I'm moving to Peterborough, Ontario. From April 13th to August 14th, I'll be in a 20 week Fleming program run by Chris Magwood called Sustainable Building Design & Construction. On Trent University's forest reserve, our class of 25 will build a sustainable environmental education building with a living roof, some thatch roof, a living wall to purify the air, an indoor wetland system to purify the greywater, geothermal radiant floor, waddle & dob, and pre-fabricated straw bale wall panels.
I'll be explaining each element one by one in posts to come.
Garden of Peace: Tamil Crisis & the Dalai Lama
In the third week at the Garden of Peace, some Indian and French university students came to join us because the University of Madras was shut down due to fear of student revolts as the situation in Sri Lanka heated up. The government knows the students are the main power source of political activism here. One member of their movement set himself on fire in protest of Sri Lankans killing Tamils. Also, for one day, the entire state of Tamil Nadu was shut down in protest except for essential services like hospitals. In the rural village, we wouldn't have known about the outage had we not heard from some friends in Chennai. Ramu has been a leader of many amazing peaceful political actions for many years. He recounted some hilarious and breathtaking stories to us over dinner one night. Ramu also was granted a private 10 minute conversation with His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama and this was not the first time for him. He asked what Ramu would like, to which Ramu asked only for his blessings. In the last week, Ramu received a check for 250 000 rupees for Buddha Smiles projects. What a blessing. Now a real kitchen can be built for the beloved cooks who work with so much dedication and love to feed the hundred children good meals, as some kids otherwise would not eat more than one meal a day from home. The volunteers were also given personal invitations to go hear the Dalai Lama speak at the university in Madras. I will never forget that day and also His Holiness's big sense of humour and warmth.
Garden of Peace: Wisdom Tree of Traditional Indian Knowledge
Every week at the Garden of Peace in Kanyambadi, Tamil Nadu, south India, we had different local wise people visit to give talks. This was called the "Wisdom Tree" series of speakers. The first speaker was a retired navy sailor who spoke about the spirit of the sea. The second week, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Madras who spoke mainly about Indian indigenous knowledge, skills, wisdom and how these things were insufficiently compatible with the conventional education system. Next we had a woman working with young women in regards to sex education, puberty, pregnancy, STDs, health & hygene, etc. On the same day, we were given a talk by a group of local indigenous herbal healers, who showed us some uses of local plants and gave us each an ayurvedic pulse diagnosis. On the final night, we had two young people from Japan who were touring the world's peace museums and are hoping to create one that doesn't have weapons and terrible war images, as all of them currently have. The last speaker was a leader of an organization converting Indian farmers in Tamil Nadu back to organic agriculture. He and his organization have effectively helped transition around 5000 farmers in the state of Tamil Nadu back to organic. I had a tear in my eye when I shook his hand out of appreciation for what he has done for this planet.
Garden of Peace: Natural Building and Permaculture in rural South India
The Garden of Peace, a Buddha Smiles project of Ramu Manivannan, a professor of political science at the University of Madras is a living museum of peace. It is a place where all are welcome, children learn from teachers of the village, play is an every day occurrence, beautiful flowers bloom always, trees grow fast and many have some fruit. Over 5000 people have come through the space talking about the peace and sustainability work they are doing or planning. Volunteers from all over the world (myself included) come to plan and work the land using permaculture techniques and continue the traditions of natural building, herbal medicine, and ecological communal living. Garden of Peace is located in a small farming village in Kurumbupalayam, Kanyambadi, Tamil Nadu about 3 hours from Madras/Chennai. Five years ago, it was nearly barren land, now it is flourishing with life in various ways. We lived the way most villagers lived, eating the traditional food, sleeping in bamboo thatch tents, washing with bucket water, hardly noticing the almost daily power outages, and so on. One hundred children from 4-10 years old attended this school 6 days a week. Every day, we would be saluted by the kids with smiles saying "good morning, madam" "good afternoon, sir" and sometimes a few high fives. You could see and hear their joy of learning in a peaceful, safe, nurturing space.
