Everyday actions are learned as we grow up, by observation, copying, failure, trying again and getting better little by little. Depending on our home place and culture of origin we learn very different skills: it may be using certain tools in the garden or on the farm, techniques for handwashing clothes, cleaning house even how to do shopping for food.
When, as an adult, you switch home place for a while and immerse yourself in a different culture its time to adapt and re-learn some things. This can be both challenging and very much fun.
A example is haggling over prices. In North America and Europe we are used to walking into a store or market and buying things at a fixed price. Here in Tanzania (and many other places of course)there are situations with fixed prices , such as supermarkets and larger stores, but in many places you have to negotiate for a good price. As visitors we first are given what we call “mzungu” prices: very much inflated and nothing a local would ever consider paying. So we haggle back and forth and sometimes leave without the item, otherwise having arrived at an agreeable price for both parties.
More recently I’ve been practicing carrying things on my head. Here we see young girls transporting buckets or sizeable bundles on their heads gracefully and without touching them with their hands.

starting young

I asked Saum to help me learn and she showed me  to roll up a kanga and place it on my head which cushions and supports the bucket. The weight immediately settles the head and spine into a straight (strong) line. A little steadying by one arm holding the edge of the bucket helps me keep it there and prevents sudden movements. I have to learn to walk slowly and evenly, both strong and flexing all the time keeping a balance between the movement of my feet and legs and the slight movements of the water in the bucket.

years of practice

During a work party with my friends of the Twiga group we were carrying buckets of clay, and great excitement stirred, when I picked up a bucket too. It works much better than our way of carrying off centre and one-sided. Do try it sometime! I was most impressed by the older women in the group working tirelessly and powerfully.

Zaruna laying stone

While some of the group were digging and moving the clay, others were building the stone foundation for the small cob cabin that we are building here at Amarula Camp.
And like every good work party we had food together at the end. Happy about what we achieved and feeling good to be working together again.

Soon we will start cobbing- if you’re in Tanzania and looking to learn cob building, please contact me. There’s always room for help.

The picture is different now: the road to Babati is mostly finished and traffic moves very fast, but now construction is underway on the other side. Just like in Bagamoyo a few years ago,  I witness the massive impact that better roads have on the natural environment and can’t help but wonder how this will change  remote villages like Mnenia, where we’re going.

Returning to a place means seeing it with fresh eyes and I was a little anxious as we approached the village and camp. Would it still hold the magic that I felt there last year?
The season is just a little later this time and everything is green and trees are blooming. All the fields are planted or tilled and ready. The sky looked heavy with rain when we pulled into Amarula Camp,the campsite of the Rock Art Project. Daniel, our translator last year, was there and his beaming smile showed his surprise when he saw us. “The women keep asking ‘when will Mma Matumaini  come back?’”, he said. That’s what they call me here; matumaini means hope.
The Camp is looking much more finished: the nice banda with attached kitchen is complete, there are three covered Safari tents, another kitchen, a shower building and a structure for the dry toilet. The grounds are being kept by the staff, and it looks like they’re doing a good job.
We sat around a fire that evening under an almost full moon. And I felt again the peace and the sense of ease that overcomes me when I’m there.
For the next day Daniel arranged for us to meet with the Twiga women around 3 in the afternoon. “After they are finished with their work on the fields”.  Of course- this is a very busy time for them.

I had not seen ‘our’ building with its roof (only a picture), so I was quite excited to find it in good shape and the women proudly in front. They all came to meet us- so many hugs, smiles and greetings- and then we sat down inside.
This was just a visit, a re-connection to see what is possible. We touched on some ideas but it will take more talking and thinking before something can be organized. So we enjoyed some sodas and each other’s company and of course some dancing.
I feel encouraged to go back for a longer time to continue the work in the village. Real soon!

going to Fez

I have dreamt of going to Morocco ever since I was a teenager in Germany, when it was still one of the destinations on the Interail train-pass. Marrakech was one of those names for me that carry mystery and calling. What better time to go than during this trip on Sabbatical.

