On 13th of September, after 7 km of 5% slope uphill we arrived to Pujarnol, in the north of Girona. Even though of the scary arrival (the dogs were barking as crazy to the bikes) the views compensated it: huge house surrounded by forest, next to an old church and a cemetery. It looked like a castle. A bit of history: the main house is 1000 years old and the last 2 centuries used to be a hostel, where people could spend a night or have a meal. Now it hosts 10 adults and 6 children from different families that live together as a community: Som Pujarnol, which was born 5 years ago. They have a vegetable garden, chicken and one really sociable donkey. They produce jam, walnuts and other goods from their garden. This community is part of the Cooperativa Integral Catalana (CIC), a cooperative that was born in 2010 and that involves around 200 projects in Catalonia. This cooperative is based on the social coin as a tool to exchange products between the different producers. This creates a different monetary system and an alternative to capitalism (https://cooperativa.cat/en).
They explained us their vision of the project and we worked together with them in the vegetable garden, fixing a room of the house, walnut and wood picking, collecting stones for further buildings… When we got in touch with them, they asked us for a donation in exchange for our stay there and we could pay with social coin or with real money (we payed with euros and contributed with some hours of work per day). We shared a meal with all the community, chatted and shared experiences, knowledge, etc. and a member of the CIC gave us an informal speech about how it works. We also had time to do workshops and discussions, rest, play music, climb the tower and enjoy the group.
Although the weather was not the best – it was raining many hours of the three days we spent there – we could enjoy a nice 3 hours circle in a really comfy rainproof 3 wall house. To fight the cold we were playing lots of energizer games and many workshops: catalan basics, acrobatics, massage…
