Saturday, July 21, 2012

Community Building...


The Journey
07.20.2012

Earthen Hands Community
It has been almost a week now since we all came together and already a community has formed.  We were talking today about how building a earth bag house is more than the sand, gravel and clay that the structure is built from.  It is the community that forms in the process of working together.
 It is the silly moments, the times that we work together to overcome obstacles, the shared work and meals, the laughter, the singing and dancing.  Each one brings a piece of themselves that contributes to the whole.  Each one has a strength, where someone else has a weakness.  When one is tired from working long hours in the hot sun, there is another to take his place. There is the sharing of our pasts and our dreams for the future; our history and our cultures.  And in all of that, there is the bonding that forms a community.
That is what I will take from this experience that I hope I can carry to Akobo with me.  That sense of community that is growing along with the foundation and walls.  I remember the day the elders and I met to discuss the location of my new house and the women’s center and the great sense of hope and excitement that went along with it.  I remember the day I left and the expression on the builder’s face as he showed up with beautiful crayon drawings of what the house/office would look like.  The community building that has happened here is my dream for building our place in Akobo.
Just as the sun broke the top of the mountain across from me, I woke to the sound of wild horses calling each other, voices raised over the sound of the waterfall outside my tent. One from the right calling, the one from the left, answering; one leading the other through the underbrush, with a simple call of his voice.  A simple call that leads through the unknown, that is what has me anxiously awaiting my return to Akobo.
Besides learning to build a house, I am learning to build a community here.  The basis of our community is the respect we have for each other in spite of our differences in lifestyle and beliefs. Our finding ways to work around things that could be potential conflicts by taking time to listen and understand where the other is coming from.  Respect for each other’s joys and sorrows and worries.  A coming together to pray, each in his own way, offering up thanksgivings and praises, prayers for healing and wholeness for those we know who are hurt, sick, injured or hurting; praying together in spite of our differences in faiths and beliefs.  It is my prayer that some of that goes with me and the stories I can tell about our time together will help lead others to put aside their differences and come together in peace.
Part of building a community is storytelling.  I can’t wait to hear the stories that can be told in Akobo.  One person made a very good point when he said the problems in America are due in part to not listening to our elders and what they have to say.  The past is a good guide to the future.  The elders know the past and that is a good guide to the future.  As we were having one of our lessons about how to orient a house using the sun and the direction of the prevailing winds I had a flashback to the day that the elders were choosing the location for my house and their discussions about which way to orient the house and where it should go on the place they had chosen.  There were great discussions about how it should face in the dry season to catch as much breeze to keep it cool.  Then there was another discussion about where it should go because of the rainy season and how to avoid too much water as the rains come down and to keep the rains from coming in the windows.  There were discussions about the veranda placement to keep it shady during the parts of the day when the women would gather for lessons and fellowship.  There was much to be learned that day from the elders and I pray that I can continue to learn as we go forward.
So, as I go forward into this new day, I wish you well my friends and I will write when I can.
Peace,
Sharon













Tuesday, July 17, 2012



I don’t have time to write much today.  We have driven 30 minutes to the closest town.  Does that tell you where we are?  In the middle of the wilderness!  I spent the first night in Denver at an interesting hotel.  The next day I met Laura at the airport and we took a cab to the bus station down town and headed for Salida where we were met by Zia who drove us to the build site.
It is an interesting group of people here, very diverse…me, a missionary.  Laura, a university professor teaching Spanish translation.  Roche and Zia, a couple who have just sold everything and are moving to Equador.  Mike, and his family, a mixture of cultures who are panning on moving back to the Carribean, Pontious  and  his family who are interested in living a more back to the earth lifestyle and Luke, an 18 year old dynamo.  Luke is building community gardens through out his town and the surrounding area, working with half way houses and homeless.  Already he has helped create a garden that has grown into a market run by local people who are benefitting from the income generated by the market.

All are vegetarians who only eat organic food so the meals have been interesting – rice and lentils the first night, cabbage, onions and eggs for breakfast, beans and lambs quarters (lambs ear to me) that Zia and I foraged from the grounds around us for lunch.  And the leftovers from all of that along with the gooseberries and currents that we foraged along the creek for dinner…
Zia is a permaculture instructor and her vast knowledge of natural foods and growing methods is an added bonus to what we are learning in the build process.

Day 1 of the build we learned about soil testing and why it is important and started digging the foundation for the house we are building for Tutuksuma (I think that is right) a Tibetan Buddhist elder whose dream is to build a peace and healing center on this site.  A dream she has held on to for 20 years.  He message to us was never give up on your dreams, have the courage to wait for them to happen.  And blessed us all for being a part of her miracle.

