Rancho Magante

Rancho Magante sounds idyllic; 1500 forested acres on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, home to a progressive, holistic school for adults and children, an organic farm, and a healthy, yoga-practicing, “sustainable community”.  It is the property of Henry and Maria Mensen, who moved to Caribbean from Canada and the U.S., and the realization of their desire to live a more sustainable life.  Since December they’ve welcomed WOOFers to their farm to work and learn about organic agriculture.

As a WWOOF experience, it was everything we expected: lots of hoeing, planting, pruning, and some construction work on a house being renevated for future WWOOFers. However, as an example sustainability, doing good, and fostering respect, it was disappointing. 

There is undisputably a lot of corruption in the DR. Unfortunately, having money sometimes leads people to believe they are entitled to do whatever they want, regardless of what is basically right and moral. About a week and a half into our stay we found out that the owner of Rancho Magante had decided to deal with with an instance of theft on the farm by teaching the people living around them a lesson.

“[He] had one of [his] military friends put him in jail for a week, and beat the shit out of him.”

The fact that the people we were volunteering for could even consider treating a person, any person, this way made it hard for us to volunteer our time further. We left at the end of the week. 

The Big Idea behind visiting the places we chose to here is to help those which will reach out to the Dominican people, improving their quality of life, and truly empowering them. It is incredibly sad to see Dominicans (and Haitians) essentially becoming slaves in their own land for luxury resorts, spas, and foreign owned plantations, without hope of owning some of their beautiful country, living comfortably, and in a harmonious community. It is also sad to see people come here with the ability and the money to create a big, lasting positive change, and instead justify the poverty around them instead of working to alleviate it. 

Throughout our travels we have seen some amazing examples of community development. Hopefully Rancho Magante and the Mensen Academy can learn from them as well.