Even today, where travel is easy and things we value, like safe drinking water, are readily available everywhere I’ve been, the sensual impact of a Moroccan town is big. Colours, smells, sounds and the mazes of old buildings and markets are at times overwhelming, but mostly awe-inspiring to me: I am definitely in a different culture!

Souk in Marrakech

Berber rug patterns

The Arabic world is rich with ornament: from jewelry to buildings, in metal, plaster, thread, wood and leather. Patterns and symbols carrying meaning and story are passed on from generation to generation. Craftsmen and women spend their lives working on fine details, often using methods unchanged over generations.

And yet: the modern global flavour is strongly influencing local tastes: everywhere, but perhaps more in urban areas, we saw a blend of worlds: traditional gowns, tight jeans, Moroccan leather slippers and western style knee-high boots. Cellphones are everywhere.

old and new in the souks

The old world of the Medinas is full of the richness of tile work and plasters. Visiting the Ryad Moqri in Fez, which is now housing a school for the traditional crafts, I learned a little about the technique of the fine plasterwork. The pattern is transferred from a cast using a powder-coating. Then the plaster is cut to the depth desired by the artisan. The result is a relief with strong shadows.

colourful relief plaster

Plaster Model

burnishing the lime finish

Old buildings require repair and I saw plenty of restoration underway. Newly plastered facades grace beautifully restored interiors. Modern materials replace older tools here too: a plastic burnishing tool.

New Lime Plaster finish

The sense for decor doesn’t stop in old town: high end condominiums also show attention to detail and seem to carry the traditions forward adding modern style.

Modern apartment buildings

Train Station Marrakech

light fixture at train station

Tadelakt plasters are a lime finish that we have just recently been learning about in Canada; Morocco is where this technique originates. We saw beautiful examples both indoors and out. They set the mood of a place and give elegance and beauty featuring cut out patterns and bright colours.

Tadelakt fountain

Tadelakt finish at the hammam

The waterproof surface isn’t used just for wet environments: here restaurant walls, hotel foyers and courtyard walls are finished with shiny blue, red and yellow. You can even take some home in the form of small containers bright turquoise, blue, pink or purple.

Tadelakt for sale

Small Tadelakt containers

As a designer and builder of earthen homes I appreciate the work of finishes as much as the construction of the building.

On a trip south into the desert we saw towns and villages of earthen architecture; some dating back hundreds of years and kept in use or restored, others crumbling and in disrepair. There are themes in the architectural form: corner towers, stepped rooflines, courtyards and large colourful gates.

Houses are built tight together three or four stories high. Narrow streets and walkways are bridged here and there by arches of stone. The old buildings are built of mud bricks or rammed earth on stone foundations, tapered on the corners. They are covered with earthen plaster that is rich with straw fibre. Cut patterns create sharp shadow lines . The colour is the colour of the earth around, ranging from red to orange and yellow tones.

bridging over walkways

The desert climate allows for clay roofs as well. Layers of bamboo and clay over wooden beams form terraces that blend completely into the landscape.

Mud Roofs

It’s not all good though; earthen buildings need to be maintained annually and slowly fall apart if not cared for. They do age gracefully and damage can be fixed- even by re-using the original materials. It takes time, interest and energy to make that happen and out in this desert new buildings are often built with cement blocks like everywhere else. In comparison  they appear sharper, their colours less attractive and clearly artificial. And if you’ve ever felt the difference inside when it’s 40 degrees outside you’ll stay with the mud.

I was often reminded of villages in Northern Sudan that I saw a few years ago: the private sphere of the courtyard behind walls of earth, bright coloured gates and large clay water urns on the roadside. A gesture of hospitality – even at the gas station.

Hospitality: roadside water urn

1. Community:

I think in my mind I expected a “pilgrimage” to be a fairly lonely experience with little contact to anybody. That was corrected on day 1: we had casually met Sue from Toronto as we walked out of Burgos. A few miles down the road entering a small village where we hoped to have a break and some food we were greeted by her waiving to us from a cafe inviting us to join her and another friend. This is an attitude we would see frequently – peregrinos (pilgrims) inviting others to their table at restaurants and bars. There was always the option for solitude but also the possibility of connection.