In addition her, we are a very diverse group, religiously and spiritually – me the Christian, a Muslim, some who believe in a spiritual connection to the earth and some who haven’t said.
Day 2 – we tested different sand/clay mixtures for making the adobe bricks that will become the roof of the Nubian vault, the walls will be made of the adobe and hiperadobe bricks.  The rest I will show you in pictures.

The foundation begins with about a six inch trench we used the large rocks we had filtered from the dirt to make the base, for stability and a place for the water to go when it rains to pull it away from the foundation of the house.  Then we filled and tamped in gravel to make it stable.  Today we will begin to make the adobe bricks by mixing sand and clay and pressing them into forms and laying them in the sun to dry.  120 a day is our goal – we need 1,000, just for the vault.  We will also begin filling bags with gravel to make the bricks for the foundation.  Once that is complete we will begin to mix the earth bags and lay them in place.  I am excited to see those processes begin to take place. 

We planned to have a ceremony to celebrate laying the first bag, however, we were hit with a major thunder, hail and rain storm so I assume that will happen this morning.
I will write more when I can.  I don’t know when our next trip to town will be…

Blessings to you all!

Sharon



Blessing ceremony

preparing the build site

I can chunk rocks to form the base of the foundation...


working on the foundation

A typical meal - polenta, white beans, lambs quarters,
purple cabbage with onions and eggs
(polenta & cabbage, breakfast left overs)


dish washing station

filling the foundation with gravel

foraging gooseberries for lunch




my home for the next 18 days..




first bricks


foundation level complete




Friday, July 13, 2012

God Laughs...


The Journey
07/13/2012
God Laugh’s…

they come in all shapes and sizes, but this gives you an idea...
It has been a crazy few weeks getting ready for this workshop I am headed off to – learning how to build a dirt bag house.  Really, that doesn’t sound right, but that is exactly what we will be doing; building a house out of bags filled with dirt for a Buddhist monk in a remote part of south western Colorado.

Remember all that equipment I bought to take to South Sudan last summer?  Well, I have had to buy a lot of it again.  No hotels where I am going!  Camping under the stars in the wilderness!  And, everything I own is still in South Sudan!!  What is a girl to do?? Go shopping of course!  And every time I hit a website looking for gear – I could hear God up there laughing!  She has a tent, but let’s help her buy a new, light weight one.  Sheets, blankets and pillow, all in South Sudan?    Flashlight, dishes, silverware? Clothes??  “I know, they are all in South Sudan, too”. No problem, that is why I invented Wal Mart. (snicker, snicker!)

And, as God sits up there on His throne snickering at me, he said “Let there be electricity and let her test it in Colorado”, so he provided me with a link to what looks like is going to be a great solar system and the opportunity to field test it in Colorado before lugging it half way around the world.  God may be laughing, but He is good about providing opportunities to grow and learn new things!

God laughs???  I know he does.  He is laughing at me today and all the stress of getting to this workshop over the past few days.  You know, nothing is ever simple when I decide to travel!   I remember back to the days when I had a “real” job and people would be waiting at my desk on Monday morning to hear about my “adventures” on a weekend trip.  Some things never change I guess.

Everything was going so smoothly I should have known a glitch would pop up at the last minute.  But the eternal optimist in me always hopes that it won’t.    It all started on late Wednesday afternoon with a phone call from Scott (who is leading the workshop) saying he wouldn’t be able to pick me up in Denver after all.  It is a 6-7 hour drive from where he is to Denver.  I have to stop here and explain that Scott is from Portland, OR, so when he made these arrangements several weeks ago, he probably didn’t realize the logistics of it all.  He did have the name of a girl who was driving down from Denver that could bring me.

After a conversation with her it became obvious that option wasn’t going to work.  In order for me to get to her, I would have to take public transportation to downtown Denver.  Yes, one armed me plus two almost 50 pound duffle bags and a back pack!!  Back to Scott – any other options?? Yes, there is a bus that leaves from the airport that can get you to Salida,  3 hours way  and he can pick me up there. He did a great job of sending the link.  The bus leaves at 2 PM, I arrive at 1 PM. IF the bus had left from the airport, that might have been a great option.  It doesn’t!  It leaves from the Greyhound station in downtown Denver – 45 minutes away!! 

Logistically, it is impossible for me to land at 1, collect my luggage, pulled by one armed me to the public transportation location, load it and board a bus that will drop me ¼ mile from the bus station and get to the bus in time to load by 1:30!  Back to the drawing board (internet) to see what my other options are.

And God is sitting up there in his throne, poking Jesus in the side and laughing "Look at her!  Doesn't she know we already have this worked out?"

The best option is to spend the night in Denver at a hotel that has shuttle service to and from the airport – they load my bags!  I checked into getting a hotel downtown close to the bus station – not only do they not provide airport pick up they are twice as expensive as an outlying hotel.  So after hours of researching every conceivable and least expensive option, I landed on a hotel that could pick me up.

