Well, I see it the same as most of the others here. If parents have the right to choose to have kids, they should have to pay for it. On the other hand, if there were a society where the society made the choice, then the society would have to pay for it. I guess this is a difference in our political views.

There are a lot of people here at the community who like to learn and like to teach, and that makes it a great place to live. We moved into a lean-to as a family in the second year of the farm. Things were a lot more rustic back then, but as far as the personal dynamics, things haven’t changed much. The new people are still usually confused, and it takes them a while to get to know the place, just like always. There are always some who declare love at first sight, just like always, and who end up hating it in the end, just like always. I did a study of them over the past twelve months and wrote about it, so I can speak with some level of authority on the subject.

Actually, I’ve been learning and watching a lot of the dynamics of the farm, and discussing and reading and writing about personal development, and group development, and agriculture, and if I may be so forward, I think I can write or speak with authority on pretty much any subject. Katy is proud of me that I can share my thoughts so freely and clearly. Sometimes I think she is envious. I am also starting to flower out as a beautiful woman, and I think that will be hard for her. She is not a young flower any more. But I love her, and I will always try to honor her - I think; it makes sense. I am just uncomfortable making commitments these days. It seems like when people make commitments, they end up exactly the opposite way. I am fascinated by this, and I can’t find very much written about it. Peter says that he is also fascinated by it but thinks that it’s better to not try to prove to the world some new facts about psychology because no one will understand. I don’t agree. I think most people will not understand, but that’s no reason to quit. We have to stand for what makes sense to us.

Scott is my calculus teacher. Wolf is also in the class, and so is Scott’s wife when she is around. Scott’s daughter is only five but sometimes she comes to the class and copies what other people are doing but we all know she doesn’t know what the class is about. Peter teaches music lessons and leads a type of psychological encounter game that is a cross between chess, psychotherapy, poetry, and karate. There are many more classes than this. All this teaching is just stuff some adults and even kids do as hobby in the afternoons when it is hot (dry season) or raining (rainy season). The afternoons are generally for the mind, whereas the mornings and sometimes the evenings are for work, here at Abundance Farm.

Marguerite is another one of the founders, and another one of my teachers, actually she teaches me literature. We are reading Spanish literature now, in Spanish. I like it alright. I’m the only one in the class. We like to meet in different parts of the farm, and sometimes in different towns, depending on what we are reading together, and we try to act out in real life or in play-acting the lines we are reading. It’s a great game she invented, and the more complex the scene you are acting out, the more challenging it is to find a way to “fool” someone from the farm or town to play it with you. (They can’t know that you are doing it.)

Scott is in charge of the energy business, including oil production here and in the lowlands, mostly palm oil but also some experimental plantings of other crops.

Until this year, my parents were doing extra work for me, because someone has to do the extra work for the kids, and here at the farm it’s the parents of the particular kids who do it. But this year, I took on the DMWR for myself. It’s only a half-share because I still live with my parents. Next year I will move into my own lean-to and work a full DMWR. Eighteen is an arbitrary age to move out. I am ready, although I’m only 15. I think I’ll probably live here for another few years, and then spend some time traveling.

I participate in the meetings here when I want to. I work alongside everyone right now for units of labor, that I save up as cash. Together with cash from my parents’ gifts and grandparents’ and what I’ve earned, I already have $8,000 of savings, $5,000 of which is in stock in the corporation and $3,000 of which is in cash because I want to use that for traveling in two years. When I say cash, actually this is a bank account with the corporation. We have our own bank here now. Some people think it is stupid because we can just use the bank in town, but one of the new people a couple years ago was formerly a banker and said we should try it for a couple years and evaluate the results, so that’s why we have our own bank now. I am a full core-group resident, except it is a little complicated because my parents were still doing the extra work for me until recently and I still live with them.

Wolf has a lot of friends who are local Panamanians. He’s always been more of the social type who gets along with people I am wont to judge. I don’t have a lot of Panamanian friends. My friends are mostly adults at the farm. Some people say that girls mature more quickly. I am not into the biological-gender-predeterminism that permeates a lot of people here. I can refute most of their arguments; I think they are just justifying their own insecurities and hiding from their potential power.

I have spent a lot of time in the past several years reading and writing. I have pen pals from several countries, because so many people have come to visit us here. I like to send handwritten letters. I sometimes take the wonderful things about this place for granted, but when the people who visit tell me about the places they live, I realize how blessed we are here.

Well, that is about all I have to say for now.

My name is Gambuza. I am from Mali. I am a friend of Abundance Farm. I am thirty years old. I am an educated African man. My country is very poor. I traveled to Panama to spend six months at Abundance Farm when I was twenty years old. Then I returned one year later to stay for two years to learn more about their happiness and also about their businesses, like growing African oil palm, avocados, and cashews, making biodiesel and goatcheese, and producing free-range chicken eggs. I am a Christian. My family has roots in the Christian and Muslim and Voodoo traditions. I now have a wife and one daughter. I learned about Abundance Farm through my Christian Church, Jehovah’s Witness. It was the generosity of Jehovah’s Witness that sent me to Panama. Now I am an elder here in a new branch of the church, and I pray to God that I can help others in the way that God has helped me in this life. I do not just speak of some special things in the eyes of other people, like my visits to Panama and learning how to make biodiesel. I am also speaking of being moved by God, because it was God that came into my heart when I was eighteen and brought me to the church through my friends who witnessed to me, and who showed me the path, the life. And it was God who answered my prayers when my mother was ill, but most importantly it was God who is in my heart each day now and allows me to see the beauty in everything that exists.

