A Place to Stay

Our main focus is to build a food forest. We already have 120 trees planted, but to truly start working on it, we need to live there. To stay in the village, we need a house. However, building a house requires help from others, and they also need a place to stay. Meanwhile, for us to build the house, we too need somewhere to stay. And so, we find ourselves caught in a cycle.

To address this, we first decided to camp out and create some basic facilities: a simple kitchen, a room to stay in, and a dry toilet. We made use of the large house for this. While the house doesn’t have a 100% waterproof roof, most of the rain runs off, with only a little seeping inside. The first room we built was on the second floor of the four-story building. This room stayed dry even during rain. We constructed a new floor and added a door, which proved to be a blessing. While we were camping, some of us came down with a stomach flu, and it was comforting to sleep on a mattress near the toilet.

On the first floor, we set up a simple kitchen with a counter, allowing us to cook while standing—something we greatly appreciated. We added a fridge, a hot plate, and even a microwave with an oven function, so we had everything we needed. The room was spacious enough for some chairs, a table, and a small play area for the kids. It was cozy, and because the floor was made of dirt, it stayed cool and humid during the warm summer.

When we returned at the end of October, the coolness of the kitchen became less desirable. Autumn had begun, with temperatures dropping below 20°C and increased rainfall. We decided to move the kitchen up to the second floor, next to the room. This way, everything was on the same floor, and the kitchen was both drier and brighter.

The first week was great, but by the second week, the colder weather and more frequent rain posed new challenges. The kitchen, lacking insulation and windows, was nearly as cold as the outside. We borrowed a small electric heater from Carlos, but it wasn’t very effective since the heat didn’t stay in the room. Moreover, with overcast skies, we had less solar energy to power the heater. Our next step was to focus on the small house to create a warm, insulated space for our next visit in February.

During the summer, we had already started working on a new roof for the small house. We call it the "small house" because it’s smaller than the four-story building, though it’s still 6 meters wide and 10 meters long, with two stories. It’s just the right size for a family home. We plan to create bedrooms on the upper floor and a living space with a kitchen on the ground floor. The house is conveniently located next to the large field, which is the heart of the village.

Our next priority was insulating the walls. We decided to experiment with hay for insulation. After considerable effort, we managed to have a large amount of hay delivered. We’re still figuring out the best method for constructing the walls. For now, we used MDF boards with hay packed behind them for insulation. There are differing opinions on whether to seal the room with plastic to keep out moisture or to leave some breathing room for the hay. Since living in what feels like a plastic bag didn’t appeal to us, we opted for the breathable method.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to finish everything, but we’re making good progress. By our next visit, we hope to have windows installed, which will allow us to create a warm sleeping area. One silver lining to not finishing was a realization I had during a yoga class back home: we hadn’t added any electrical wiring to the walls. Now, we can address that during our next visit.

To be continued next vacation.