Another Natural Builder!

For a couple months now, I have driven by this house where the owner has adobe bricks drying in the front and has started an earthen house off to the side. So about a week ago, I decided to walk down there while Corné was at Thsepo. Turns out, the owner was there and his two workers. He knew decent English, so we go to have a nice chat. The beginning of the conversation was about how his wife wasn't on time or something, she had his cigarettes, and so on, so in a round about way (which, I'm learning, is cultural), he was asking me for a smoke. After I politely refused him, we got onto talking about building.

He digs the soil right out of his back yard. Then mixes it with water to get it muddy, and then puts it in his mold, which is a metal tin of some kind with the bottom cut out. They've got the water amount down pat, when the guy lifts the mold up, the brick basically keeps it's shape. They leave them to dry for 2-3 days, then put them up on the wall, using an earthen mortar to stick them together. Nothing added to the mix. They told me this several times.

The house is looking good. I wonder why more people don't do this. I asked them several times, but they must not of understood the question, never got an answer.

After the owner left, I stuck around for a couple more photos and to do some video. I was showing them the video when friends of theirs came down the road. They jumped the fence to watch, and then insisted on having their photo taken!

All in all, it was a great experience. Some people would think I'm crazy walking around Mautse, but I never felt threatened. I actually got two more great photos on the way home!

Momentum!

It seems we are really hitting our stride! Msebesebe joined us this week, keeping the number at four, myself included. In the morning after trimming the excess off the walls, I put it on an extra tarp. That turned into tarp 3. Previously, we always mixed in pairs. With 3 tarps now, when someone has a free moment, they move the extra tarp onto the next stage. It has really increased the amount of cob we mix. About Tuesday we started on the center wall again, the massive one! We got two layers down each day from the top of the building to the bottom! It's too high now to hop over, we have to climb over or go around.

I spent a little time Wednesday morning setting up another clay pit on the other side of the house, actually closer to the “mine”. We had been hauling the clay around the house to the far side where the soaking pits are, then putting into buckets for the mix and carrying it back through the house. Been thinking to stock dirt and clay on both sides for when we start mixing for the outside walls. Streamlining . . . .

Also, we are having a work day Saturday, about 10 guys from the church will come out to help in the morning. Borrowing a couple wheelbarrows, the goal being to move lots and lots of dirt and clay from the mine to the house site. It's about 75 yards away. With at least 3, maybe 4 wheelbarrows, should be able to set ourselves up for 2-3 weeks. That will save lots of time, we can focus on cobbing.

I think a mouse tried to make a home in our house before us!
The hole is only a just past one knuckle of my finger.
(Inches on the ruler, not cm!)

Thought of the day

Wednesday night I was looking through the cob book again, and saw the section about using cord wood to build a wall with cob as the mortar. They said so far the prospects looked good. I was thinking that if we cut down some popular trees, we could put them in the center wall no problem. It started me thinking about other trees, and then it hit me! The blue gum eucalyptus is the number one invasive species here. Technically, everybody was suppose to have cut them down already. The wood is only good for burning, it can't be turned into planks because the grain is twisted . . . BUT it it were cut green, and dried, it would be hard and doesn't rot. Stick it in the wall, cob around it, and building could go quite fast and take less soil (and less work) and use up the unwanted trees! I love the idea, but Corné doesn't want to try it on our house, and I'm with here on that. Don't want to experiment on the place we plan to live for a long time. However, I want to try it out when we build the school shortly. If it works, it could go a long way to helping out the housing problem.

A little addition . . . this morning (Friday) we were five working, and that seems to be the number! We were just cruising along. Tseko was bringing me cob, I was building the walls, Lerato and Notsi were mixing, and Rasusu was the supplier-he was bringing the crusher dust or soil, refilling the water cans. He was nearly always on the move, which help the rest of us always be on the move! If Tseko and I caught up to the mixers, we would hop on a tarp and start getting it mixed. I was amazed at how much we mixed in just an 90 minutes. We are finding the “1%s”-little ways to gain here and there. Tseko also started delivering the cob with the 4 pronged garden fork. Much faster than bending over, pulling a carryable amount loose, and then picking it up. He would just fork it up and carry it over.

That was then . . .

