Consensus at Huehuecoyotl
Building solutions for an ecovillage

By Danielle Connor
This article was printed in Abroad View magazine fall 2006

Students have filthy-fun constructing a bus stop for the Huehuecoytl community.
Photo courtesy of Danielle Connor

I spent last January at Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Mexico with a group of students from various universities. We were there for an interim semester-long course with Living Routes. In the class, Leadership for Social Change, we learned how to make decisions through consensus and use a community service project to bring about social change.

Our first morning we discovered the beauty of Huehuecoyotl, when one of its founders, Giovanni, gave us a tour of the village. Stained-glass windows, mosaic walkways, paintings, flowers, fruit trees and inventive, low-impact environmental architecture made each house in the community unique.

He told us his story, how he wound up being one of the founders of Huehuecoyotl and, later, a Global Ecovillage Network board member (gen.ecovillage.org). Once, the villagers made up a traveling theater troupe, performing shows around the world about environmental preservation, indigenous rights, and cultural tolerance. A day came when the group decided to settle its community and start one of the first intentional ecovillages in the world.

The discussion turned to our lives, and we started talking about what we might want our ideal society to have and how we see social change in the world. We envisioned worldwide education, peace and environmental integrity.

During our tour, Giovanni showed us to the water catchment area and explained how people suffer from limited water during the dry season. There is a seasonal waterfall that provides for Huehuecoyotl, but we only saw pictures of it.

During the dry season, when we were there, water preservation is a necessity. The average American uses 10 times more water per day than we did in Mexico. Dry toilets took some getting used to, but before long it felt strange to use the flush toilets in town. Saving water and producing organic fertilizer with dry toilets made a lot more sense. We learned to take quick showers and save extra water for the plants. We washed dishes in three tubs, assembly-line style.

In class, we discovered the true meaning of consensus and what role it plays in group decisions. The process does not mean unanimity; it is about solidarity. Each person is an important piece of the discussion. Consensus is not a cure-all, but rather a decision-making process that strives for the non-violent resolution of conflicts by encouraging participation, shared responsibility, trust and respect. Whereas I had always thought consensus meant everyone agreed, what I really learned is that consensus seeks solutions everyone can live with.

We were to use consensus to decide how we would aid the community. The facilitating role was described to us using the analogy of hosting a party. The facilitator must strive to keep a comfortable atmosphere, with the help of a scribe, timekeeper, vibes watcher, minute-taker, and agenda-planning committee.
During our second week we began having meetings to decide on a unifed community service project. Coming to an agreement wasn’t easy. Our list was long, our group multi-talented. Eventually, dialogue and compromise brought our ideas together, and we agreed to interview the members of the community to find out how best to serve their needs.

At a group meeting, we presented the community members with the results of our interviews. They listened openly and invited us to share our perspectives. Then, in a subsequent meeting, we worked together to decide on a project as a community. Our ideas included building handicap access, creating a playground, marking trails, developing gray water systems, and revamping the recycling center. The meeting lasted nearly five hours. In the end, we agreed on building a bus stop that would benefit the community, visitors, and locals.

There were only a few days to build the bus stop. We coaxed enormous rocks out of the ground and used them for the retaining wall. We carried water and gravel all the way down the driveway to mix cement for two poles. A local construction worker became our foreman. Our bodies were blackened with dirt from head to toe, but we were laughing all the way. A local metal worker agreed to make and install the roof.

The bus stop was finished by the time we left. In the process, we learned that consensus is larger than just direct democracy: it is a way of thinking, equipped to handle the needs of humans and their surroundings.
The community of Huehuecoyotl empowered us to strive toward social and environmental change—and inspired us to continue to dream of improving the world.

At the time this article was written, Danielle Connor had recently graduated from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. Her self-designed major, Literature and Writing: the Environment, focused on integrating environmental field work, current global issues, and the stories of the people and landscapes she explored. She traveled to Mexico with Living Routes (www.livingroutes.org) during J-Term her junior year to learn consensus at a Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage. Currently Danielle is with Green Corps in Boston for a leadership position as a community organizer tackling today’s most imperative environmental issues.