Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World by Alan Weisman
Review by: Ambrosia

Gaviotas is a small village out in the middle of the Columbian llanos, almost literally the middle of nowhere. The llanos is a place where survival is scrapped from the land, and is made more difficult by the violence engulfing Columbia. And yet, in the middle of this war ravaged contry, in the middle of this hard land, is a village that has come to symoblize hope, not just for Columbia, but for the whole world.
Alan Weisman chronicles the journey of Gaviotas from its conception until about 1996 (when the book was written). He uses a descriptive language that evokes the land and the people beautifully and sucks the reader into the book. I found myself getting excited about their new invention, fearful about the paramilitaries and drug lords, outraged about the stupidities of bureaucracies, and sad when people left.
More than a book about sustainable communities, this is a book about hope in one of the most hopeless places on earth, and the amazing things that can happen when people work together on problems that are common to all of us.

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