Enter a phone call from Scott:  Better news!  A last minute person is coming, her flight arrives pretty close to mine and she is renting a car.  He’s given her my number, we can hook up and ride down together.  Great news!  Until I talked to Laura, that is.  She hadn’t booked her ticket, it didn’t look like she would be able to get a flight until Saturday, and she hadn’t planned on renting a car!! 
By this time I had already researched renting a car and just driving – 18 days = $1200!  No, I did not leave out a decimal point!  TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS was the cheapest rate I could get!  It seems, after searching every car rental option at DIA (Denver International  Airport) website and by countless phone calls, that you cannot rent a car at DIA and return it any place close to where we are going!! GRRRR!!! 

I figure about now, God and Jesus are breaking out the popcorn as they say "this is going to be a long one.  She's never going to trust us until she's tried every thing else" snicker, snicker...

Next option – take one of the mountain shuttles – least expensive one of those is $245 per person – one way!!!  That hotel room and bus were sounding a lot better!  $85 for the hotel and $67 round trip for the bus is still cheaper than any other option I had come up with after about 10 hours researching various options!

So, my daughter and I are on our way to the airport this morning when Scott calls…Guess what?  If you can catch the bus to Boulder then someone has room for you!  At this point, I decided just to stick with my latest plan.  It is way too late to figure out how to “catch the bus to Boulder”!  


I have to admit, in spite of the hassles of the last few days, it was a beautiful flight...






Now, I am sitting in my hotel room and wishing I had taken that bus to Boulder!!

From the outside it is a typical Comfort Inn, from the inside it is not!  I have always had good luck at Comfort Inn and that is why I chose it.  The reception area is small and old looking, although the people were really nice.  The “business center” is a snap together computer desk shoved against a wall in the reception area.   When I walked down the hall, pulling my cart full of 120 pounds worth of luggage,  (including the carry on backpack), dodging room cleaning carts and maids (no bell boys here to help!! The carpet was so dirty I was grateful to have my shoes on.  It was the kind that makes you want to go “euww-euww”!  Then I got to my room and it smells like damp moldy carpet.  It’s clean, just stinks!  Kind of that three teenage boys in the same room, dirty sneakers, kind of odor.   And as I sit here typing, I am entertained by the sound of the traffic flying by on the highway and the man next door’s tv.
That was the inside.  

Now on to the outside…the grounds are beautiful!  The closest place to eat is a McDonald’s or Denny’s, both attached to gas stations, across two six lane roads, right off the highway in an industrial area.  I was hungry – one small airport yogurt and a bottle of water does not fill you up – so I made the trek to McDonald’s.  I made a very important discovery along the way – I am no competition for 18 wheelers and I am entirely too light complected for this neighborhood!  That is going to make going to dinner a lot of fun!  Don’t worry, Mom, I will be back before dark!

So, being fortified from my double cheeseburger, I made a decision, I was going to change hotels.  There had to be something better, closer to edible food, and safer to get to where I might be able to see a little more of Denver than the inside of a hotel room I don’t really feel safe leaving.  So I sucked it up, the me who never likes to complain, and called Choice Hotels customer service to see what they could do to help get me to another hotel.  By the luck of the draw I found myself talking to someone who was familiar with Denver.   VERY nice lady!  VERY helpful!  The best she could do was advise me where I didn’t want to go and to let me know my best option was the Comfort Inn downtown.  For an additional $60 for the room and a $35 cab drive, I put on my big girl undies and sucked it up and stayed where I am. 

Free shuttle back to the airport tomorrow morning where I will try to lug my bags across three islands in the commercial pick up/drop off area where I will meet up with Laura and take a cab direct to the Greyhound bus station for the next leg of this great adventure!

Lessons learned:  Use Google Maps to check out the location of the place you will be staying.  That little yellow man on the zoom bar is a wonderful tool!  Just pick him up with your curser and move him to any place on your map and he will give you a picture of where it is.  Go up to the arrows and click on the right one and it will take you on a panoramic tour of the location.

TRUST GOD!  He has it all worked out any way, so why get all stressed out?

Well, my friends, it is off to dinner…wish me well! 

Check back often.  I don't know how much internet service I will have, but I will try to update as often as I can.  But after reading this description, I just might decide to stay a while longer...


Life moves at a much slower pace here. The roads are gravel and dirt. No one is in any particular hurry. People wave at each other on the road. Neighbors watch out for each other. Coyotes howl in the morning while owls hoot at night. You might hear an occasional car or see the lights of an airplane. Satellites move across a sky brilliantly lit with stars. Even on a dark moon, the stars are bright enough to take a midnight stroll. Traffic jams consist of hay wagons and potato trucks, with an occasional herd of cows. 
(description and photo courtesy of www.ghostmineranch.com)





But then again, it sounds an awful lot like South Sudan and I can't wait to get back there...