I wanted to go to Panama to learn about God’s world. I knew when I applied that I might not get the visa to travel to Panama or be accepted to stay at the farm, but I knew it did not matter. Because God has many ways he works, which I had learned from my Brothers in the church. And my kind English-speaking brothers were also teaching me how to speak their language. This was good, because English is one of the most common languages in the world today.

When I traveled to Panama the first time, the project was only in its third year. I was learning to read and write English, but I was not proficient. So, I also spent time before going and in Panama learning how to read and write. I chose to not learn any Spanish the first time, because I did not think it was as important as English. When I was there the first time, the residents tried to learn Spanish by using it in daily life. There was usually a translation at every meeting so that English and Spanish were the two official languages. Later, on my second visit, they were no longer doing the translation at meetings. So I missed my chance to learn Spanish, except for a few phrases, because I never paid attention to the Spanish the first time.

Like I said, I wanted to focus learning on how to read and write in English, but I did not understand that I would have to be working at the same time. I had received the written description about Abundance Farm and discussed it with my Brothers from the church, but still I had not understood, which was embarrassing to me. I was almost a little angry when I arrived, because I did not want to work six days a week, but then I realized everyone was working, and so I thought it was selfish of me to want to be so privileged. And when I prayed, God said this same thing, so I worked. My job the first time was building roads, which I didn’t know how to do at first, but it was about moving rocks and soil and digging so I could do the work, I just didn’t know about the details of how to make the roads able to stand up to long-term use with a rainy season. I learned that as I was working, and now we also build roads sometimes like that here in Mali, but most people prefer to wait for the government to do it here in Mali. Still, I can use those skills, even the road-building skills.

I think my work with the Church and my travel to Panama have both been very important in helping me to become a leader here in Mali, but not as important as learning to listen to God. Abundance Farm had ways of working together in meetings and in work to help us think about how we felt and what we wanted, all of which are now a part of how I see the world, and a part of how I lead inside the church and outside in daily life. In fact, I see Abundance Farm as being a type of Jehovah’s Witness family, because many times I see the parallels between the early Church, as described in Paul’s letters, and their practices. But most people at Abundance Farm don’t agree, and would not accept they are following in the path of Christ. Finally, some of them agreed to read some of Paul’s letters with me and realized they should not be so reactive, but they still will not claim to be Christians. They are still my friends though, and they have in their own ways helped me learn about my mission and about Christ’s mission and the ways that were set out to organize the Church and relationships.

Most were actually more open to learning about my history as an African and a Muslim and with voodoo, than they were about Christianity, although their culture is the one that has the stronger direct Christian heritage. This I still do not understand. There were some exceptions to this, since some people at Abundance Farm had a stronger connection to Christ.

I was not used to the food that they served—mostly uncooked leaves, all kinds of fruits I did not know, a few nuts, and a strange grain called popcorn that pops open when you heat it. But it was very impressive how much they grew on their own. And on my second visit, I spent time learning about all the daily activities and working with the gardeners and the farmers in the cashew and avocado orchards, the goat cheese making, and their 2 year old African oil palm plantation in the lowlands. I also spent a month at the small biodiesel factory (just another lean-to now, but they are trying to get a World Bank loan for a bigger factory). Now, they are using palm oil purchased from the big Costa Rican plantations just over the border and shipping the processed biodiesel to the United States, but they hope to get other farmers to establish more sustainably-managed plantations in Panama. They also want to have Panamanians use biodiesel in diesel vehicles, but Scott says we will have to be patient for the regular diesel to become more expensive before that happens.

Later when I returned to Mali, I was inspired to create something here like what they have created there, but it has not happened yet. I tried with the help of the Church. But I could not do it. I did not have the strength or the funds to maintain the mission on my own, because I was dedicated to other projects. I don’t eat as healthy now as I would like to, and I know many of my fellow people here eat even less healthy diets than mine. It is part of my dream, to have a physically nourished people, though it is second to my dream to have a spiritually nourished people. I think I am getting closer to being able to support the development of the healthier agriculture and diet here. In fact, I think our diet is not as bad as what I have seen in America. But yes, we will get better.

My name’s Buddy. I’m an American, born in Panama in the Canal Zone. My father was in the military as a maintenance man, and my mother was a nurse practitioner in Panama City. I’m forty years old and have been living at the farm since a month after it was founded five years ago. I’ve spent most of my life in Panama, with the exception of some vacations back in the states with my family. My parents are still alive, but they picked up and moved back to Southern California when the canal was turned over to the Panamanians in ’99. Jimmy Carter signed a treaty to do that back in ’77, when I was just a small boy.

