One week in our off grid community in Portugal [ #184]

Six years ago we bought this abandoned piece of land in Portugal to find another way of living. And since then we have been building our base camp and living areas, connecting with the local community and finding ways to live together here on our land. And in this update we will share a bit more about camp life that we don't usually show in the videos and share a bit more about how we live and work in the same space here at camp. So welcome to a new Project Camp update. During update 82 you've seen us talking about what life looks like in camp outside of the usual work. But three years later and over 100 updates things might have changed just a little bit. Some people have come and gone, the organization has adapted to that and we now have many new things to tell you. There were also some points that we didn't talk about during the first update so let's fix that. Let's start by our weekly planning board which is a very useful tool that we use to structure all of the tasks that happen at camp. We have cleaning teams who clean our kitchen and do all the dishes throughout the week as well as taking care of important spaces like the toilets and bins and even cook breakfast in the mornings. We also have people who volunteer to water things such as our gardens that we have or the trees which have been planted around camp. We've already seen the bread team before but now we have an oven team and they're responsible for preparing the ingredients for our oven nights which is usually pizza toppings. But everybody comes together anyway to set everything up and clean everything down at the end of the night. And in between all of this we have people coming, people going and lots of random events like birthdays or the fact that the water isn't going to be on for 15 minutes. So lots of things happen on this board including announcements for the week, sentence for Portuguese and organizing the teams that we have for bread team and for oven team. Beyond that is even more small details and we like to get together on Mondays to use this and structure the week for everyone here. Once we're usually done with all the weekly planning the pods have their own individual pod meetings. Let's go check in with Luisa and the documentation pod. Hi, I'm Luisa. You usually don't see me because I'm behind the camera or the screen. Last year I came here as additional video editor producing learning videos for the Project CAMP Academy. This year I came back as documentation pod manager. A catchy title that sometimes people don't fully understand. Do you know what Luisa do in CAMP? No. Franca, what do Luisa do in CAMP? I really don't know. Do you know what Luisa do in CAMP? What kind of question is this? So my job is to guide and direct a team of designers, video editors, illustrators and coders on-site and remote through a bunch of different projects. I love that at Project CAMP we dare to try and that we share knowledge with the world. I know it inspires a lot of people to rethink, repair and to try new things themselves and to me this is what it's all about. In my free time I like to clear my mind at the coast and in the water. And some years ago I initiated my own project called Femme2Femme. I teach Flinta people how to DJ and create a fun and safe learning space. So community building, sharing knowledge and inspiration. A little bit like Project CAMP. But enough about me. I heard that VideoPod has some questions about DocumentationPod, right? That's right. Let's start with what does DocumentationPod actually do? In short the answer would be we build all the digital infrastructure for CAMP. Who are then the people that work in this pod? I would say the people are a bit the nerds of CAMP. At least we always run around with our laptops in between all these makers and builders and chefs doing cool things that falls out a little bit. But yeah as I mentioned in my intro we are like a lot of different people, different professions and also we work from different bases. Not everyone is here, not everyone is here for like a long time. So it's a mix between remote and on-site. Yeah really varied. If I understand correctly DocumentationPod makes sure that all of the research that we gather here gets shared. But isn't that our task in VideoPod? Well VideoPod is producing amazing update videos and therefore everything that we're working on is documented on the daily base. But we are using also this footage to build videos that show the entire process from the beginning to the end of a project that sometimes takes years. So we need a lot of time from the start to finish to then produce a video like this. They accompany for example what we already share in the research module where each project that we think is worth sharing with the world has a research question, plans on how we found it in the beginning, our ideas for the future. People can help us out, share their ideas. We keep everyone updated on how it's going and once it's finished there's a conclusion. Yeah and all of this together I think is a really valuable resource. Ah okay so you basically use the footage that we also use in VideoPod and you work on the research module. So you don't really do any videos yourself? We use that footage but we also produce new videos. For example for the Project Camp Academy we're working on learning videos that hold all the valuable lessons we learned from the past six years with a bit of a longer term reflection on it. Really I think the good nuggets of knowledge of the past years it will be shared in a way that you can really follow the whole process. Yeah if people want to start a similar project a bit like tutorial step by step. These are the projects we're focusing on right now but we have a lot more things to do as well. For