March 2025 | Part II: Interview with Christopher Szecsey, Consultant, Trainer, and Facilitator for Local and International Programs

“We set up the first international United Nations development program that said, We’re not going to import capital or Western technology…We were very clear that, for example, we were not going to bring in tractors that would fall into disrepair and rust.”

I went to Ecuador for three years as part of the Peace Corps, and got involved with the Quechua-speaking people, descendants of the Incan Empire who live throughout the Andes in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia.

I asked Christopher how he worked with change at both the individual and community levels.

Christopher explained: In Ecuador, the best land in the valleys is the large haciendas owned by rich families who all trace their ancestors back to the Spanish conquistadors. The labor is provided by the poor Quechua-speaking indigenous people who live in the surrounding mountains, farming on steep, poor soils.

To ignite their sense of responsibility and self-esteem for managing the change process at both the individual and community levels, you have to first build trust and rapport, and I was the first gringo to live in the community. One starts to understand what they identify as their interests and needs. Then, one helps them organize and carry out projects while finding the resources to support those projects, both within the community and externally. The philosophy of Peace Corps (PC) is not a “hand-out” but a “hand-up,” and to work oneself out of a job.

There were deep cultural differences between them and me. Some just want to be left alone. Others were more receptive. You identify informal leaders and internal change agents. Most people won’t change unless they are influenced by their peers. Then you have a core group, a critical mass to carry out the community projects.

When my three years with the Peace Corps ended, I took a year to travel South and Central America by train, truck, bus, and hitchhiking. I went down through Peru and Bolivia to Brazil, and visited the Bahia Carnival in northern Brazil. Then I traveled through Paraguay and Argentina, all the way to Tierra del Fuego, back up through Chile and Peru, returning to Ecuador.

I fell in love again with Ecuador, and three of us opened the first Natural Foods and Vegetarian Restaurant and Store in Quito. I stayed another three months before flying to Panama and journeying overland through Central America back to the USA.

Once back in the States, I experienced some culture shock and was in a quandary about what to do after those incredible experiences. I knew I wanted to be part of the change underway at the time, especially in the Bay Area and northern California. An opportunity presented itself at the Farallones Institute.

While I was in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, some PC friends wanted to build a biogas digester to power cooking and lights.The Chinese had developed the technology. David Katz researched and built the machine. Sim Van der Ryn, a professor at UC Berkeley, was the founder of green architecture. He and David started the Farallones Institute at two sites. The one in Berkeley focused on the Integral Urban House which demonstrated self-reliant living in an urban context. Mary Schmidt, whom I was yet to meet, lived and worked there in the 70s.

The other site was in Occidental, in west Sonoma County, and served to demonstrate self-reliant living in a rural environment. Small-scale appropriate and renewable systems were designed for food, water, shelter, heating, and cooling at the individual and community levels. This work has grown in scope and direction and is being continued today on the same 80-acre site by the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.

The holistic approach of the Farallones Institute (FI) was the use of appropriate technology and integrated systems. At the Farallones Rural Center, we developed compostable toilets, gray water recycling, solar energy, passive and active for heating and cooling, organic gardening, etc. We built a ceramic studio and a blacksmith shop to demonstrate tool-making, and created green buildings.

In Berkeley, at the Integral Urban House, attached to the side of the house was a greenhouse where we grew vegetables. Rabbits were raised for their meat and fur. There was a small aquatic pond with a wind pump to aerate it. The dead bees on the beehives above the pond fell into the water and fed the fish. Thousands of people came to the House. A similar group flourished in Massachusetts, called the New Alchemy Institute. It was a time of innovation and learning. Also of interest, in England, Schumacher had started the Intermediate Technology and Development Group (ITDG.) It was consulting all over the world.

When I joined the Occidental site of the Farallones Institute, I worked at various jobs before eventually becoming Director of International Programs. We wanted to train Peace Corps volunteers, and to conduct the trainings we needed to have former PC workers. I had met and lived with Laura Goldman for two years in Ecuador in a mud hut with no running water, electricity, or toilet. Laura stayed on for another four years after I left. I called Laura, who was getting her Masters on the East Coast, and invited her to the Institute. We designed and managed the Peace Corps training program along with other Farallones staff members. Laura met John there. They married and started their impressive company, Solar Works.

I was at the Farallones Institute in Occidental for four years. There was lots of contact and exchange between the Farallones’ rural and urban sites. Mary moved up to the rural center, and we got involved in a professional and then personal relationship. Farallones and another group, Volunteers in Asia, bid against ITDG to design and manage a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) national appropriate technology program in Nepal. Mary and I moved to Nepal for the 2-year project, and during that time, we married. We have been married for over 40 years.

We set up the first international UNDP development program that said, We’re not going to import capital or Western technology. a) We’ll first understand what’s already here b) How can we improve it? c) What are certain ethnic groups in Nepal using that other groups don’t know about? d) We set up a clearing house in Kathmandu for all government departments and NGOs to share their info. e) We improved existing culturally appropriate technology, and as a last resort, f) What other technologies were operating in Asia that might be relevant?

We were very clear that, for example, we were not going to bring in tractors that would fall into disrepair and rust. The foundations for this work were. laid by visionary people in the late 60s and 70s, such as Sim Van der Ryn, David Katz, and E F Schumacher, who created a different mindset for how to live in the world.

