3.2 The economic and financial condition

Economically, the people on the FINCA SONADOR have an independent way of life: They grow corn, beans, cassava roots, bananas and a variety of fruit trees. They have milk, eggs and meat. Two small shops add to the supply of everyday life. The village has a boarding school and a catholic and a protestant church. Although one can find some motor vehicles, the village people mainly use their horses as a means of transport. They also keep goats and cattle, produce some cheese for their personal use and make local specialities from sugarcane and cocoa.

However, the main source of income of the village is the production of coffee. Second ranks the production of sugarcane. Today, additional income is generated from project tourism. However, it is evident from the net income of the village that people on the FINCA SONADOR lead a modest life. In the previous year, the village produced a total of $ 52.445 from coffee, $ 53.110 from growing sugarcane, and another $ 34.666 from tourism (about 25% of total income). A theoretical evenly balanced distribution among all 54 families would give every family a gross income of $ 2.600 per year. Nevertheless, the net income is much lower as farmers have to pay for the transportation of sugarcane and coffee and all other means of production.

Besides, some families possess much less than others. For example, the family of Don Transito with eight children has to live on $ 25 a month. As a result, a particular notion rarely mentioned in our individualistic societies is considered a high value: the art of enduring together, called "Convivencia," through everyday neighbourhood support..

Only half of the area surrounding FINCA SONADOR is farmland. 150 hectares are covered by untouched (primary) rain forest. Another 250 hectares are considered to be self-contained secondary forest in good condition. The forest is distinguished by a big variety of tropical plant species and there is a well-preserved fauna with monkeys, snakes, armadillos, toucans and many other bright-feathered birds of Central America.

3.3 Concept and objectives

It is a mayor concern of the cooperative to improve the status of the forests by means of a reforestation with rare endemic species and to protect additional areas of forest around from complete clearing. To the south of the FINCA SONADOR, natural habitats have already been destroyed. Mono-cultural pineapple farmland (by Del Monte) spreads across thousands of hectares. In the north of FINCA SONADOR another big company acquired large areas for coffee farming. Somehow, the FINCA SONADOR forests function as a "green lung" between those areas.

On the Finca, every inhabitant can go after his or her life independently. The only rule that applies to everyone is the prohibition to cut down trees or to sell the land in use. Owner of the land always remains the "Associacion Cooperativa Europeas Longo Mai" with headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. The farmer families themselves are organized in the so-called "Associacion de Productores Campesinos del Sonador". This association pays a symbolic rent of one Colon per year, hectare and family (450 Colones equal 1US-$). The rent contracts can be handed down to the next generation. In fact, the families have all the rights of land owners, with exception of the right to sell land.

Control of the fortune of the village by the European cooperatives of Longo Mai is not and was never intended. Although the Austrian representative Roland Spendlingwimmer has been present from the start as a European, he has a coordinating role only.

3.4 3.4 Organisational structure

The villagers of FINCA SONADOR make their own decisions about developments and hold a general assembly once a month. On that occasion, committees are elected which are concerned with general interests of the village, for ways to improve infrastructure like electricity, maintenance of roads, drinking water supply, etc. Accordingly, there is a "Comité de Agua", a "Comité de Camino" and also a "Junta de Educación" consisting of parents energetic on issues such as nursery school and education. Another committee is the "Comité de Turismo". This committee was founded when increasing numbers of foreign visitors to the village had to be looked after in an organized manner.

Today, 30 families can accommodate guests. The tourism committee meets once a month in order to discuss the latest issues relevant to either the host families or the entire village. Topics of discussion may be the price structuring, the minimum lodging requirements, measures for the improvement of service and tourist information. Other topics may include: the education of guides for the ecological, archaeological and agro-cultural attractions, the effects of foreign tourism as such on the community or the best course of tourism development. The tourism committee is elected or confirmed annually.

3.5 Project tourism on the FINCA SONADOR

Guests arriving on the FINCA SONADOR are accommodated and looked after by a local host family. They are charged $ 7.00 per day, of which a small part is advanced to the tourism committee in the form of a tax on visitors. Guests are either accommodated directly in the host families' home where they are offered a spare room, or in a small annex building, a so-called "Cabina". The activities offered to visitors include strolls and trips into the vicinity or an "ecological education trail". Guests can also hire horses and local guides for a tour into the area; they can take lessons in Spanish, participate in the everyday routine of the families (e.g. in particular agricultural work) or go for a visit to the beaches of the Pacific Ocean.

