Help us save our dome

We would love to get your Support!

As many of you know, we have been building our home and working place on a land in Portugal in the middle of nature.

Our intention/vision is to live as close in and with nature and also offer this opportunity to our guests, to come to us, to be in nature and recharge on all levels. Our biggest income is holding retreats and workshops and sharing our work using the dome on the land where we are.

Making this jump into the unknown, needed a good amount of courage and also a big investment. I think that was one of the scariest jumps I have down with this project, to go all in, leaving all the securities and safety behind, specially financially.

I literally invested everything I had/have into building a place that feels good and comfortable for our family and our guests.

This place is here to give us the opportunity to work freely and raise our child in a natural environment.

So what happened, and why do we ask you for help?

Apart from the 2 yurts that we use to live in, we also bought a 10m big dome to host our events, gatherings, workshops, and retreats. We bought a dome, with a more “natural” cover, that is made of poly-cotton. It was sold to us, with the advertisement of it being more breathable, more organic, more beautiful than common covers. Sadly it turned out to be a big mistake.

What we did not know, is that the guy who produces these domes, doesn’t have a lot of experience in this very hot climate, and wasn’t aware that this material at our place wouldn’t really work. He built it in a way, that the big window isn't able to be opened, so a proper ventilation, in the heat of Portugal became impossible. I even feel stupid, that I did not insist for the window, as I asked him about it several times, and he told me they don’t make it like this, that the windows provided will be enough. So I trusted his opinion, as he is supposed to be the professional regarding domes.

Our dome got mouldy in the summer!!!

Due to the massive heat and the incapacity of proper ventilation, we had a green house effect and it created condensation.

It was such a BIG disappointment to realize we can not use our dome the way we wanted.

The dome producer sadly did not want to support us in finding a constructive solution. This was deeply frustrating and very time consuming. We also had to cancel events and retreats and since September we were on a BIG mission to “save” the dome and could not focus our energy to make money to sustain our life. This was very hard on our whole family life, and took so much energy away on our daily life.

After weeks of research and many calls to the canvas company and various cleaning companies, we came to following conclusion:

No cleaning company (tent cleaners and sail cleaners) was willing to clean such a big canvas. We even called companies in the Netherland. Nobody wanted to take responsibility and they all said this canvas will be to heavy to dry and most likely not rainproof any more. Every call felt like a punch in the face, many questions coming, many doubts and the continues wish to save our dome.

So in the end all we were able to do, was trying to clean it ourselves. We were willing to try it. I paid 10'000 € for this dome, so I felt like I don't just wanna throw it away.

We called in a lot of volunteers and cleaned the whole dome. It seemed to work. To take the canvas down, clean it and put it back up took us around 1 week of full on work, 5 people involved daily.

We were super happy that we managed it. We ordered a very expensive impregnation liquid, that should also prevent from mould again.

Long story short. The first rain came. And our floor was all wet. It was soooo frustrating. After weeks of work, and soooo much time and energy invested, we have a leaking dome. Now the rainy season started, the dome is leaking and has now two big transparent plastics on top to prevent rain to come inside. AND the mould starts coming back. Still we can not offer our work and all the effort was for nothing.

We gave up. It all took so much energy and time and money, and our family life suffered from all that stress.

Basically, we need a new cover. Anything else is wasted time and energy and the problem would just come back sooner or later. The other frustrating part is, that a new GOOD cover is very expensive.

A new cover for our 10m structure costs, 7366,88.- €, and eurodome.pt has been very helpful and also offer us a good discount.

We need around 12'000 € to cover all the cost, buying the cover, organising the set up and dealing with the transfer fees of gofundme.

So here we are reaching out to YOU, to ask you to help us raise the money, so we can buy a new cover, that we can work again and share our place with guests and humans who wish to come here to experience a time for nourishment and healing.

Thank you for your SUPPORT.

Much love Mela, Miguel and Anu and our lady dog Madgi.

We will have a list of offerings for you in return for your support, where you can choose from. Online group breathwork sessions, online rhythm classes, staying with us for some days, in our lovely caravan or bell tent, coming as a guest to our retreats/ events. Or receiving some workshops on the land where we live (in person)

So please make sure if you wish to receive something in return, we will need your contact.

Below you can find a short video of what we have been doing here so far, our life in nature and the cleaning process.

In the first video (above) I said, we built it in 21. It' s not true. It was in the beginning of last year 22. :)