Randomness Month 4 Part 1.....

Right so this month decided to take her handy on the travelling and socialising front so mostly work related activities in the first two weeks of the month. The routine every day is mostly visiting schools in the morning and teaching them things like recycling and visiting womens groups in the afternoon. To be honest a lot of the time now is spent on introduction and discussing what the plans are for the year ahead also. 

Painting the School name at Nuvo Pinal at the request of the teacher. Have to return next week with red and green paint to paint Seedsofhelp symbol.

 If you have been reading blog this washing station will be familiar. We painted the washing station white and Wrote Semillas de ayuda. Symbol to follow. The community themselves decided to go ahead with the roof during the xmas holidays. Kind of proof in the Seeds of Help ethos of helping rather than giving. Was really happy on return here to see that the wall had been rebuilt by the community during the xmas also. When we ran out of stones for the soak away they insisted on using the stones from the wall. I was more than a little bit dubious as to when it might get repaired. Gladly by skepticism was unfounded.....

 Right so this is a project I took inspiration from a project in the philipines where they use old plastic bottles, filled with water and bleach, as lights in lamina (galvinised sheeting) in the roof to provide light. They say it acts as a 50w bulb when sun light hits it. The reason is that when light hits water it refracts at 360 degrees so gives off a lot more light than glass can for instance.
My house like most in la cumbre has a ceiling and a tile roof above. Not anyway simple to install a bottle light into. I decided to try using bottles in the walls instead. It requires two 3 or 3.3 (super cola) bottles glued together to span the depth of the wall. (In the ceiling the max recommended is 2 litre bottles becuase of the weight of the water in the bottles.) Some tim foil the width of the wall to aid in getting the light to the inside and a bit or repair work around the hole afterwards. It costs 3 euro for bleach and epoxy and another 3 euro for the bottles but these can be easily found..

 Hard to make out but I decided to paint the area around the wall white so as to get some extra reflection. All in all the project was a success and it will definitely be a future workshop topic in La Cumbre and Coban.

Night time now but the water in these bottles is getting cleaned of bacteria during the day from ultra violet rays from the sun. They are filled with tap water so are relativelt clean to start with. The water would require filtration through a charcoal filter first before filling, with really dirty water.

Shower curtain for new fancy shower, and stowed away normally (below)

Right so to tackle the cold tried a bit of sinmple draft proofing. Siliconed up gaps in doors and windows to stop air infiltration and stuck a blanket to the door to stop cold coming through metal door. With extra made a draft excluder for bottom of door. Works well. Proof is that in the morning the area between the blanket and door there is a lot of moisture.

Last weekend As I didnt have much else to do I helped Roberto build a Latreen (outside toilet).

Agreement was that we would build my chicken coop this weekend. Something popped up for him and I got a stomach bug so we postponed till during the week have all the materials waiting to go so hopefully have the chickens in it by Friday, fried eggs Saturday morning. Also hoping to get a sample bottle light in lamina completed this week. Also in the pipeline is a stove made from clay bricks and lime, was going to make one from an old gas bottle but the cost is too much for it to be realisticly repeated by people in La Cumbre. 30 euro for bottle alone. Months wages... I also had planned on making carbon in the stove but this is actually uneccesary and can be done in any fire really. Dont want to limit how people repeat the project as the risk is that it will limit how many times it is repeated. Have the paint tin just need to use it all first (waste not want not) then I will be in the carbon (charcoal) making business, barbeques, water filters, drawing pictures, whatever ye want to use it for. After that a water filter of course.  Priced a sofa bed at weekend, 180 euro for cheapest, no thanks that will be getting made too me thinks. Adobe blocks. The sheeps wool insulation, still waiting on Roberto to get the thumb out on this, he needs to supply the wool, borax is awaiting, but hopefully in next few weeks too. Have a deadline for all this for before Easter as will have a few visitors around this time so the clock is ticking for me now.


I mentioned before that I was going to try live on 10Q or 1 euro a day for month of Febuary. Not going to plan I must say from the off. I have spent 30 on food alone in two weeks. I think I am going to manage about 50 euro for the month on food. i suppose you could say that 50 euro is what is required to eat healthily, 3 meals a day for a month. Average wage here is 30 euro a month so thats where the malnutrition problem of surviving on tortillas and coffee come into play I suppose. I had also planned on no internet, drink or meat. Well internet went out the window straight off to be honest but I am trying to fundraise for the Tikal and House appeal and they are more inportant I feel. I honeslty forgot one day and eat a peice of chicken and I straight out bought chicken at the weekend. Love my fried chicken yeeeehaaaaa what can I say. But havent drank and dont plan on doing so. Going alright shall we say....

Some randomness from La Cumbre for you.................

When the mist decends....................

But when it clears.................

Myself, Roberto and his father, few sheep and a bit of craic sure what would beat it.

Just a quick note on Sylvia and family. I met Sylvia in Brendas house on Saturday, Brenda gives her mother some work washing clothes, she is happy in school, going well. Next week I will put the pressure on her and get her to start doing a monthly newsletter. Dont expect shakespeare, she is pretty much learning to write from scratch, however it is important for lots of reasons. A thank you to everybody who has helped her and her family, has agreed to for the duration of her education, but possibly even more so that she learns that she has to do something in return for all of this. Thanks again to everyone.....