Looked at from a distance, it may seem the FINCA SONADOR offers "holidays on the farm" in its Costa Rican version. However, that would be conventional agro-tourism where guests are purely consumers paying for a service. The tourism practised here, however, does not follow this pure service-orientated type. Here, guests are temporayly members of the family, and while they are looked after and cared for, they are also expected to participate on a personal level.

From an external viewpoint, it is surprising to learn that the average duration of stay is not limited to the usual two or three weeks (that type of "short holiday" is actually quite rare). In fact, quite the opposite is true. On average, visitors stay from two to six months. These long-term tourists usually develop into fully integrated members of family and feel accordingly. Their participation in the "Convivencia" is self-evident.

A lot of such opportunities are at hand: Visitors achieve according to their abilities and become so called "Voluntarios" (voluntary workers): Some teach languages like English, German or French, some help the children in school or teach the alphabet to adults who never had the chance to visit a school back in El Salvador. Others conduct workshops on issues such as first aid, family planning, contraception, gender issues, computer skills or the understanding of rain forest biology. Initiatives also include art courses, a theatre group, a basketball team and a football-team, the creation of a soccer pitch (very important!) and so on!

What the individual visitor may decide to contribute remains his choice. Everyone is free in accordance with a maxim that has been with the village from the start: to be "free" in sense of "free from any hierarchy". There are no orders, everyone is supposed to find which parts of oneself fit in the community. One learns to move in a heterogeneous and "horizontal" society. This, however, requires each individual to set his goals and to measure success or failure with the people affected.

The "Voluntarios" meet once a week to discuss their activities. New suggestions can be made and checked for suitability. In this way new projects are constantly created and accomplished exclusively from voluntary work - projects that contribute to the further development of the village. It is worth noting that scientific research has taken place on the Finca with a focus on issues relevant to its life and environment and the results of which will finally be to the benefit of the village.

There is hardly a villager who has been on the FINCA SONADOR (founded in 1979) longer than 22 years. Children and adolescents constitute the majority of the community. However, at an average age of 18 to 28 years, the foreign residents of the FINCA SONADOR are quite young, too.

This is the result of the reasonable prices young people are charged for their stay, so they can actually afford a long-term visit. They come from Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France or England, a few also from the USA and Canada. Some have just left high school, taking a year abroad before commencing their studies. Others are students on vacation or young people on unpaid leave like nurses, social workers and teachers; or Germans and Austrians on community service; or graduates writing their dissertations and PhD thesis here on the FINCA SONADOR.

Particularly remarkable is the high number of young women living with local families. This gender inequity is probably caused by the demand for a higher degree of social commitment that attracts more women than men.

The assessor was told that women make a kind of personal experience on the FINCA SONADOR they could not make in our more alienated societies: the cohesion of an extended family, mutual compassion and affection, security and a place at the heart of a family.

4. APPRAISAL OF THE PROJECT

Assessing the activities of the FINCA SONADOR cooperative with TODO!-criteria for socially responsible tourism produces the following valuation:

Contest criterion:

Involving of the different interests and requirements of the local people through participation

The FINCA SONADOR community exists primarily through the returns from its economy of subsistence. Above all, the cultivation of coffee, sugarcane and some cocoa is usually the only source of income for farmers in Costa Rica. As a result of the wavering price for coffee and sugar on the world market, this type of cultivation is very risky. As a consequence, there is a continuous interest for finding new sources of income.

Der Projekttourismus, wie er derzeit auf der FINCA SONADOR stattfindet, war nicht von vornherein geplant. Er entwickelte sich nach und nach infolge einer allmählichen Zunahme von Besuchern, darunter Langzeitgästen, die anfangs gratis aufgenommen wurden.

The kind of project tourism found on the FINCA SONADOR was not initially intended in this form. It developed gradually as a result of a step-by-step growth in the numbers of visitors, including long-term visitors that were initially hosted for free.

As a result of this increase, the local general assembly elected the tourism committee in order to make sure that all host families planning to accommodate guests could also participate and get a fair price for their service.

