Making Decisions the Community Way

The majority of the decisions made here at Kalikalos are decided by the community, which is always changing. There is conflict, processing and resolution on a weekly basis. So, what happens when the community needs to make a decision that has affects on the greater community?

A returning staff member from last year, Jacinta from Ireland, arrived a few days ago. She saw that we had three adorable baby ducks. Jacinta inquired as to what happened to the ducks that were here when she was staying at Kalikalos last September. In fact a local farmer—past Kalikalos staff and guests will remember him as "Spiros the Greek God"—provided them with a good home for the winter.

Community members chatting

This season's cute baby ducks are still small and fluffy. One day last week, when most of the staff was at the beach, some local boys came and took them out of there cages and kicked them. Ivor from Oxford was here napping and heard the ducks squacking and stopped the boys. These are kids we allowed to play on our hammocks daily. To see them hurt our ducks, was really shocking to all of us.

Now as a group we needed to make a community decision, do we ban the boys for a short period, indefinetly, or do we talk to their parents. As it happens, these kids are Albanian and as such are already outsiders in this small Greek village.  We didn't want to isolate the boys more, yet we also want to feel that our ducks are safe.

One of the benefits of living in community is one has the intelligence of the group to consult. Some want to be very firm with the boys, others want to address the issue with love and without assumptions about the boys and their backgrounds. We've hesitated to approach the parents because some of us are afraid that the kids will get a beating.

We felt like it was a fairly delicate issue, yet needed to be dealt with.  If the boys are cruel to ducks, have they experienced this themselves or are they just rough boys? Do we talk to them, will it help? Would it be positive to talk to their parents? We specalated, we contemplated, we discussed.

We haven't settled on a decision yet. We want to protect the ducks.  At the same time we'd like to provide a place for these kids to play.

Everyday we make choices that affect each other within the Kalikalos community, now we have a choice to make which has consequences that touch others.

What would you do in this situation?

Karrie K, Iowa USA