Building Naturally, in Deslandes

In behind the house that we stayed in while in Deslandes, they started doing infill on a structure. The outdoor kitchen there had been the typical pole construction without walls, and they decided to enclose it. I saw a large pile of clay in the yard, that they filled with water, and beside it, a bunch of boulders.

They mixed the clay, put up a one sided form board, plopped the wet clay (wet like putty wet, not like clay slip) against the form, and then went to the other side and started putting the boulders and rocks into the new clay mortar bed.




It went up really fast- like over 2 or 3 days, and while this clay mortar (straight clay) is on the soft side, they intend on putting a cement plaster on the outside (oh, they love their cement!).

 

I thought it was a cool way to get a structure up quickly. Deslandes apparently isn't on the big earthquake fault line, although I'm told there was an earthquake there in January, which caused some shifting in the earthblock building built by the crew there (they didn't do a foundation, but rather, dug a trench and then stuck earthblocks in for the first course, and so on).

 I think the crew in Deslandes have finally got a grasp on the compressed earthblock building methods taught by Jim of Tierra y Cal- the crew has done a really stupendous job this time. The blocks are now laid for the school, and they are ready to pour the bond beam and get to the roof- and then it's time for plastering. I'm told that they'd like me to return to assist with plastering, so we'll see how that goes.

Back yard at house where we stayed

Back yard at Benitta & St. Geste's place- kitchen is banana leaf reed enclosure

Our dining room

Front porch where we stayed