Direct From Honduras

With the tin roof firmly in place over the compost station, workers have begun to install wooden cross beams that will help them install the chicken wire. The wood beams along the foundation and two cross beams will allow for the entire structure to be enclosed in chicken wire. As soon as the wood cross beams are cut and in place, the work team will use fencing nails (which are double sided so that it can be nailed to hold a piece of wire in place) to secure the chicken wire to the wood. The next step is to pour the cement floor for the compost station, which is the last main construction intensive aspect of building the compost station.

In preparation for the the last of the summer service groups, Moises and his team have installed the tin roof of the children's home. Moises is not from Villa Soleada, but he has been working alongside the community since the beginning of the housing project. He first started with SHH when he installed the roofs for all of the Villa houses, but he is also the son of one of the community members. While the education center received a bright red tin roof, the children's home will have a roof that is identical to the rest of the Villa homes. The idea is that the Villa children and the children that will be living in the children's home will all be housed under similar conditions. The roof must be fully in place before the floor can be poured or for the interior walls to be stuccoed.

Workers have continued to work on the last big project left over from the summer fellowship. They are currently working on the installation of the support beams and cross beams from the roof. The roofing material has been donated from the owner of a corner store in Brisas de la Libertad, which is the village neighboring Villa Soleada. While the roofing material has been used previously, it will easily do the job needed for the compost station. The building will have a basic roof which will help to keep the supplies dry that are needed for mixing the organic fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. It will also provide a dry work area where the organic products can be mixed and stored until they are needed.

Several Villa families are getting reaping the benefits of taking SHH up on its offer to "rent" some of the vacant land around the Villa property. The rent consisted of them paying with 15 percent of the produce that they take out of their gardens. That payment of food will then be used by the Villa child daycare or will be delivered to another organization in the area that works with at risk children. Many families decided not to take advantage of the opportunity because the did not have the time to take care of a garden or they did not want to take the risk of the seeds not producing. Those families that took advantage of the program are now enjoying eating fresh vegetables with their meals. Many children have been wandering around Villa eating fresh corn on the cob or tamales made from fresh corn. Not only are families saving money from cheaper produce, but the children of Villa are eating more vegetables and less junk food.

The masons have completed work on the compost station foundation. The cement footer for the structure was followed by two rows of cinder blocks. On top of the cinder blocks, the masons attached two inch thick wood boards that will be used when they start the next phase. The wood boards will allow them to nail into place the wood support beams for the roof. It will also allow for chicken wire to be attached to the structure. Instead of cinder blocks or wooden walls, chicken wire will be used to prevent people from removing things from the structure when it is not open for use. The next step of the building process is to install the support beams and the buildings roof. Once that has been done, the chicken wire will be installed and then the floor poured.

Creating a strong roof is more about the strength of the roofing supports than of the strength of the tin roofing tiles. Heavy industrial strength aluminum beams are soldered together to create a network of roofing supports that can support the heavy roofing tiles. Once Moises has installed the support beams, he will begin to install the thick tin roofing tiles. Heavy screws will then be used to attach the roofing tiles to the aluminum support beams. Not only does the roof have to be able to survive for the next 20 to 30 years, but it also must be able to survive hurricanes or even an earthquake. A home is a place of safety for families and a strong roof helps make a strong house. While some places will often try to cut costs by using thinner roofing material or lighter support beams, SHH makes it its priority to ensure the safety of those that will be living under its roofs.

Many people wonder why some areas of Villa often have three foot high weeds growing year round. The reason is not that the villagers enjoy having weeds growing or that they are lazy. The truth is that in the past the villagers would have to use machetes to cut down the weeds by hand. Just keeping the soccer field cut requires nearly 200 man hours of work. Recently a team of ten men had to spend nearly two days to cut the entire soccer field. Within a week some weeds had already grown nearly six inches. To keep all of Villa cut by hand would mean that an area of nearly 5 soccer fields would have to be maintained by hand. To help the villagers spend more meaningful time in their community than cutting down weeds, a weed eater was purchased with the help of a recent donation. Now the maintain can maintain their community in much less time. In just ten hours the entire soccer field can be cut, instead of the 200 hours that it previously required.