Anxiety

Last night I was lying in bed, grateful to be mostly warm, and awake. Since moving to South Africa, there are many things that are different, but one of the most potent changes has been in me. A couple summers ago on a camping trip, I started having anxiety attacks. I had always prided myself to a certain extent, that I could control myself. Then I had the feeling that I had to get out of that tent no matter what. I knew as people aged, their sleeping suffered, I didn't know that a part of middle agedness was dealing with anxiety.

So this is something I'm learning to deal with, the best way being reading Scripture or quoting a verse to myself over and over again. Another way to pass time lying in bed at midnight is to listen to music, and this is where a change has happened. Much of the music I enjoyed over the last twenty years I just can't listen to at night. If I put on some Van Morrison, it takes me to memories and somehow pushes my anxiety button. That's a no-no. Even U2, after 25 years, some of it I just can't handle at night.

Photos

If you know me, you know I enjoy photography. I always enjoyed looking through photos of summer trips and the like. That, now, is also a no-no. I have to be careful when using my laptop that Shiloh, my son, doesn't see pictures of Florida, him swimming in a pool, or with friends. If he does, that usually initiates a bout of homesickness at bed time. Our Christmas snow trip to central Washington will send me downhill faster than a skier. I can take a little exposure, but too much puts me over the edge. A couple weeks before flying here, we made a trip with my parents, visited my sister and her family in North Carolina, then did our favorite bike trail, the Virginia Creeper in Damascus, VA, then spent almost a week in Colonial Williamsburg. I can't even think about that trip. Have looked at those photos only once or twice in the last 7 months.

Last night I started thinking of my Grandma Keglovits, and the last time I saw her. I was flying to South Africa to meet Corné and get married, and knew I'd be gone a couple years at least. The chance that she'd still be alive when I got back were slim (she's had a stroke several years earlier). Quickly I had to move my thoughts elsewhere. Sad thoughts are extremely dangerous.

So when will this end? There has been such a shift, of my old life with all it's memories and connections, music and images interwoven, and now I have this new life. I was a teacher, comfy job; now I haven't had an income for a year and work outside with my hands which are cracked and worn. I feel I've walked over a bridge and could only carry so much luggage. The rest is left over there. Sometimes it waves at me and wants attention. Will it ever join me? I would like to think that once we are in our own house, these memories will have a place to come and rest. I'll be able to fondly look at pictures of us at the Grand Canyon or Zion, and smile. But will the old join the new? Is my new life so far removed that it will never reconcile with my old life? A major question is: Is this normal? This is what I wonder at night.   

Minor Monumental Day

Most of this was meant for posting last week, but couldn't get online at our wi-fi point.

Minor monumental week!

This week we have the base of all the interior walls (except for 1m/yd we use for the wheelbarrow) started! It really makes the house start taking shape even more. I'm feeling better and better about the cob we are using. Feel its a pretty good mixture, and the walls, by design, are thicker just to be on the safe side. I think could have made them several inches thinner and still be fine, but it doesn't hurt anything, just means a little more mixing and more thermal mass in the house. Had a couple windy days this week, so we only worked a half day Wednesday. It's so exposed at the house site, a constant wind makes it cold and uncomfortable, as well as hard to keep the tarps down when mixing.

The Gutter

We poured the foundation trench as a rectangle, and since then added the bathroom above the building. That left a major wall inside the house. It doesn't need protection from the rain, but I was a little concerned about damp that the cement might draw. Our solution was to pour sidewalls to the cement foundation and then put +/-3cm of gravel in between. Feel that should be fine, be a solid base for the wall and be a vapor barrier of sorts.

Little hard to make out, but the yellow subsoil starts
where the soil is under cut.

Using Topsoil

One of my cobbing books says not to use topsoil, the other says they do! Our situation is so that we basically must use topsoil unless we want to dig up a lot of topsoil to get to the subsoil. The topsoil is around 2 feet/50cm deep. It then changes to a yellowish subsoil that is nice for making cob, but it is only a foot/25cm thick. Then it becomes nearly solid clay! I bought a pick a couple weeks ago, and it makes breaking that up much easier than before when we used just shovels. It was very windy Wednesday, so instead of cobbing, we worked in the “mine” and Lerato broke up a weeks worth or more of clay in 2 hours time. The rest of us worked at loosening soil and Notsi hauled it in the wheelbarrow to the site. I think it's a local thing as well, the topsoil here is mostly sand with 15% or so clay. It is darker than the subsoil, but out in the fields, where it hasn't rained for almost 2 months now, the ground is very hard. Can't dig with a round-nose shovel, afraid of breaking my “American” shovel. (Shovels here are shorter, haven't seen one long like a regular shovel in the States.) Whereas in Florida I wouldn't think of using topsoil, here, I think it is fine.

