If you are coming to Sunseed and you are a child, there may be a few things you want to know. If this is the case, then here are a few things that I was interested in when I came to Sunseed.Here is Sunseed from a child’s perspective.

When I arrived at Sunseed, we were given lunch and we met our guide. She was very kind and helpful and took us all around Sunseed. This will probably happen to you as well. All of the people are very nice and help you understand the way Sunseed works for the first few days. It is very easy to learn your way around the village even though it is very big!

What will happen at Sunseed?

Every morning, you are woken up at 6:45 with a knock on the door. You then go down to breakfast and sit around the big outside table. Jobs are given to you and the other people at Sunseed. You work until lunch, and then you get to rest for most of the afternoon. It is very nice to go down to the little lake in the beginning of the afternoon as at this time it will probably be very hot. Terrapins also swim in the lakes but they are quite hard to spot so you have to be very very quiet if you want to see them.

Around once a week, the adults that are with you will cook for all the other people staying at Sunseed. All the food is very nice but it may not be the sort of food you are used to. My sister is a vegan and vegetarians are also very welcome at Sunseed. There is no meat eating at Sunseed so there is no danger of not sticking to your personal diet.

Animals and wildlife

I loved playing with the cats and dogs at Sunseed. One dog named Natalia may run away from you as she is a bit scared of children. When she ran away from me I was told to let her come to me rather than following her. About a day or so later, when she was fairly near me, I let her sniff my hand and gently patted her on the head. Only a few days after after she came to me to make me stroke her.                                                                                                     There are two main cats at Sunseed which you will see the most, wandering around the village. These cats are called Minima and Ziggy. Minima is a very small cat (which is why she is called Minima) and she is very very playful. Ziggy however  is an older cat who doesn’t really like games but once she gets to know you, he will sit on your lap and let you stroke him.

There is lots of wildlife all around Sunseed such as different types of bugs, insects, and birds. All of them are very interesting to look at and learn about. The people at Sunseed are always thinking about new ideas and projects to make Sunseed a better place. If you are staying for a long time, you and your family can make your own project. At the time I was at Sunseed, there was some discussion about getting some farm animals such as chickens and goats for eggs and milk.

Sunseed is a really great place for all different things and people of all ages. Even if you are the youngest person there at that time ( which I was!) you can still help and enjoy Sunseed as much as the adults. I hope you have a great time and learn lots!

By Jyothi Nayar

As we all sit to enjoy breakfast at the beginning of a new week at Sunseed gentle conversation fills the air, everyone eager to share stories of what happened during their weekend. For the majority, it was a weekend spent on the beach enjoying San Juan festivities in nearby San Jose.

A group of around 15 sunseeders spent Saturday night partying, laughing and taking in the atmosphere. We spent the night on the beach and then spent Sunday morning watching the sun rise over the Mediterranean sea, before heading to another beach along Cabo de Gata to relax under the sun and recover from the night before.

In the past few weeks we have seen plenty of progress in all departments at Sunseed. In eco-construction and maintenance the team have been focusing their efforts on providing Sunseed with not one, but two new compost toilets in anticipation of an influx of volunteers over the summer months. The two new structures, one at the top of the village in the solar garden and the other in an idyllic spot amongst the caña down by the river, have been constructed using mainly caña and pita, two materials that we are lucky enough to have an abundance of in the valley.

As always there is no lack of action in our organic gardens. Staff and volunteers are starting to reap the fruits of their labour as the emergence of new garden produce coincides with the wave of heat and sun that we are experiencing at the moment.

One particularly exciting new addition to the garden is the impressive caña structure, which Kirsty, Jef and many volunteers have been working on in the past few weeks. The structure, which stands at around two and a half meters in height, is designed to allow beans and cucumbers, which will attach themselves to strings which hang off the frame, to climb up the structure creating much needed shade for the tomatoes growing below; a great example of how we apply permaculture principles to our work at Sunseed.

In the drylands department Jose and Sarka, a student from the Czech Republic who is on a six month internship at Sunseed, have been working tirelessly to complete one of our flagship projects at Sunseed. Using some of the research carried out by a previous volunteer at Sunseed Ari Zwich, Sarka and Jose have created four vertical flow reed beds through which our waste water will run in the future. The reeds, which sit in tanks filled with gravel, transfer the oxygen from their leaves into the gravel beds via their root system. This encourages micro organisms that digest pollutants to colonise the beds. The work is ongoing and anyone who would like to take the opportunity to assist the drylands team with the project is very much welcome to come and get stuck in.

In appropriate technology Csaba and Marlene, another intern on a three month placement at Sunseed, Have been working on building and programming a new solar tracker for some of our photovoltaic solar panels.

Once finished the solar tracker will track the motion of the sun and adjust the angle of the panels accordingly, therefore increasing the output and efficiency of the system.