The second day of the PDC revolved around the guiding principles in permaculture and becoming familiar with some of those principles such as microclimates, growth in succession, and cooperation among plants or between plants and insects in natural ecosystems.

Permaculture principles are guidelines that define a permaculture design that is respectful of all elements of an ecosystem. For that, it is essential to understand some basic notions of climate (long-term weather patterns), weather (daily or nightly changes in temperature and humidity levels). Betty was able to make what could have been a simple geography lesson into a really interesting and interactive session.

With permaculture principles in mind, Klaudia explained that designing plant or animal systems requires a specific  approach where, ideally, all needs are satisfied and all outputs are limited to positive effects. A famous example to illustrate this is known as the "permaculture chicken", but we had a chance to experience with implementing a permaculture design of our own by building a hot compost later on.

For the practical hot compost session, we were joined by a number of farmers and growers from Saidoun and the village of Rimat below it. This made for a series of challenging and entertaining Q&As during the entire session, which also helped PDC participants understand the needs of farmers, while demonstrating to them the positive outputs of hot compost. With the combined efforts of Betty, PDC participants and the villagers, we raised a cubic meter of dry organic material mixed with kitchen scraps and other green "waste", as well as chicken manure to help speed up the process. After watering our creation, we let it rest and will check up on it in four days' time.

We are looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the course, so stay tuned to discover permaculture with us.

Today was the first full day of permaculture for all 11 participants in the first PDC ever organized in Lebanon.

We are blessed with a particularly inspiring group of participants for this first PDC, and the village of Saidoun was bustling with new positive energy as they made their way across its small roads all day.

This first day set the foundation for a lively and productive atmosphere with the help of our lovely instructors Klaudia Van Gool and Betty Khoury.

For today, the main task was getting into the permaculture mindset. Number one on the list was getting ready to expand our perception and our understanding of the interconnectedness between different elements in nature. The afternoon was largely devoted to a practical observation of a forest plot and becoming attuned to the natural flow of energy around us.  

 The initial impression today was one of excitement at being part of something new and somewhat overwhelming. Most participants have a fairly good idea about permaculture and some are even experts in related fields like agricultural engineering and environmental consultancy, but there's no telling what the road ahead has in store.