It is almost time for the August student trips to arrive, and in preparation for their arrival the children's home roof is to be installed. Before the roof itself could be installed, the masons had to first install the last portions of the children's home walls. On each end of the building, the masons have constructed a triangular support that will help to naturally support the roofs. Long metal supports will crisscross the building from one end to the other. The internal walls of the building reach four rows higher than the height of the upper support beam. These walls will all help support the weight of the heavy tin roof that will be installed within the next two weeks. The plan is to have the student volunteers help with the extremely labor intensive process of pouring the cement floor. To pour the floor by hand, at least 20 to 30 people are needed to be able to complete the process in one day as is required.

The masons have completed construction on the biodigestor's dome and are preparing to complete the final stages of work. They still have to install a lid for the top of the dome, which will have a tube that will allow the gas to exit out of the top of the structure. The masons must also build and intake box where organic materials can be deposited, as well as construct an outtake box for the liquid fertilizer which is an additional byproduct of the biodigestor. Once that work is completed and the tubing has been installed for the gas distribution system, then families will be able to begin to bring their organic waste to the biodigestor for disposal.

The work on the community green spaces has finally been completed. Several days of hard work were required just to prepare the land so that it could be planted. Before the area could be planted, an irrigation system had to be installed to ensure that water could easily be given to all the plants during dry periods at Villa. Using trashcans and donated tubing, the fellows installed a irrigation system similar to a barrel irrigation system that Oscar Rubi uses at his own farm. With the system in place, fruit trees and various vegetable seeds could be planted in the neat rows. Someday there will only be trees growing in these green spaces. However until they reach their full size, other short term fruit trees and vegetables can be planted by the villagers for their personal use.

The Villa Soleada masons have quickly picked up the skills needed to build the dome for the top of the biodigestor. The construction depends heavily on principles of physics to allow the dome to be correctly assembled. Oscar Rubi taught the Villa masons how to counterbalance the effects of gravity on the bricks. As the work progressed, the bricks became more and more prone to the effects of gravity as the masons tried to enclose the top of the dome. Thanks to Oscar Rubi's engineering experience, the masons were able to successfully lay the last row of bricks without a single brick falling out of its place. If you look at the photos you will notice how each row that is added to the dome becomes more and more horizontal. The bricks naturally lean in on each other in order to create the angled walls of the dome, which (along with the wet cement placed between each brick) creates friction that helps to keep the bricks from moving.

The last of the three projects for the fellowship is a station to prepare organic compost, fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. At Oscar Rubi's farm the fellows learned how to make pesticides from the leaves of papaya plants and fungicides from the leaves of the Madreal tree, which requires access to water a hand cranked mill and a storage area. The compost station will serve those purposes. It will also be a collection point for egg shell and ash from kitchen stoves, which are important ingredients for a special organic fertilizer. The compost station, once completed, will serve as an educational center for community members and student volunteers to learn how to produce these organic products for themselves.

Creating a dome makes creating a cylinder look easy. Luckily Oscar Rubi has been generous with his time and the mayor of El Progreso has been kind enough to allow him to make frequent visits to Villa to aide in the construction of the biodigestor. Oscar Rubi's system for making the cylinder shaped storage area also proves useful again to make the dome. First workers must pour a slanted cement base upon which the bricks for the dome will be poured. A new beam is cut and attached to the metal pole in the center of the structure. This one is attached ten centimeters below the top of the cylindrical storage area. This new beam allows for the masons to pour the base so that is is slanted at the same angle all the way around. Once the dome's base has been poured, the beam is then cut to the length needed to lay the first brick. A small piece of plywood is also attached to the beam, which will help support each block as it gets cemented into place.

Creating a garden requires much more than just going outside and planting a few plants. The Honduran tropical heat does not make the job any easier. The heat makes it unbearable to work much of the day, while the humidity helps to create weeds that grow three to four feet tall. To create the green spaces and community gardens, the fellows have had to create fences, cut down the weeds with machetes, hoe the remaining stalks of grass and then hand till the field. They have chosen two areas where they are creating these gardens, which together are more than half the length of a football field. Once all of that space has been prepared for planting, the fellows will then have to install irrigation systems before being able to finally plant the first seeds or trees.