2. Peregrino culture:

Very quickly after joining the walking ‘community’ the group behaviour becomes obvious:

a. People take their boots off anywhere- in restaurants, on park benches, in the lobby of an albergue. Often this is accompanied by some treatment of blisters etc.
b. Upon arrival at the albergue you set up your bed space with your sleeping bag etc and
c. proceed to take a shower. Refreshed you then
d. go to the washing station and wash your walking clothes (since you only have one set of clean clothes)
e. Take a rest after hanging the washed clothes
f. Do some journalling
g. Scout out the best place for pilgrim’s menu in the village and take in the sights, perhaps go for a beer
h. Optional visit to the local church and or pilgrim’s mass
i. Join other peregrino’s for dinner ca.7 pm (long before any locals look for food, but the albergue closes at 9 or 10)
j. Full and tired go to bed at 9
k. Wake up early- if you’re the very early type you best learn how to do your packing very quietly
l. Leave the albergue before daybreak to get a good start on the walk and better chances at a bed at the next location
m. Wish everyone ‘Buen Camino’ as you pass them – also allow people to pass and exchange a greeting
n. Peregrinos loose all good habits when it comes to traffic: they wander all over the road, pay little attention to vehicles…

3. It’s Peace making in its own way:

The common goal of  ‘doing the camino’ gives a connection point that removes differences of status or other background. We are all pilgrims at this time. We talk to each other in many languages (with more or less skill) laugh and cry, struggle with our bodies, our backpacks and our minds. And we practice tolerance when we get frustrated about the behaviour of others (snoring, zipping bags, flashlights at 4 am etc) . Men and women share sleeping rooms and bathrooms, and we have to give space by turning our glance at times.

4. Pushing my limits

I never thought of myself as a hiker, and before this a 6 km walk seemed like a daunting exercise. Now when we look at 15 km I think “that’s just 3 hrs” and I feel quite able to do 25. Walking has become a serious mode of transport and is in fact a very pleasant way to explore places ( I knew that for visiting towns but hadn’t considered it for longer distances).

5. Simplicity

All there is to do is walk: Follow the yellow arrows and the sign of the shell and you will get there.

Getting dressed is pretty simple too: One spare set of clothing and perhaps something in the morning to offer some warmth.

6. Other Highlights:

• The rich textured stone walls along the path and in the villages
• The sound of Church bells and birds
• Regional foods: ham in many varieties, Cheeses and Wine
• The City of Leon
• Stork’s nests everywhere
• The changing colours of Earth
• Harvest time and trailside gifts of food: figs, apples, pears and grapes

When I first came to O.U.R. I was just establishing myself as a natural builder. I was living in Courtenay and worked a lot with Cobworks on Mayne Island during the summer. OUR was in its first years of establishing vision and zoning and every time I was there I saw a group of people in meetings all morning and then in work parties all afternoon.

Little did I know that I would be one of the people in the meetings a few years later.

My interest was to promote and teach cob and Natural building. I had not spent much time thinking about community and didn’t see myself as a community member.

As my relationship with O.U.R. became more familiar , Brandy and I talked about hosting a longer building program every year. We started with a program we called Plan B : Practical Leadership and Natural Building.

Preparation for this was the design of the Healing Sanctuary: a process of community inquiry into needs and wants and a design that would make sense of all the ideas.

This building was much larger than others I had built and none of us really knew what we were getting into when we started into the season. We knew we wanted to build a stone foundation, cob and straw bale walls and a living roof. We also knew that for permit things would be better with a post and beam structure.

As for the program I learned a lot about group dynamics, leadership and communication. We had a few wonderful support staff who kept breaking up tense energy when needed and brought in fun and lots of heart.

Everybody camped on the land (this was and still is typical for most natural building projects) and shared meals. We shared our knowledge in “each one teach one’s”, started our days with yoga, and struggled together as we built the massive foundation walls, log post and beam and cobbed and built bales through the summer.