The tourism committee administers the charged tax on tourism of 100 Colones per day (3.5% of the daily rate for accommodation and catering) and accounts to the general assembly for its activities. The committee is elected or its composition confirmed annually.

Meanwhile, project tourism generates 25 % of the village's gross income. Compared to the production of coffee and sugarcane, however, tourism has a higher share in net income because leaving guests contribute substantially through donations, by financing scholarships for the education of children and so on (more on that later).

In this way, project tourism has established another important source of income for the locals, giving every community member a chance to participate in one way or the other.

Contest criterion:

Strengthening the awareness among the local people with regard to the chances and risks of tourism development in their everyday economic, social and cultural life

Questions on chances and risks of tourism on the FINCA SONADOR are the subject of ongoing discussions and addressed at the monthly meetings of the tourism committee.

A small example: The two small shops of the village sell no alcohol, not even beer. The required license would have to be granted by the general assembly of the cooperative.

It is understood that foreign visitors and young locals have a desire for the occasional beer. This, however, is perceived as a "vice". In order to avoid negative consequences for the families as a result of alcohol consumption, the cooperative obstructs the access to alcohol by refusing to grant any such license.

On the occasion of the TODO! application, the tourism committee questioned 19 school children between 12 and 14 years of age on how they thought village life was affected by tourism. The replies were sophisticated, sometimes critical, but overall positive. All children perceived the economic impact on the village positively. Their comments reflect not only what the children think about foreigners, but also what are publicly undisclosed thoughts, e.g. how their parents feel about the guests and their influence on the village.

Altogether, the children made 56 positive and 26 negative assessments on tourism.

The questions were:

1. What do think about tourism on the Finca?
   (Answers: 16 positive / 3 negative)
2. Is tourism a bad thing? Yes or no and why?
   (Answers: 5 positive / 6 negative /6 neutral)
3. Do tourists give a good example? Yes or no and why?
   (Answers: 10 positive or ambivalent, 9 negative)
4. Do you want more or fewer Tourists to come here in the future?
   (Answers: majority positive for "more")

5. CONCLUSION

As a result of the falling price of coffee in recent years, the population understands how quickly a source of income can vanish. Similar risks can be found concerning tourism. Most inhabitants of the FINCA SONADOR are refugees and have experienced terrifying personal tragedies including a complete loss of their livelihood. So these people know the importance of protecting their traditional economy of subsistence. The project tourism that has developed on the FINCA SONADOR is, therefore, a welcome additional source of income. However, the "Comité de Tourismo" emphasizes that the easy money earned must not lead the following generations into neglect for farming which again would create a dangerous dependency on tourism. As a result, the assessor has the impression that people are already well aware of the dangers of dependency on tourism and that practical solutions to this problem will be found.

On the other hand, the form of project tourism on the FINCA SONADOR provides a vivid example for an authentic, cross-cultural encounter. A visitor to this village will surely transform from peripheral spectator into experiencing another way of life from the inside. Guests are completely immersed in the life of the village, participate in everyday life and make an active contribution to the development of the village. Accordingly, a long-term stay of months forms friendships with locals and personal links to host families that continue even after visitors have left.

It is particularly pleasing to see that this programme is designed for young people who were raised in the cities of our affluent society. Usually, European youths have never experienced need or felt physically what it means to live under developing world conditions. On the FINCA SONADOR, most of them find themselves beamed into another world and learn personally that what seemed completely normal and self-evident is actually not self-evident everywhere. This way, the locals of the FINCA SONADOR are in some way giving meaning to it all.

Their way of life is completely different and their life rhythm is shaped by the sun and the coffee crop. The people of the Finca lead a simple life, not because they are materially worse off compared to us Europeans, but because they expect less from life: health, ease and enough food. Everything else is superfluous. Here, the stress and consumption of western countries is a far cry and people don't have to chase happiness. Their capacity to give a meaning to life irrespective of material concerns is a completely new experience and source of new insights for young visitors.

Along these lines young visitors frequently develop a new attitude to life and a new way of looking at the world around them. A place of cross-cultural encounter with this kind of potential is quite rare in tourism. A better way of promoting young people's respect and tolerance for other cultures and societies will be hard to find.