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our story
Hi! My name is Elizabeth and in 2016, I was studying agriculture at Cornell University when I found myself interning for a summer in Costa Rica's Central Valley working with rural farmworkers. I stumbled upon one of the most special places- a small family farm called Villas Mastatal. I've gotten to travel to many beautiful places and nowhere has touched me quite like this little corner of the world.
Here is our story.
Raquel (Raky) is from the small 200-person town of Mastatal in the Central Valley of Costa Rica and Javier (Javi) is from San Miguel another small town just 15 minutes down the road. Despite being from so close to each other, Javi and Raky didn't meet until they were both living in San José, Costa Rica's capital city, as young adults. After falling in love and getting married, they moved back to Mastatal to Raky's family's ancestral land to start their own family.
Javi and Raky opened Villas Mastatal in 2007. After learning about permaculture and agroecology from a local permaculture school, Javi began to implement these practices onto their land and saw the incredible benefits. Huge harvests, abundant gardens, and healthy soils meant that they never looked back despite the region being filled with monocrop industrial farms.
A few years after starting the farm, they began to open their home to volunteers and university groups who were eager to come and learn about sustainable agriculture, natural building, and permaculture. Over the years, they have hosted thousands of people on the farm, opening their home to complete strangers and facilitating many life changing experiences.
They built the first structures on the farm, using all local and natural materials with their own hands. They experimented and tested out hundreds of tropical agroecology techniques and figured out what works best for their farm and land.
agroecology experiments
the first structures they built to host people
In the summer of 2016, after my freshmen year studying agriculture at Cornell, I ended up at Villas Mastatal. I truly had one of the best summers of my life as Javi and Raky so graciously opened me into their home and family.
I was immersed into all things tropical agriculture, natural building, and life in rural Costa Rica, learned so much from Javi and Raky, and met other people interested in sustainability from all over the world. The farm truly felt like a family, and anyone who passed by if even for a few days could feel it.
A few summers later, I returned and Villas Mastatal was no longer the thriving place I knew it to be. Negative affects on tourism from COVID, competition from foreign owned permaculture farms, and constraints of being in a rural town hours from the closest markets meant that the farm was struggling.
Motivated and inspired from finishing my degree, I wanted to spread tools for social change and environmental activism.
This is where The Eco Residency was born.
With the help of some environmental activist friends, a group of facilitators and I brought 30 incredible humans to Villas for a week of learning, community building, and gaining hands on experience in sustainable living and farming. We were able to support Javi and Raky, both financially and by renewing their hope of inspiring and educating people.
I once asked Javi what he would be doing if money didn't matter. He told me earnestly that he would be doing exactly this. Hosting groups of people on his farm, teaching them the ways of Earth's natural rhythms, and hopefully inspiring them to bring these tools back home. Javi and Raky genuinely love what they do and being able to welcome others into their beautiful home that they have created. I am grateful to be able to help facilitate this.
I feel so lucky to have stumbled upon this sleepy mountain town in the beautiful Central Valley of Costa Rica. It is forever a home to me and to be able to share it with others, and inspire people with hope and tools for environmental action and social change, is a dream. We're looking forward to seeing you here.
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