The Saw

Something that slipped by in the storeroom was the trimming. On the house, I've made sure to keep up with it. It is actually the oddest thing about building. I just take a saw, go along the edge of the wall, and cut off the excess sticking out. This usually happens because our cob doesn't hold it's shape perfectly and starts bulging out when it's still wet. Not really a problem, I just cut it true (haven't used it that much, but will carry a level with me to make walls straight up and down, especially on outer walls.) It's kind of a fun job, and afterwards I scoop up the trimmings and put it on a tarp to be remixed and put back on the wall again.

Fellow blogger

Shiloh has started blogging, just like Pappa! You can check out his blog, africathroughachildseyes.blogspot.com

Last Friday's photo.  Doorways just becoming visible.

Here's latest photo.  Bathroom wall is nearest, the one built
over the trench.

17 July

Rasusu went back to school, so we were back to 3 of us working: myself, Lerato and Notsi. We brought up the kitchen wall, bathroom wall, and then finished the base for the center wall. Wednesday we put down a nice thick layer on the walls, moving along!

Corné and I were looking at the inside of the stemwall today. The cement work isn't pretty. So, we are thinking of cobbing a thin layer over the inside of all the stemwall. That way, we can plaster the wall from floor to ceiling, and it should look nice. Going to try a test batch next week. Would have liked nice interior stone work, but we aren't that skilled, and trying to make it presentable would have taken even longer. Work on the stemwall took about two and a half months as it was! Honestly, it was the part of building that I liked least.   

Sharing, Sotho style

I have traveled quite a bit, so different customs don't shock me.  But there is something I've seen here that is quite amazing.  I know in the US, that sometimes at school when we teachers would have lunch, someone might share something with the rest, but something you could take individually.  Here, sharing is on a different level.  Lerato (on the right) and his friend Martin, are sharing their lunch and eating from the same container.  They take a bite or two, and pass the food to the other.  Back when Mpopo worked with us, he and Lerato would combine their lunches.  They would add the sauce from the one onto the pap (cooked corn meal) of the other and then both eat from the one container.

What makes this so easy for them?  I really don't know.  I'd like to be able to do this, I think, or at least share in this way.  There is something appealing in the simplicity-what is mine is yours and yours is mine. We'll eat and enjoy this meal together!

At Thsepo, Corné has seen the same thing.  Two children will be sitting beside each other, and the one will reach over and take a hand scoop from the other, with no resistance!  (Traditional African way to eat is with your hands.  Wash them first, of course, then take the food with your fingers.). Imagine someone reaching into your dish with their hand-I think there would often be screams and shouts following shortly after!

Addition 18 July

Something else . . . at church, during the service, the ushers bring a glass of water to people that must be thirsty.  We haven't figured out the code yet, there must be one!  Yet again, there are only 2 glasses, and they don't get washed between uses.

New definition of Hunger

I'm not a food photographer, so I can't make his look as good as it tastes!  These are plates ready to go to the children at Thsepo (soup kitchen).  The targeted group of children are those living with one parent that is unemployed.  Some children would only get one meal for the day if it weren't for Thsepo!  There are several things I think about . . .

Hunger

Personally, my own view of hunger has changed, as well as my appetite!  Since I've switched from being a teacher to a natural builder, I've lost 20 pounds or so, and my waist is back to college size!  Back in Florida, I wasn't a big eater, nor did I care for all-you-can-eat buffets.  Now, I can eat a full plate, and am still hungry afterwards. I can eat whatever ai want.     I'm just burning calories like I haven't for years.  At the same time, when I am hungry, it doesn't make me grumpy.  I think of the children at Thsepo that don't get food  like I do, but don't complain and just keep on playing, do what they're doing with a smile on their face.  I think many people, myself included, could learn something from them.

What is Food?

