SPOTLIGHT: Alumni Amandine & Benoit

Read on the interview of APW previous students, Amandine & Benoit. In this conversation, they speak about why they are moving back to Europe, life in Aotearoa, New Zealand, what did they learn from studying permaculture and much more.

Sadly for us, you are moving to Bilbao in May. Tell us about your new adventure.

After our respective PDCs in 2018 and 2019, we understood from our learnings, particularly the necessity of living locally and travelling less, that we had to return to Europe, given that we are pretty close to our families. And when COVID hit, particularly after the four-month lockdown of 2021, it became clear that it was time to make the decision. So, our first reason for returning is to have a realistic geographical reach with our families.

The other important reason is to access land without compromising our finances and lifestyle too much. With the amount of a NZ deposit for a house, we can buy a better-built property, almost cash, in either France or Spain. It makes a tremendous difference in debt between being stuck in a 30-year mortgage and fully owning a place after just a few years.

Lastly, the direction taken by politics in New Zealand, while not surprising, is very concerning and convinced us that we are making the right decision to leave now. It doesn't mean we will never come back, though.

What drew you to New Zealand in the first place?

Amandine: Originally, I knew someone who had moved to Aotearoa and found a job in a couple of weeks. As I wanted to learn English, I thought it would be a good idea to come here for a year, improve my (nonexistent) English speaking skills while working as a grad architect, and then go on a working holiday visa in Canada, which was my primary goal. Fate decided otherwise, as I met my future husband six months into the country. That was 2015.

Benoit: I came to New Zealand with my ex-partner in 2013 for the travel experience on a working holiday visa. We purchased a van and toured the country for three months. Afterwards, I found a job in IT, my skillset, and saved money. I stayed in Aotearoa because a lot of things felt easy, finding a job, entrepreneurship, lifestyle, security. These are now a bit more complicated.

What are your best memories from New Zealand?

Benoit: My three months of travel in a van allowed me to discover a new country, beautiful landscapes, and a simpler lifestyle.

Amandine: The road trips, including a few places, like Aoraki Mount Cook, the Catlins, and Great Barrier Island. The psychedelic music festivals— AUM, Abracadabra, Shipwrecked or Splore.

Together: Becoming New Zealand citizens was a beautiful memory (though we didn't partake in our ceremonies due to the COVID lockdown for Benoit and last year's cyclone Gabrielle for Amandine).

Getting engaged on the Whale Bay cliff in Raglan.

Discovering the Maori and Pasifika cultures. And meeting the Permaculture world and community.

What are your worst memories from New Zealand?

We would say renting and the pedantic attitude of landlords. In addition to the shallow quality houses we lived in, we had only two healthy relationships with a property manager and a landlord in ten years. All the other tenancies (we moved a few times) were either disagreeable or terrible. It always felt like we were cash cows and didn't deserve nice living spaces. It culminated after COVID-19, when, with our co-tenants, we had to take a landlord to court after he decided to heavily renovate the house while we were still living there. We won but didn't get compensated fairly, and our mental health took a toll, too.

Being away from our relatives in Europe was also hard sometimes, particularly during the 2021 lockdown, when we had no idea when all the Covid madness would end.

What do you wish New Zealand could learn or embrace from European countries?

It is pretty straightforward—New Zealand needs to embrace the public transport policies applied in Europe. Why on Earth, in the North Island, is there still no train to Tauranga, Hamilton or Whangarei? What is it to have only one train daily to go to Wellington? No tramway linking South and West Auckland to the CBD?

Also, housing and, more generally, social policies applied in countries like France. There is more social housing. Finally, stronger environmental policies benefit the land and the people.

And what do you wish Europe could learn or embrace from New Zealand?

We feel that in Europe, people are pretty disconnected from what is commonly called "indigenous" cultures and the importance of indigenous knowledge in the fight and mitigation of climate change. How indigenous people are at the forefront of this fight and have been since forever. From an indigenous mindset, we must embrace principles such as humans being part of Nature. We are not something above or outside of Nature; we are stewards of the land, and our role is to respect and pass it on to the next generation in a spirit of resilience, amongst many other things. While we are conscious that not everybody embraces this thinking in Aotearoa, it is where we woke up to these concepts.