When the program finished we wrapped up the building site and made plans for the next season.

So it came to be that O.U.R. Ecovillage now has several natural buildings, built in summer programs by a temporary learning community.

When the second season came along I decided to participate more in the “community” piece realizing that I quite enjoyed the processes and times spent together. The core group was small then and the idea was that more committed folks would join to hold this dream together. This is where I began to learn the art of “holding space”. I have since come to appreciate that this is key to the success of the programs and it is something that doesn’t fit a job description. It’s energy, synergy, and it comes from intention and attention to each other as we relate to the whole.

Most importantly it takes time.

As we developed more facilities OUR garden also became the focus of a learning program that was somewhat parallel to the building. We called our programs “skillbuilders” from then on:  either Natural building or Sustainable Food production Skillbuilder. The number of people on site in the summer kept rising and each year we added a few more events that became regular occurrences in our annual cycle.

All along Brandy tirelessly built relationships with funders and successfully landed grant money for most programs. We sometimes held our breath when signing large contracts: can we really pull it off?

We laughed and cried, problem solved, went through endless cycles of norming, forming and storming always thinking that we would finally end up just performing. Ha! That’s not how it works though and what we did learn is to expect the ups and downs and ride them with more grace.

As I write this I am acutely aware that I learn most when in contact with others. The deeper the connection, the more vulnerable we become, the bigger the learning and the more I feel a sense of belonging.

O.U.R. Ecovillage, especially the people at the heart, have seen me through my cycles of growth, challenged my sense of what’s possible over and over again, and in the end I now operate from “WE” more than from “I”. As I step away I wish to express deep gratitude for all the subtle shifts in my being that living in community caused. I am more open and more whole as a person.

My work here has been fulfilling and rich, challenging and rewarding on so many levels. I am honored by the trust invested in me over the years and I am proud of the accomplishments we share. My heart is imprinted in the earthen walls all around here and I hope that this body of work will continue to inspire the future buildings for the village.

May the voices around the commons be joyful, may your steps be light and bouncy and may your circles be deep and warm.

Every once in a while the universe sends me a gift. I don’t always recognize it immediately and it doesn’t ever look the same:

It may be something stopping things from the way I expect them to go and giving a little space in time to slow down or take a walk.

It may be a detour in traffic that takes me along a route I haven’t traveled.

It may be a person showing up in the middle of my busy day.

A few days ago a visitor came to meet with me at the ecovillage. I had agreed to this semi-consultation with some hesitation and set a time frame of half an hour.
The conversation quickly drew me into a space of curiosity and expansion- touching into ancient teachings and philosophies and healing.

We moved from cob and its possibilities and limitations to exploring heaters and other clay work.

My guest had fascinating ideas and knowledge of ancient healing practices and subtle energies and we spoke about health challenges of our conventional housing and ways of doing things.

I learned that the energy of cooking on electric stoves is not supporting our well-being: both the person exposed to a high level of EMF’s in the vicinity of the stove and the food that’s being prepared are affected. Choosing a gas burner is a better choice and best from this point of view is cooking over a wood fire.

stew from a cob oven

Looking into this a little I found this conversation about gas/electric on the cyber macro health forum

Something to think about!

You probably gather that the conversation didn’t stop at the half hour mark- during the conversation I felt a sense of timelessness. That is the magic and I am deeply grateful for it.

skillbuilders celebrating the reciprocal roof

It was an exciting day today for the Natural Builders at O.U.R. Ecovillage: we laid the reciprocal roof frame on the root cellar.

I had participated in a roof structure like this once during the Natural Building Colloquium in the Czech Republic where Tony Wrench taught us how to do it. I took notes that day and was very grateful I did when we started planning for this one.

I solicited the help of the building team and found that everybody wanted to try it and a couple of guys had a bit of experience. Thankfully the root cellar is a small room, so rather low risk for trying something.