The project in Nepal turned out to be a very good example of how to live differently without being exploitative, extractive, or oppressive to local people and equally important, engaging them in a participatory process of grassroots technology research, development, and distribution with such relevant technologies as improved cook stoves, improved grain storage, water power, etc.

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A VISIT TO THE WOOD WHISPERER

Inside a tree, a story leans out,
looking this way and that,
for someone to listen.

     Mansions and churches had toppled
to the ground.
How the fallen walls of wood
and the carpenter gazed at each other.
“I want to live again! Be tree again!
     Story again! Useful again!
     In the sanctity of hands who will
     make me beautiful again!”

We placed our ears
to the wood frames of doors
     to children’s bedrooms,
carved with scrolls of vines
flowers, wings,

     an animal’s leftover dreams,
     manes of serpents,
fern fronds, lion curls,
curlew’s tousled feathers,
totem tunes,

hammers of woodpeckers,
taps of raven beaks,
scratch of squirrels romp,
peeping hunger of young birds,
scraping
     of children’s shoes,
climbing up rough bark of
redwood or birch,
up from the stealthy grip of roots,
up into the humble branching
reach for stars.

A long mahogany table in the kitchen,
like an ancient sea bed with a
river in the wood,
Scallop and clam shells puckered up
to be touched. We touched.

The workshop for the love of wood,
is where the wood wizard’s tools awaken
destiny in forgotten lives.

The outside comes in.
   The forest begins its spin of tales.

The Spirit of the Forest
rubs like Aladdin, cedar, and cherry,
oak and walnut,
maple and pine,
until the chorus

commences of wind rustle, and whine, moan,
and gasp, trill, and lullaby.

Violins, cellos, and flute echo
from ceiling beams and
floorboards,

hidden musicians just waiting,
for someone to listen.

We listened.

Gail Onion

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

A Path Older Than Memory
An Interview with Paul Salopek

I think that this sense of well-being that comes with timelessness, the sense of being at peace—it must be very, very old. And it must be like a stylus dropping into a groove on the surface of a planet and making this music. And we are, our bodies are, that stylus, and we’re meant to move at this RPM that comes with the movement of our body.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Paul Salopek, the journalist who’s retracing the migration pathway of early humans out of Africa, walking through the world at three miles per hour. In this interview with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee in Emergence Magazine, Paul Salopek delves deeply into his experiences of timelessness while walking across the earth. Paul is wonderfully expressive and, at the same time, succinct, and shares deeply.

You can read or listen to this interview at:
https://emergencemagazine.org/conversation/a-path-older-than-memory/

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The World Is a Prism, Not a Window
An Interview with Zoë Schlanger

Pushing the limits of our Western scientific understanding of intelligence, climate journalist Zoë Schlanger speaks about her latest book, The Light Eaters, and how embracing plant consciousness upends the structures and hierarchies we’ve placed around living beings—ourselves included.

This magical, illuminating interview of Zoë Schlanger by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee in Emergence Magazine, is truly delightful. Zoë knows her field well and, through many researched examples, brings breathtaking views on plant intelligence and our dependence on this kingdom.

You can listen to or read this interview at:
https://emergencemagazine.org/interview/the-world-is-a-prism/

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There Is Another Way, a powerful new documentary, tells the story of a group of visionaries – Combatants for Peace – who refuse to surrender to violence and injustice, and in doing so show that another path is possible – for them, for us, and for all humanity. As we are all faced with essential questions about who we are, will we choose collective liberation, where the needs, rights, and safety of all are prioritized – in which our humanity comes first, knowing that no one is free until everyone is free.

MARCH 13 AT 7:00 PM, SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER
MARCH 14 AT 6:30 PM, ROXIE THEATER, SAN FRANCISCO
MARCH 18 AT 7:00 PM, CINEMA 21, PORTLAND, OREGON
For other screenings, please visit this link.

You can watch the trailer at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39n7iOd8Qo4

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MIDDLE EAST PEACE

Here is an excerpt from an email I recently received from American Friends of Combatants for Peace.

We write to you from Palestine and Israel, where we are traveling with fifteen diverse leaders from the US—rabbis, pastors, professors, artists, lobbyists, therapists, and others—all committed to the work of peace and justice. Together, we are moving through this land filled with grief and hope, beauty and pain. We are practicing sacred witnessing, reflection, and deep listening as we stand in solidarity with our beloved partners on the ground.

We have passed through checkpoints, sat with hostage families, and listened to CfP activists mourning the loss of their family members in Gaza. At every turn, we are reminded of the weight of the suffering—and the profound courage of those who refuse to give up on a better future.

It is hard to put this journey into words. We carry gratitude in one hand and grief in the other. Gratitude for the chance to stand together, to reconnect with our team, and to witness the courage of those co-creating a different reality in this land. And grief for the deep wounds of injustice, occupation, and dehumanization that remain all around. 

Today, we walk the streets of Hebron and sit with families in Al-Twani, where communities are resisting the escalating threat of displacement with steadfast nonviolence. 

Tomorrow, we will plant trees in the West Bank alongside Combatants for Peace activists—one small act of defiance and hope. Soon, we will share much more from this journey, including the voices of the leaders traveling alongside us. Until then, know that we are holding many stories, carrying them with care, and preparing to bring them home to you. 

Below is a photo taken last week of the AFCFP & CfP teams in the office in Beit Jala. It was our first time in two years to all be together again.