example we take care of the weekly communication with our supporters so they need to know what we are up to and we develop new digital tools for people online to use and we are working on a new website. If we take a step back to look at the other pods they each have their own set of challenges to try and keep a healthy work-life balance. Most pods work in teams across many different parts of the land and they each need focus and teamwork to move the season's projects forward as this is where most energy is required throughout the week. This can create different dynamics and relationships between people. For example Landscape Pod work outside so their challenges are more environmental and weather related. Workspace Pod work outside and inside so they have more flexibility but also longer projects to achieve. Kitchen Pod work inside but they eat, clean and socialize in the same space that they work. This can be quite challenging to navigate from day to day. Basecamp Pod has an overview of the many small things that fall outside of projects. By keeping things running smoothly they can ensure the other pods are able to focus better on their own projects and tasks. Their challenges reside more on the logistics, the systems and the relationships between campers. Infrastructure Pod is... Which means that I work all over Basecamp in many different settings and that can be outside on one of the workspace projects or in one of the gardens or areas the trees have been planted and sometimes that also means computer work. But the variety of the job always keeps me on my toes and means that there are many different environments where things can happen. We have the video team also working down in the office so let's go take a look at what they're doing. For the video team one of the big challenges is that we work with all the other pods. So if they film something outside of camp, if they have a big action here where they need an extra camera, we help to record. We kind of have to stay flexible because the timelines are not always super rigid. We have to have structures to do everything that we want to do. So it's a bit of a balance. One of the things that helps us in this structure is our drone routine. Which is a set of saved locations and angles where the camera shows and where the drone flies so that you can see the progress of mostly landscaping but also everything we build on the land. Right now you can't even see the drone in the air. It's like 86 meters high on this shot. But you can see all of camp and you can see what the camera does. After a certain height it doesn't matter. We have no more obstacles. But if you're close to houses, trees and everything you have to be quite careful when flying. Okay. By the way, this is Felipe. We've seen a lot of him before but we've never actually met him. Hi, I'm Felipe. I make music, I love to cook and grow plants and I came to camp as a video maker in season 5. While making the videos is fun and rewarding what actually brought me back is the way we live together here. Every person is important, every plate washed and every good conversation strengthens the community in the long run. This feeling of being connected with the rest of society stayed even when I was back in the city sitting in trains and working with people that I did not know. This year I came back as a video manager. My background in music production and documentary filmmaking makes me focus on emotion and the flow in the videos. I'm glad to pour my energy into telling the story of camp and amplify the lessons we learn on a daily basis. It's really an honor to work with all these different professionals that share their knowledge and energy for a project like this. In the future I'd like to learn more about permaculture and find a place where I can live, work and raise a family. But now back to camp. We try to respect the privacy of the people when filming in our living areas. Sometimes this is just people saying recording, sometimes we send a message before in our chat to let people know that they might be on camera, on the drones or something else. With the many new people that come through camp we want to make the settling in process as quick and easy as possible. So for that we have developed several onboarding tours which detail more clearly how everything works here and means that people can invest themselves more quickly into the projects and in day-to-day camp life. Our weekly planning tour is simply to give an overview of everything that happens at camp during the week. The team structures and shared spaces is to show who is at camp, what they're doing and where they will be doing that. Our safety tour focuses on using certain tools that we have at camp but also a lot on fire safety and making sure that we prevent fires happening and what to do if there is one here. Waste and hygiene focuses a lot on our waste streams here and how we recycle a lot of the things that we use including our compost, toilets, bins and a lot more. And the land tour is pretty self-explanatory. We have 10 hectares of land here but we only use this one in base camp so it's a nice way to show all the new people just all the things there are around our land. And now it's dinner time. We come together to recharge our batteries. We fuel our body with carbs, protein and vitamins and the kitchen team needs to make sure that we balance all those things and of course it also has to taste nice. Is the food good? And sometimes we organize a fancy dinner. We do this to have a special moment together. Now that we saw how people are integrated at camp let's take a look at the end of people's camp adventure. People celebrate their last evenings in the way that they want. Maybe they want an intimate circle saying goodbye to their friends. Maybe they want a big night with