We had prepared the poles by peeling the bark off. The walls were ready and the placement of the poles marked.

The biggest question was where to place the Charlie and when we started laying poles on we found that it needed to move a little. Once the process was started it all happened very fast and without further problems. Have a look:

Of course, coming from a 300 squarefoot living space into this ? squarefoot home is triggering all sorts thoughts.
So far I really like:

• This house is facing the sun!!!! (Sadly this is worth mentioning)
• The kitchen cabinet hardware that prevents doors and drawers from slamming shut- it slows them down to a gentle stop.
• The spacious shower- no elbow bumping!
• Watching all the birds both at the bird feeder and farther away in the wetland by Quamichan Lake
• Lots of uninterrupted work time (but that’s really not a design feature of this place just  opportunity and intention)
• Reading some Wendell Berry (ditto)

So while this Sunday is rather stormy outside I will now return to other pages on my computer…..

Baobab Journal December 1st 2010

I think I will start with my last day at the Baobab shamba because it was so special and all the strands of my time with Terri, the orphans, the building works, the plantings came together.
My daughter, Alice, and her lovely neighbours in Dar es Salaam, George and Theresa, drove up to Bagamoyo. I moved out of Francesco’s Hostel and we went to the shamba.
The children and their carers were already there and having fun in the playground, Alice had bought herbs and planters from Dar so we got to work and planted them and also gave the shamba a new hose. The old one had more water pouring out of the holes than came out the end. Gabriel and David the two chaps who look after the land and animals were very, very pleased with the new hose.
Terri is American and had not had time to celebrate Thanksgiving on the previous Thursday which is the normal day so had gone ahead and organised a wonderful party for all the builders, farm workers, the children, their carers and teachers about 40 people in all. A goat had been killed the previous week and a sausage had been made with the meat left, there was a vast bowl of rice (nice change from the maize porridge) peas with peanut butter quite tasty lots of vegetables. Alice had bought up pre cooked eggs from her chickens in Dar and I made devilled eggs as a starter and she made some goat cheese. It was a feast.
With everyone still sitting on the floor or on the benches around the rondavel Terri told us that Gabriel the gardener was going to give thanks for the meal and then everyone could express their thoughts of what they were thankful for. Every single person spoke either in Kiswahili, Maasai or English or all three. Terri said thank you to me and to all the donors (you guys) and I thanked Terri and her husband Caito for putting up with me and I also thanked the lovely ladies at the Orphanage, Sarah, Helena and Gloria and the lads on the farm. For me the most moving was what David said. He had no English when I arrived and I had only managed to teach him a little bit including ‘you must water the trees every day’. When It was his turn he looked at me and said ‘Welcome every day’.

We ended up with an incredibly sickly bright blue and white cake bought from our funds I had to cut it up into so many pieces and when I licked the icing it turned my tongue completely blue. Tanzanians love food colouring. Every morsel was demolished. I took fond farewells and cried some of the way back to Dar.

A quick run down on my second week there. The English lessons continued to the Mamas at Baobab home and they just loved Bingo, Snap Hokey Kokey and learned so much. I would play with the orphans every day and found it very very hard to say goodbye to them. When I arrived on the motor bike all the neighbourhood children would call out ‘Sally Sally’. I visited the Montessori School for the older children and also the Nurse Training School and I hope through Mediae Trust to fund more text books. I spent some time at the hospital where the children receive their AIDS medication and was impressed with the staff and care there. With our funds the ceiling materials were bought and more cement and the windows are almost finished. The walls of the kitchen are now about 10 feet high and growing every day. I planted another 20 trees to create shade for the playground area.

This may not be my last journal about Baobab. I Just have to go back to see how the trees and shrubs are doing and how the children have grown. It was a truly wonderful experience and again I thank you all and feel that you were part of it too.

I am writing this from a spectacular house near Nanyuki at the foothills of Mount Kenya as I am staying with very dear friends. The weather is like a cool English summer’s day and a great break from the hot steamy coast. I think you may be in snow. Greetings to all

Sally

December 1, 2010