Something we will miss from here is the relaxed attitude of the people, commonly attached to an insular context and the politeness of people. It is agreeable to live in a context where people say hello, thank you, goodbye, and how are you doing? Even if it is superficial, it is agreeable. People seem more stressed in Europe! Another thing will be how here people give you a chance. You don't need to hold a master's degree to be given responsibilities, and that is something we always admired.

What drove you, Amandine, to join APW’s PDC in 2018? What were the things that have stuck with you since? And have you always been so stylish?

I entered the world of permaculture thanks to a good friend who studied the PDC in 2017. She convinced me I should do it, and so I did. It is funny how decisions that seem inconsequential at the time induce major life changes.

What I kept from my PDC, and everything I learned from permaculture and agroecology is, first and foremost, the "big picture" vision from the permaculture principle "Design from pattern to details". Another principle that stayed with me is "Obtain a yield", which motivates us to ensure that we get useful rewards from our work. I took it as a way to avoid debt as much as possible and be resilient, which weave with "Catch and store energy".

I believe that I have a good sense of aesthetics. In my teenage years, I learned a few things from reading Vogue and other consumer-society fashion magazines. While that seems shallow or superficial, these lectures taught me a few concepts regarding style. Working in a field connected to art, culture, and design also helps. I read not so long ago that beauty and aesthetics are essential for the human species, so I make sure to hold high on those.

What drove you Benoit, to join APW’s PDC in 2019? What surprised you and which ideas have you incorporated into your life? And what did you learn from your time at Countdown?

After Amandine registered for her PDC, I became interested as well and got into the 2019 Auckland Permaculture Workshop promotion of 2019.

What I took out the most was that hyper technology won't solve our problems. The "Use small and slow solutions" principle is a tangible way forward. I was amazed at the amount of things you can do with low-tech. It became a passion of mine when I found time to imagine and build low-tech tool systems, mainly to grow food. "Catch and store energy" also stayed with me. For example, it motivated me to install a water tank in our rental, and thanks to this, we had enough water to last the drought in 2021! Thanks to "Use and value diversity", I also learned how to practice companion planting, which I applied wherever possible when growing food in our rentals. One year, we had plenty of tomatoes and basil.

Working at the leading supermarket supplier, a food corporation, during the COVID period was an enlightening experience. It showed me the many shortcuts the food industry takes and the fragility of our global food chain system. How close we were to being unable to feed people in cities during a crisis like COVID-19. It made me appreciate the hard work of local farmers more and made us shift how we purchase food. We now get most of our veggies from a local, nutrient-dense agroecology farm in the city, Organic Market Garden by The Love of Bees, and go to the supermarket for only a handful of basics.

What permaculture-inspired practices, philosophies and ideas will you be taking to Spain?

All of the above for sure, and probably all of the permaculture principles.

Something that will stay with us forever is that everything is interconnected, and our most minor actions can have more considerable consequences for someone, somewhere. The values we learnt from our PDCs also taught us to question things and to not take commonality for granted, like, for example, industrial agriculture. That is how food is produced under capitalism; it is "normal", but it is not. It has dramatic consequences on multiple fronts and needs to be challenged and shifted. Overall, we understand that other ways of living are possible and that the capitalist way of living, like there is no tomorrow, is dying. We hope to find local agroecology groups in the Basque Country.

Finally, studying permaculture gave us a sense of control. The predictions, concepts, and vision of the future we learnt and discovered in class, for example, show how the rise of extremism is a symptom of a society collapsing. That is something that we are currently witnessing globally. But these global events do not catch us by surprise because we have learned that they will happen. It helps us to be mentally prepared for society's challenges and foster our energy towards what is essential. And so, in our context, our focus is to access land and find a new place. That means we will thoroughly check the property's resilience, orientation, geology, soil type, and proximity to the sea to purchase a place with the best agroecology outcome.

How will you describe permaculture to your new Spanish friends?

For us, permaculture is a holistic approach to designing systems of all scales in a non-extractive way that will benefit the planet and its people while producing a yield. It is the way forward.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

We want to acknowledge our permaculture teachers, Finn, Gary and Ron. The course they designed and their passion changed our lives forever.

Image: Bilbao, Spain