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testimonies:portugal:sofia

Eco Building (canya & cob) :-O

The Heterotopia tour in Faro was without doubt a hurricane of knowledge, joy, fun and experience with plenty of moments of the intriguing feeling to experiment and overcome my usual self. It was totally an out of the box experience. I cannot still believe that I leaved so many strong moments in only two weeks. It was because of the people who organized and participated but also because we all believed in that project. Feeling blessed that I had this chance to travel to Faro Portugal and leave two whole weeks with all the beautiful creatures, participants, leaders, volunteers, facilitators, visitors and the New Loops organization. These Portuguese girls (New Loops) lighted up my fire to the foul. Inspired me, made me open my heart, offered me experience. Most important for me they made me realize how difficulties in collaboration and co creation can be overcomed when there are common goals driven by pure principles .

I want to repeat the poem of Eduardo Galeano, Juanna read to us our last night next to the fire in our sharing circle: “Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I'll never reach it. So what's the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking.” This trip made me reach that point, to keep walking and finding out my dreams and passions in life.

In this article I would like to refer to the Eco Buildings we did because my basic reason of this trip was to learn more about them. But first I want to refer to the framework of Sociocracy 3.0 and specifically to the way of interaction Artful Participation is consisted of The phrase that follows attracted my attention and made me more mindful of the the whole community: “Is my behavior in this moment the greatest contribution I can make to the effectiveness of this collaboration?” That was a great lesson to me. The most important affect was that in one hand made me give more space to the others when I felt they had to offer more and on the other hand made me take the responsibility of speaking and acting in certain situations that I would be more useful and valuable. Here is where I met my expectations of learning about Eco Building. During action I could certainly feel that this was the right thing to do. So I dived in!

We had an amazing week of Eco Building with canes! Our project was to make a roof for the kitchen which would be formed by three(3) big arches made from many canes connecting to each other with cane columns and finally being braided with more canes! In general we used many many canes!!! Barbara, our facilitator, sawed us many technical parts of the process. We started by picking up the canes. The way we ripped them was a real fun! After that we had to carry them and move them into a track which would bring them in New Loops's land. The second day we started cleaning up the canes from their leaves and separate them depending their diameter. We organized them in groups of numbers from 0 to 5. We also constructed nine(9) tripod bases for putting parts of the constructions we were going to make. The third day we learned to recognize the way that canes grow. It is either clockwise or anti-clockwise. That part is really important because we have to choose the canes of the columns that will build the arches that way. The arches were made from to parts of columns, one with clockwise canes and one with anti-clockwise canes. The reason of that is so there is not any pressure between the canes so they don't brake. After the separation we put a number of canes in certain way and tied them with a simple knot Barbara sawed us.

The next three days we continued the construction of the arches. I have to mention here that we used canes of number 2 from the categorization we have made and also used mostly the ones that were more straight and long rather than the short ones and the ones with many curves. After finishing the first part of the column of the arch we added in a spiral way and in a direction of going higher, around the column some more canes so the column gets wider and longer. After finishing that we had to separate the upper part in two parts to make two “fingers”. This whole process was done in collaboration between 3 to 5 people. Some had to keep the canes straight and some others had to rap around the canes with long ropes. Every arch was made by connecting one column with fingers that goes clockwise with one that goes anti-clockwise. After connecting them we caught the columns pulled from the middle part and pussed from the bottom parts and tight the bottoms with a long rope so the arch stays in the position we decided. The bottoms of the arches were put in the ground in holes that we had digged and stabilized with cement. Meanwhile we prepared some columns made of 6 canes of number 1 which we used to connect the arches. We learned to connect the columns to the arches with a cross knot which I loved! It made the structure totally stable and strong and it was really easy for me to understand it and do it. After we had prepared the basic structure we had to smash several canes on their knots (the part of the cane where the leaves come out from). These smashed canes were used to braid the roof. After braiding the roof and connecting it safely to the structure we put some cob on it so it stays strong, with a thick shadow and last through time.

Here it comes an other part of Eco Building, the cob technique. From the first day in the project we helped Maria to continue building the rocket stove and the surfaces next to it with cob. Maria learned us how to recognize sand and clay, how to make a good mixture and how to mix it. We put in an improvised bathtub some sand, clay and water and got in and mixed it with our feet. When the texture was good and even we added some straw. We checked the mixture by making balls. If the balls didn't crack while throughing them from one hand to the other and if when we stuck it on our hand and the ball fell slowly from it, then the mixture was ready! The process of covering surfaces and building with cob looks easy and simple but it needs some really important details that make the difference and bring a good result. For instance each time we built something with cob it had to be in thin layers about 1 to 3 cm otherwise the mixture won't dry uniformly. if we wanted to make a thicker surface we put one layer we made some holes with our fingers and let it dry until next day. During summer one day is enough. We made the holes so the next day that we had to put some more cob the mixture would get into the holes and connect the two layers safely.

So these was the new knowledge I took from the workshops of Sustainable Eco Buildings/Constructions. It was an unforgettable experience and a great boost to search, learn more and walk a step closer to the utopia I dream of creating and living in.

Thank you all for being there, sharing, learning from each other, being patient, respectful, mindful, warm-hearted, kind, inspiring, straight and clear on your intentions, concencus, empathetic and trustful to the process and to each other because most of us didn't know each other.

Positive vibes to everyone!

Do what you love, love what you do.

Sofia

testimonies/portugal/sofia.txt · Last modified: 2018/11/08 18:50 by Clement