The cylindrical storage area of the biodigestor provides a technical challenge to the construction crew. For the system to work properly, the cylinder must be perfectly round, which is not an easy task when one is using rectangular shaped bricks to create the chamber. However the engineer, Oscar Rubi, has a solution to that problem. He places a nail directly in the center of the cement platform upon which the cylinder is being built. He then places a long metal pole over the nail so that it stands perfectly straight out of the hole, supported by wooden support beams. A wooden beam is then cut to the radius of the cylinder and attached to the metal pole. The pole can freely rotate allowing the workers to constantly verify if the bricks they are laying are at the correct radius. Since all bricks are measured from the same wooden beam, the cylinder will naturally become a perfect circle.

The fellows have chosen three projects to complete during their time at Villa Soleada. They have already begun work on two of their projects. The first is a "biodigestor," which will slowly breakdown organic material into cooking gas and a liquid fertilizer. This project is based of a similar such structure located at Oscar Rubi's farm. The fellows had to start off by digging a three meter wide circular hole with a depth of over two meters. At the bottom of the hole the fellows, with the help of a team of masons, poured a cement slab which starts off the construction of a cylinder which will store the organic material. The engineer Oscar Rubi has volunteered his services to work with the construction team to produce a working replica of the system he has in place on his farm. The second project that the students have begun is the creation of a series of green spaces and community gardens. The will fence off and plant a number of areas with trees and vegetables.

The water tank has finally been placed on the water tower. The recently poured cement at the top of the water tower had to be left to dry and harden for several weeks before the water tower could be placed in its final position. A crane was rented for the event to be able to lift the heavy tank into place. Much of the work to get the tank into the correct place had to be doen by hand. With the tank dangling in the air, villagers pulled on different ropes to try and get the tank set down in the correct place. Things did not go as planned though, when the crane over reached it tipping point. Right as the water tank was hovering over the top of the water tower, the weight of the water tank became too much for the crane and it started tipping over. The tank dropped a foot or two down onto the water tower, but in the wrong position. Wilson Reyes, one of the villagers, volunteered to climb up the water tower to help allow the crane to readjust to try and place the water tank again.

As the fellows end their seminar at the Oscar Rubi farm, they must begin to organize the three projects that they will implement in the remaining weeks of their fellowship. They, and those villagers that also attended the seminar, brainstormed their list of potential projects that could be implemented at Villa Soleada. The hope is that by the end of the fellowship, there will three sustainable organic/ agricultural themed projects. Once the fellows had their three top projects, they went to the Villa Soleada community directive board's preparatory meeting to present to the members their ideas. The community board had many ideas for them of what might or might not work in the Villa Soleada community. Overall, the community board was very enthusiastic about what these projects could help accomplish for the community.

The fellows (and the villagers participating in the farming seminar) learned to make tire gardens. Around the houses at Villa Soleada it is difficult to have normal gardens. Often times heavy down pours will flood the area between the houses, drowning any vegetables trying to grow there. Another problem of having low lying gardens is that the many chickens running around will eat the seeds as soon as they are planted. Oscar Rubi's solution to this problem is to use tire gardens, which are set on elevated wooden benches. To make a tire garden, one must first get a 16-18 inch diameter tire and cut off one side of the tire. The tire must then be flipped inside-out by hand (not an easy task). Once the tire has been flipped inside-out, it can be filled with soil. Oscar Rubi likes to first fill the tire with dried banana leaves to help keep the soil from falling out of the hole in the bottom side of the tire, while still allowing for water to filter out of the tire.

The fellows, along with the nine Villa community members, attended a three day seminar on sustainable agriculture at a farm near El Progreso. The purpose of the seminar was to learn how to implement the many great organic agriculture methods that Oscar Rubi, the owner of the farm has put into place. Oscar Rubi has spent nearly 12 years building up his farm to become a teaching center for organic farming. One of the first things that he taught the group was how to make and apply organic pesticide, fungicides and fertilizers that can be cheaply made from locally available ingredients. The pesticide he produces is made from the leaves of a tree called Madreal, which fortunately is one of the main trees growing in the Villa Soleada area. The fungicide is based on the leaves from Papaya plants. Both the pesticides and fungicides that he produces must be applied every 5 days, which is most easily done with a backpack sprayer like the one in the second photo below.