board games or we all go to the cafe in town. We also have the goodbye jars. When someone is leaving we put a jar up on here and people can put in notes, write something, make a drawing and say goodbye to the person that leaves. Safe travels, nice to meet you. I'm Glenn, it was very nice to meet you. Have you ever wondered how we make our videos? From the first idea of the project all the way to the finished video? Well, we have Guilherme from Portugal to tell us how we do that. Thank you Cameron. Everything starts during the winter when the long-term residents plan what are the incoming projects for the season. What do we need and what do we want for next year? We create these briefings so when the time comes during the season the manager is able to hand the project over to the team. Then they can start designing and planning the project together. How can we make this doable? Like what materials do we need? Maybe we need a 3D model? It's a lot of research. This is where the video teams join the party. One of the video maker is going to be handling the video. He gets in touch with the people already working on it and they start scripting according to the plans. They make what we call a storyline. This is where all the magic of video making is prepared. In the shared dock where all the big points of the ongoing video are written. Meanwhile the pod that's handling the project is doing the last researches making sure they have everything they need to actually start recording the process. They start by filming the pre-shots of the place before the actual work starts so you can see the initial state of the place. Then they start the actual work and record the entire process. There's also a GoPro filming most of the time so you get a general overview of what's happening there. At the end of each step they always record some after shots so you can see how the project is progressing. At the end of the project they show you the final result of the finished product. When done for the day the teams come here to the shared computer where they can upload their files. In this step they sort the footage by getting rid of the bad takes and they also sort it in labeled folders so the video team can find it easily afterwards. Project wise the video pod takes over the footage from the shared computer and edit it together to build the videos for example the one you're watching right now. They shape the story of the update referring to the storyline made before and shoot voiceovers, intro, outro and other sequences to enrich the update and create a logical story for you to follow and enjoy. Once all of this is done DogPod prepares the titles, descriptions, miniatures and they organize the publication in Patreon and on YouTube but two weeks later. In reality of course this process happened during multiple weeks for each project we do here at camp and there's multiple projects happening at the same time. Once the video is published on Patreon we reunite all together at camp and we watch the video together. Everyone takes notes, we also take some notes from Patreon and we do some last touches before releasing it for YouTube but that's for another week. So doing all of this kind of makes us sometimes feel like we're living in a bubble. We eat, we sleep and we work and relax all in the same place right here at camp and this is usually the right moment to go to the office in town. Let's go. It's a house in the town that's closest to Project Camp which we use as an office space. Let's take a look. So you may have noticed this season that the project has been investing a lot more time and effort into getting knowledge workers to work on the digital infrastructure behind Project Camp and because of this the office on the land gets a lot more crowded. So on short notice we really needed to have a couple of extra desk spots. You can still see around that it used to be a house but we don't really use it as this space. As you can see there's desks all around and the only amenities that we use are the toilets but we don't really sleep here or cook meals here. But one of the main upsides here is that the wi-fi is much faster than on the land and given that we sometimes need to upload very large video footage to the internet this comes in quite handy and it can save us quite some time. It also has less interruptions from things on the land that you might expect being there which allows us to work in a more focused manner from time to time. And during the summer when it gets really hot on the land the temperature is much more bearable in here and the nice thing is that not only the people from the office spaces tend to work here but sometimes people from workspace when they need to design something they also come to the office in town to have a focused design session for example. And since this office is in the middle of the town that we are closest by it gives us the opportunity to practice our Portuguese and connect and build relationships with the townspeople. Speaking of our neighbors as you might have seen in previous episodes we are planning to buy some land from them. More specifically the land that has the lagoon where we are kindly offered by our neighbor Tanekesh to swim at. We cleared it up a couple of seasons ago and he's offering to sell it for us in the near future. In order to do that though we need to finance it and luckily we found a sponsor to help us with that. Saly is an eSIM service that helps you get internet when you're using your phone abroad. In my case for example I am from the Netherlands but I've been living in Portugal for a while now and because of this my provider has been overcharging me a lot because I'm here in Portugal and not in the Netherlands for a long time. And in this case it's really ideal to just use an eSIM and Saly can provide these