Abundance Farm is my home. I care about the people, I care about the land, and I care about the country. I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave, but it’s surely a lot different from the home where I was raised. Partly that is why I decided a year ago to buy my own piece of land and build my own house in the extended group zone. But I still work at the farm. My wife Maria lives in the core group area, but I like to have her spend the night with me, of course. Maybe she’ll move out here to my place someday.

I’m writing this from my desk. I own my own desk. I own my own land. I own my own computer. I even have my own garden. It’s the first time I’ve had my own place. I still have a strong connection to the farm, and like I said, the whole place is my home, but this piece right here, this land, this is my home in another way, and I am proud of the way I live here, as well as the way we all live here. I’ll tell you the story about how I got here.

I had been driving a medical supply truck every day, from Panama City to some local communities. I had been doing it for a couple years. I don’t have a college degree like a lot of the people here, and I’d been more or less satisfied with my job. (But I do speak better Spanish than most of them!) I was driving the truck in early 2005 west of David on the Pan-Am when I had a flat tire. It turned out that my spare didn’t fit, so I called the company on my cell phone, and they sent out somebody to fix the truck. I waved down the next truck that came by, so I could get into town and hang out there, rather than on the hot, dusty road. That truck I flagged down was a red Toyota pickup. Scott was driving. I asked him for a lift down the road to the bus stop, and that’s how we first got to talking.

He told me all about this farm, mostly a lot of dreams and talk then, as I would soon see. They didn’t have a lot of experience with some of the basic stuff like even how to build buildings. But they had some money, and they were doing it. Scott said I could come by when I had a chance, and he’d show me around, and then he dropped me off at the main part of town. He was going to the internet place in David, since the farm had no internet at the time; in fact, they didn’t even have a phone. He was also picking up some supplies from the hardware store.

Anyhow, I didn’t think much more of what he said for a couple weeks until one day I found myself way ahead of schedule with my deliveries and in that general part of the country. So, I took a detour and stopped by the farm. Well, I say it was a farm, but there wasn’t much here then. They had one lean-to they were living in, another broken down building where they had slept for the first two weeks while they were building the lean-to, and they had some chicks wandering around, looking to be eaten up by critters. That was about it. There were three of them: Peter, Scott, and Marguerite. Although, when I pulled in, the only one there was Peter, sitting in the shade of a tree and reading a book called The Inferno by Dante. Marguerite and Scott were out on a walk together, figuring out the lay of the land, Peter said. Got to wonder what that means. I explained that I’d met Scott, and Peter said he knew all about it, and he said I was welcome there, and he’d be happy to show me around, which he did. He was a pretty young guy and talked like he was a cross-breed of woods kid and professor, a slang country accent peppered with lots of uncommon words. I could make out his good intention, because I’ve known all types.

I’m the type that can get along pretty well with anyone. Also, it doesn’t matter what goes wrong, because it never seems so bad to me. I know how to put up a building and take care of it, and I can keep a car running like it was new. Peter was on top of all that right away and he said that, if I wanted, I could come spend a couple months at the place with them and help fix up some buildings. I said it wasn’t quite my scene, which it wasn’t, because my job in Panama City was working fine for me. But I decided these guys were alright, and so one other time I also came by with my tools and not only did I fix the fan in Scott’s truck, which he hadn’t fixed even after 2 years of it being broken, but I also put together a windmill for them. They gave me lunch and a couple bucks (not even enough to cover my gas money). But it was fine, because I enjoyed myself there. And that was the beginning of a long friendship.

I’ve never been much of a reader, but I do keep track somewhat of the news, especially on the radio, and I never did like the way some things were going in the world, nor even in Panama with the politics and that whole Noriega thing. Well, what Peter and Scott and Marguerite would talk about sounded to me like it made a lot more sense than some of what I was hearing on the news. They talked about the oil and the energy issues, but they were talking about it by talking about their role in creating the problems, not blaming everyone else. So I respected that, and every two or three weeks I checked back up on them and lent a hand when I could. This went on more or less for about a year. During that time, some other people joined, and lots of people came and went. By the end of the year, ten people were living here more or less permanently, and one of them was Maria, who’s from Argentina originally, who, as I said, is my wife now. Well, I don’t know if it was because of what they all talked about or whether it was my gut feeling or Maria being there, but I found myself coming down more and more often and by this time I’d also read some of the books and brochures they’d put together.

Now let me just say that I’ve always voted Republican, and that I’ve always voted. I reckon part of the reason I’ve always voted Republican is because my parents always voted Republican. Like I said, I was born back before Carter decided to give away the Canal, and it always seemed my parents knew what they were talking about in their criticisms of the liberals. Though I’ve always thought about what I do, I’d never questioned their judgment on the party. Well, I think in this respect I don’t fit in with some of the others here, but with time I am seeing more and more that I might have been overlooking some things. Although I still voted Republican in 2008, I did it after thinking through a lot of the issues from a new perspective, and I still think it was the right choice. As you can see, my language is becoming a little more refined, as some of the people around here might say. I rec