[Trusties] Rob's big adventure email

[timwinton]

Thought you all maybe interested in hearing about Rob's (current resident 
and past student) trip to Belize to do a earthbag/superadobe building 
course.



Cheers,



Tim









Greetings Friends, Families and Lovers,



Well its only taken me a month to get around to sitting down and putting 
some of my adventures into words but better late than never as they say.

For those of you who don't know I'm currently in the middle of a trip to 
Belize in Central America.  Belize is a cool little country, about 300km in 
length by 100km across with a population of around 300 000 people, about the 
size of Newcastle in Australia.  Although these figures don't seem like 
much, the cultural and ecological diversity in this place is fairly 
mindblowing.

Belize is classified as subtropical in climate, with a long wet season and 
shorter dry season.  Average rainfall is up to 3800mm in some areas, meaning 
this is a pretty lush place.   Jungles abound, partially hiding ancient 
Mayan ruins and a ridiculous wealth of wildlife;  jaguars, howler monkeys 
and birdlife are aplenty.   This fecundity is framed on the East coast by 
the Carribean sea and the world's second largest barrier reef.  When talking 
to the locals, the only thing they seem to know about Australia is we've got 
the longest barrier reef.

The people inhabiting this land are similarly diverse, with obvious 
population shifts in different part of the country.   The Creole people, 
descendants of African slaves and British loggers, the Garifuna-from the 
Carribean islands and the Mayan people each inhabit their own parts of the 
country with considerable overlap.   Unlike other Central and South American 
countries, English is the primary language with several Mayan dialects, and 
the funky Criol Rasta talk exisiting also.

Agriculture is a major element of the economy with Cacao, maize, rice and 
coffee being grown locally.  Tourism is even bigger although the country is 
in general far from being overdeveloped.  Belize is very much a developing 
country with average rural wage coming out to about $15 U.S a day.

So six months ago Belize was not even on my radar.  I was drawn here by a 
workshop I came across on the internet-a month long lesson in designing and 
building houses using a technique known as Earthbag or superadobe.   The 
couple running the course  (www.okokok.org ) had written a great book on the 
topic which I read last year when Stephanie came back from studying the 
topic in California ( www.calearth.org ) As we were thinking about building 
this way up at the Permaforest Trust ( www.permaforesttrust.org.au ), trying 
it somewhere else with a similar climate seemed like a cracker of an idea.



After 40 hours of recycled, dehydrated air and a couple of long stopovers in 
LA and Miami I finally touched down on the tarmac at Belize City.   The air 
was warm and humid after the cooler winter vibe further north and the 
relaxed atmosphere of the customs office was fairly evident.  I caught a 
taxi into Belize City, driving through the dirty streets..concrete block 
architecture and dilapidated wooden huts all around.  The city not being a 
tourist destination as such, I spent a night at a hotel and then jumped a 
bus to start my journey west across the country.   The bus system is 
actually pretty efficient in Belize, with old school buses from the States 
running along all the major 'highways' regularly.  Uncomfortable as hell, 
the hard seats leading to a subtle cheek to cheek shifting after an hour or 
so, they're cheap and an interesting way to see the characters of the 
country.

I spent about 4 days at the Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, a sustainability 
and research project about 30 kms out of the city.   A beautiful clean river 
(the first of many on this journey) was great for a swim and I took some 
time to see the Belize Zoo just down the road.     This place is fairly 
renowned for its quality of rare species, and lush environment.  Leading the 
way in true   Belizean ecotourism form, none of the animals had been 
captured for the purpose of the zoo but rather taken from people who had 
them as pets, or to keep them alive after their parents had been killed by 
hunters.

At this stage of the journey I also discovered the joys of Belikin beer. 
This company pretty much has a monopoly on the beer situation in Belize and 
luckily they happen to produce some tasty beverages.  Next to Monkey Bay was 
a cool little bar where I spent a few nights drinking with the locals and 
smiling so much my face would hurt the next day.

The road west drew me further on and I headed into San Ignacio near the 
border with Guatemala to see the sights that this region presented. 
Staying in town, we did a day trip across the border to Tikal, one of the 
largest and most impressive ancient Mayan sites.  Massive in scale, with 
towering carved stone temples and pyramids poking their heads through the 
jungle canopy we marveled at the stories of this amazing culture.   At its 
peak Tikal had around 100 000 inhabitants.bear in mind that the current 
population of Belize City is about 75 000 people.  I had a talk to a Mayan 
caretaker at one of these sites asking him what his take was on the collapse 
of the civilization.   He shook his head and pointed out over the jungle 
telling me that at their peak none of this forest was here; rather it had 
been cleared to allow space for agriculture to support the population of the 
time.   Heavy rain, and little vegetation led to erosion, loss of topsoil 
and food production.   Evidence suggests a long drought and dissolution of 
the population.   Looking at me he sighed and said.'we just don't learn our 
lessons do we?' After having read 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond last year and 
encountering these ideas there, it was interesting to hear the same views 
coming through from a local perspective rather than an academic one.

>From the sometimes stifling heat of the Jungle out west I could hear the 
ocean calling and I made my way to the Coast and a small village called 
Placencia.   Out on the end of a long peninsula, Placencia was a great place 
to get some sand between my toes and my body back into the salty embrace of 
the sea.   I spent a couple of nights here before heading on to Punta Gorda, 
the town nearest to the farm where I would be spending the month learning 
how to build a house out of earth.

The Maya Mountain Research Farm (www.mmrfbz.org.au ) is remote.  It's near a 
small Mayan village, San Pedro Colombia but getting to the property from 
there involves either a 45 minute hike or a half hour trip upstream in a 
dory, poled by one of the villagers.   The river is absolutely beautiful, 
with MMRF being only a few minutes down from The Source, an all year Spring 
that supplies the river with a constant supply of crystal clear water. 
It's been interesting coming to a place where permaculture is practiced and 
the focus is more on reducing the damaging effects of too much water rather 
than capturing and storing every last drop as is the case in Oz.

The workshop has been a particularly challenging one for Doni and Kaki, the 
course facilitators, mostly because of the remoteness of the site.   Almost 
everything has had to be sourced from the site meaning that the building is 
pretty experimental.  Similar to home, the soils here are really heavy in 
expansive clays which presents a whole set of design challenges whilst 
building.   The simplicity and adaptability of superadobe means that it is 
particularly suited to this kind of situation however.   To give an example 
of local materials harvesting, early in the workshop a team of us spent a 
day upstream collecting sand and gravel from the river, ferrying it down to 
the site to provide material for a foundation, and later for producing an 
earthern plaster for the finish.

We began with constructing all the tools necessary for the job, and building 
forms for the windows and doors which are eventually going to go into the 
building.   All of this has been done working side by side with a crew of 
local Kek'chi Mayan guys who will look at further earthbag constructions 
down in the village when we're done here.

The building has gone up surprisingly quick; and with a week and half left 
there will be a focus on learning finishing techniques including rammed 
earth floors, and natural plastering techniques.   This is really where 
alternative building can come into its own, creating beautiful grounding 
living spaces for people.

I won't bother you all with the technical details of construction; but for 
those interested I'll be documenting it all when I get home on the 
Permaforest website.



Suffice to say that I'm having a blast and loving working outside and 
getting my hands dirty everyday.  There is something really satisfying about 
the movement from a design concept into a manifested reality in such a short 
space of time.  Its been a great time here, and I am really looking forward 
to getting home and seeing you all, sharing a beer, a few more tales and 
some photos of the journey.



So much of the love.

Rob.
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