for you. It's really easy to get an eSIM from Saly. So rather than me telling you about it I actually found someone in our camp Becky. Becky's from the UK and she actually needed an eSIM and what easier way to show you how to use Saly than to actually do it record Becky's screen and guide you to the process. So first you go to the Saly website and you check out which country you're in and which country you want to use the eSIM basically and then you decide how much data you want and then you can check out. You get an email, you can download the Saly app and by simply installing the Saly app guiding you through the process automatically you now have an eSIM. So if you want an eSIM for yourself you can use the code PROJECTCAMP at checkout like Becky did for a 15% discount on your next eSIM. So thank you so much for Saly for sponsoring this video because now we're one step closer to purchasing the land with the lagoon on it and for now let's get back to the update. We have a lot of people coming to camp and in general these people that are coming they are contributing to the area in some way and some people might be doing that by renovating a ruin from the past where our neighbors have been living and now it's just a pile of stones that they're turning back into a house. Some people might be removing the mimosa so the area doesn't look so overgrown again and we can actually maintain it. And the funny part is that these people come in for a temporary time and our local environment or local area they don't really know each other. From a long-term perspective we are having life and work kind of at the same place and over the years we have been connecting way more with the local area and the project collaborates a lot with for example the local farmers when they do a bigger harvest or when there are parties we try to go with people together also to know the culture and on the other hand also when they need support we just give a helping hand. We also have a lot of people from the region coming to the land for a meal, a coffee, just to chat or a pizza night on Fridays and besides that they also help with projects, executing and planning. This is really cool because it contains the local knowledge. The project is off-grid but not isolated so we all share the same area we share the same fruits and we also share the same environmental challenges and this while we get to know each other more and more. So in the winter when the season is over and everyone is going back to their houses a couple of us stay, living here sometimes going for dinner with the neighbors helping each other in the challenges of winter a lot of rain for example or a storm and we still continue going to sports club or a local theater group or just doing groceries. Life goes on. After a while you just start growing roots. To help us get closer to the community of the local people here in Portugal we have Portuguese classes from a woman also from this town called Isabela and the goal of these Portuguese classes is to of course communicate better with our neighbors and the people in town and this helps us develop better relationships with them. At the end of the day some of us enjoy going to the local cafe in the village. This is a chance for us to get out of camp and share a few laughs together. Friday is a big day as you know. There is the managers meeting where we take decisions as a group and go forward at camp. There is the maintenance afternoon that you know about and pizza night afterwards but just in between we have a new styled human hour. Kato will tell you more about it. During this hour we look at our needs. What is it that I need right now? After checking in people that have an idea to fulfill their needs share their activity and if you hear something that fits your need you can join that activity. It can be something like yoga, deep conversation, drawing or meditation and after dividing the groups people go off to their place to do the activity and in this way we have a moment in our week that we all attend to our needs. Throughout the month a big challenge is to have like a good work and life balance. We are all colleagues and flatmates so that makes this a bit difficult sometimes. Also the places that we inhabit. Sometimes we use them for work, sometimes we use them to chill, to play chess or whatever. This is especially true for the pizza hut, the white table that is back there, the kitchen deck. During weekends we just have to make them work for us to recharge our batteries, our social batteries and to relax from the mental and physical stress that we have throughout the week. Sometimes we can't even use the outside spaces like the yoga deck back there and we have to resort to other things. We have a more limited palette and have to get creative. There's a roof over the kitchen back so that where we can meet up and be together. There's Ruben's room which is a multi-purpose area where we play and just talk sometimes at night and then there's the material bag. The biggest dry space. It has a nice level floor for stretching and other stuff. We're storing a lot of building materials in here but also right now we've got this from the last precious plastic workshop and the acoustics here are very unique as you can hear. And I love this for music nights. So we come here to sing and to connect on this level. Now we have the time to recharge our batteries. Some people go to the beach, go camping near rivers, waterfalls or even go hiking in the mountains and others prefer to stay at camp. That's it for this update. If you like what you see here you can support us on Patreon where you get the videos two weeks ahead with no ads and in 4k along with a bunch of other interesting posts. Otherwise, we'll see you back here at YouTube. Same time, same place. Thanks for watching.