As a volunteer work camp, we spent the first week in an intro to Permaculture, lead by Kate, Sugar and Matt, plus a few additions from me since I have my Permaculture certification too. Together at the end of the week, we started the second pile of 18-day compost and built the mandala garden's form that was later planted with symbiotic plants and compost by the 3 permaculture teachers and a few extra hands. From the second to fifth week, the natural building work group was lead by Elke Cole, a natural builder from British Columbia, who grew up and studied architecture in Germany. I worked with her for 3 months at O.U.R. Ecovillage on Vancouver Island this past spring/summer and was invited to India by her to work on this project. We were going to be designing and building a teacher's office/room but from seeing the state of the buildings on site, we decided to put our efforts to repairing them instead. The original classroom was being deteriorated by termites and other insects. This is a common problem for south India and monsoon areas. After doing some research, I found many options for us to try to defend the building. The main culprits seemed to be water brought in by the monsoon season and that someone had used convensional (un-natural) paint all over the natural building, which keeps moisture in the walls. We collectively decided to deal with the moisture problem by installing rainwater collection and sending it to the food forest being developed. As for the damage, we decided to scrape off all the interior and exterior paint, repair the damage and give it a beautiful earthen plaster and new windows and doors. We completed the inside of the main classroom in 4 weeks with around 8 people. While we were at work in that room, local mason men and women did skilled work the other portion of the building and we poked our heads in every so often to learn a few techniques. They learned a few things from us like plaster relief wall sculpture and putting glass bottles in the wall.
I'm very grateful to have had this experience. It was hard work 6 days a week from sun up to sun down but it was so beautiful.
As a volunteer work camp, we spent the first week in an intro to Permaculture, lead by Kate, Sugar and Matt, plus a few additions from me since I have my Permaculture certification too. Together at the end of the week, we started the second pile of 18-day compost and built the mandala garden's form that was later planted with symbiotic plants and compost by the 3 permaculture teachers and a few extra hands. From the second to fifth week, the natural building work group was lead by Elke Cole, a natural builder from British Columbia, who grew up and studied architecture in Germany. I worked with her for 3 months at O.U.R. Ecovillage on Vancouver Island this past spring/summer and was invited to India by her to work on this project. We were going to be designing and building a teacher's office/room but from seeing the state of the buildings on site, we decided to put our efforts to repairing them instead. The original classroom was being deteriorated by termites and other insects. This is a common problem for south India and monsoon areas. After doing some research, I found many options for us to try to defend the building. The main culprits seemed to be water brought in by the monsoon season and that someone had used convensional (un-natural) paint all over the natural building, which keeps moisture in the walls. We collectively decided to deal with the moisture problem by installing rainwater collection and sending it to the food forest being developed. As for the damage, we decided to scrape off all the interior and exterior paint, repair the damage and give it a beautiful earthen plaster and new windows and doors. We completed the inside of the main classroom in 4 weeks with around 8 people. While we were at work in that room, local mason men and women did skilled work the other portion of the building and we poked our heads in every so often to learn a few techniques. They learned a few things from us like plaster relief wall sculpture and putting glass bottles in the wall.
I'm very grateful to have had this experience. It was hard work 6 days a week from sun up to sun down but it was so beautiful.
Pictures!
Hey. Sorry I haven't been updating this. My time on the internet is difficult to get and limited so I had to prioritize and blogging got dropped. I'm having the time of my life and I know limiting my use of electronics out here is good for me. My cell phone jumped in Nanaimo river with me last weekend so it's out of commission too.
Here's the link to my Ecovillage photo collection where I add recent pictures somewhat often. They'll give you a good idea of what I've been up to. I'll let pictures tell the thousands of words that I don't have time to write. It's all worth it and because I'm learning in stead of spending time writing recaps, I'll have much more to give when I leave this place so please accept my apology and reason if you are saddened by my lack of posting. Love.
Here's the link to my Ecovillage photo collection where I add recent pictures somewhat often. They'll give you a good idea of what I've been up to. I'll let pictures tell the thousands of words that I don't have time to write. It's all worth it and because I'm learning in stead of spending time writing recaps, I'll have much more to give when I leave this place so please accept my apology and reason if you are saddened by my lack of posting. Love.
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