The day Noelia stopped dead and asked herself what she could contribute to this world, she realized that to think lucidly she had to be calm. And that need that she had was and is the same that a large part of today’s society has. It was at that moment, just after ten years running a farm that produced organic eggs and that had her absorbed in paperwork, bureaucracies and administrative procedures.
The farm was also beginning to make losses, and Noelia remembered the phrase that had been said to her so many times since she was little: “baby, acouga.” And he welcomed it, boy did he do it! But not only she welcomed it, but also the dozens and dozens of people who have passed through her community housing located in the heart of Boal, a novel and risky idea that has meant that a year after its opening, nine of the people housed there have definitely left to live in the council.
The ‘Acougo de Pita Sana’, the full name of the rural ‘coliving’ of Noelia García, Pablo Vélez, her partner, and Xurde Vélez, her son, has managed to settle more people in the council than any policy carried out by the Administration .
But where does success lie, why does Noelia García make people fall in love with a town that goes unnoticed by many; What do they do that government policies do not achieve? Quick response because it is clear, “it works very well because it is something we do from the heart. We are a family that has no other aspirations than to live peacefully, in community and in contact with nature.
The town also does a lot, in Boal everyone warmly welcomes new people who arrive because we want our town to be alive. In bars, in stores… the lady who opens the door to your house and invites you to a coffee, human contact,” he says.
It is difficult to transmit that hug from an office and also difficult to get more people to stay and live in Boal, because the Asturian rural environment has a serious problem of depopulation, but it has another problem that favors the first, there is a lack of housing to rent . “It is never worth having a closed house, a house has to be ventilated, open and preserved.
Many owners should reflect on this and realize what it implies, the consequences of refusing to rent a property. In this last year at least four people have not stayed to live in the council because they did not find a home,” says the businesswoman.
In the ‘Acougo de Pita Sana’, a name linked to the old organic egg farm that the family had before betting on this new business, there is calm and light enters all the rooms and rooms.
A huge kitchen, located on the first floor, is one of the nerve centers in which coexistence takes root. They smell the spices of the morning omelette that Eva María Marín, from Elche, is cooking, who has just finished her studies as a veterinary assistant and has spent some time thinking about what to do now. Less than half a meter away, another of the guests sweetens what looks like French toast.
The refrigerator door is an information panel that warns of such essential things in a town as that a fishmonger from Castropol comes on Wednesdays or that there is a market in the square on Mondays every fortnight. A blank sheet of paper also serves so that each person in the home can write down what is missing or what needs to be replaced.
Coliving has made Boal live in the midst of so much silence. “Then we have many activities, courses, walks, routes, book presentations… People who come here are because they want to have contact with nature, with the rural world and with people. I think that in the end it is what we all need,” says Noelia García and looks up, thinking and reaffirming that her decision was the correct one: “accougar.”
Many of these activities are carried out in the garden that the family has just two kilometers from Boal and where cabbages, cabbage, corn, cabbage are grown… The ‘coliving’ of Pita Sana moves away from the elitist concept that this type usually has. of accommodations. “Our concept is different,” emphasizes the businesswoman.
Three types of profiles are those that tend to be attracted to this type of coexistence: digital nomads, people who can do their work from anywhere and escape the noise of cities; people looking for a transitional place to discover life in the town before staying to live in the rural area and, finally, artists. “Writers, singers… people who want to create without being surrounded by noise,” says Noelia García.
Just a year ago this new housing concept opened its doors in Boal, the capital of a council with around 1,500 inhabitants. “I was right when we decided to open it, and we were right by rehabilitating these three houses. I perfectly remember the first couple who came, they were from Almería, climate refugees, people escaping the suffocating heat. Perhaps they are also a fourth profile to take into account,” explains the owner, and opens one of the huge windows in a room, located on the top floor and from where you can see the square, the Sierra de Penácaros, and the bells of the church that are just knocking dead.
This family’s struggle now focuses on having the accommodation full all year round, but the truth is that from March to September there was not a single free place. “I still don’t believe it,” explains the businesswoman, while running her hand along the wooden bar in the cafeteria and reading area. Catherine Blank comes down the stairs with an umbrella and a raincoat in her arm.
His son has just started school in Boal. Raised in Hawaii and after living in India, Japan, Kenya, California and Argentina, Blank came with her husband and two children to coliving and now they have decided to stay. If all goes well, in a few days, her little daughter will also start school.
“We loved the environment, the people are warm and real and the community that Noelia and Pablo have created is wonderful. We have felt that wonderful welcome from the town where everyone welcomes you,” says Catherine Blank. Of all the places in the world, Catherine and her family choose Boal. Acougan in Boal… as they recommended to Noelia so many times when she was little. Acougar: stop, stay calm and calm down.
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