Sit down if you live in the US.  Early on, Corné asked them their favorite foods.  Number one: spinach!  Then cabbage, then beans.  One child said meat, one said chips (French fries), and one fruit.  Imagine, real food!  I can't imagine getting this response in America.  The photo above shows a typical meal: there are beans in a sauce, the yellow mash is sweet potatoes, the white is pap-corn meal cooked to a sticky consistency, very nice!  The smell is always good when I come in, in contrast to the cafeteria back in Florida.  The difference is ironic.  The children here are very poor, but getting a delicious, healthy meal, and they clean their plate with their fingers.  When they bring their plates up to the table, there are only faint grease lines visible.  In the US, the food wasn't often appealing, most of it came frozen, and I saw lots of it go to waste.  (I know the people at my school did the best they could with the budget they had.).  

Yesterday I arrived at church to pick up Corné around 4, when Thsepo ends.  There was nobody outside playing soccer, so I thought all had gone home and was wondering were Corné was.  I parked and walked toward the kitchen and opened the door.  Thirty children with food before them looked up-here wasn't a single sound!  One of our great pleasures these days is watching these children enjoy their food in perfect silence!

How to NOT have jellified cob

Progress wasn't as much this week as the last, but things are still coming along. We mixed cob Monday and Tuesday. We had been slapping the cob down and hearing a nice smacking sound. Seemed like it would help the new cob bond with the previous layer. Did notice, especially in areas of lots of cob, like where the four walls meet, that when wet and pressed on, say, the next day, the area nearby would rise up. I was just reading a bit in The Hand Sculpted House, and Ianto said that slapping would “jellify” the cob. Seemed that was what was happening. The next day, no slapping down, just working it all into the previous layer. This morning, no jelly, just soft cob that's still wet, but not moving the surronding cob when pressed on.

When we built the small storeroom, we only put in the adobe floor after the roof was on. It then took a couple weeks, even in late summer, for the floor to be firm enough to walk on. So now in the house, we were thinking of putting in the sub-floor (about 3in/7.5cm thick) now in the dry season and before the walls are too high and block much of the light and airflow. When it does get rainy, we'll put a single, large piece of black plastic that will rise up the sides to keep it dry. Wednesday we leveled our bedroom floor and guest room floor and put down about 3in/7.5cm of gravel as a moisture barrier, and then tamped that down. Going with less than what the books recommend, but our climate is much drier than Oregon or England (where my cob books originate). Our soil is also very dense, so no so easy for water to move through it. Also, traditional homes here have a earthen floor with no gravel under it. Friends of ours, familiar with cob, recommended no gravel, but since we had 2-3 cubes of it, decided to be safer than having to redo a floor later on!

The doorway to our bedroom taking shape!

Close-up of cob wall, after trimming.

Thursday the wind picked up, making working out in the open uncomfortable. So after lunch we cut some firewood, for the last time as a group, winter seems to be winding down already. Thank you Lord! Today, Friday, cancelled work as it was windy, cloudy, and cold with the wind chill. I went over for a couple hours and pulled weeds . . .  

Safety Burn

Monday, Machiel, our neighbor and landlord, asked for my help in burning strips around his buildings, including the hikers hut we stay in.  I said sure, as I wanted to see how this was all done since we live a grassland where field fires are common.  He has a frame the holds a big water tank and a petrol powered pump that fills the bed of his truck.  Thapelo went along with a can 4/5:1 diesel petrol mix lighting the grass, Machiel was spraying the back edge with water.  I stood around with a flapper-broom stick with a sliced old tire for beating out fires. For the first hour it was boring, then Françious came to help with his tank and hose!  At last I got to spray water, keeping the fire off the fence, Machiel working the other side.  We moved along 200 meters or so, still not exciting till Machiel pointed back to where the fire had somehow gotten into the tall grass beside the strip!  Drivers hopped into trucks, I sprayed it out, the excitement lasted all of 25 seconds. Truthfully, glad it wasn't exciting, and feel safer with a burn strip around our place.

Had a thought regarding building, not what I wanted.  Think the whole house will be dug and mixed manually.   Was  hoping and praying for a tractor and sillage mixer, but don't think it will happen.  I am hoping now that somehow money will come in so I can hire 8-10 guys for the next two months.  Would rather put money into their pockets than buy a machine!