carta a eric de newleaf

7/30/2019 Carta a Eric de Newleaf

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Hola Eric

It is a nice and a good thing to get a response from you.

Long ago, while taking a walk on the city streets in Mexico City, I saw a bicycle magazine. The headline read "Elmundo es tuyo" (the world is yours). The front page showed a picture of a person with a bicycle, drinking from awater bottle and a beautiful landscape-road perspective on the background. I bought the mag. It was an articleabout long-term bike riding. The freedom, the adventure, the uncertainty.

I had done some week-end trips and two week trip around Mexico, but the article "kicked" on my solar plexus. Ismiled and I knew that that was what I wanted to do.

Back then, I worked as a small time manger, running the office for an American marketing consulting firm in MexicoCity. I had my month vacation coming, and asked my boss for another month (unpaid-leave?) since I wanted to do atwo month bicycle trip around Europe. He said yes.

As it turned out, I ended up doing a ten-year-pretty-much-around-the-world-bicycle-trip.

I did whatever I needed to do to live up my dream. I worked as a teacher in Madrid, farmer in Sicily, house paintingin Germany, beach bungalow construction in Egypt, postcard vendor in Syria, bike mechanic in Germany, picturepainting in Holland, labor in Australia, bike messenger in Berlin, labor in France, street vendor in Japan, massage

therapist in Germany and France, and handy-man in Switzerland.The freedom, the adventure, the uncertainty.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because, among all the web-pages Ive researched on earth bag construction, yours is one that reflects my ownvision. Like the bike magazine, you guys have "kicked" my solar plexus.

It is a long story. But after returning to Mexico, I have struggled to fit "back" into what most people call "real life". Iwas trying to make a living doing sculptural lamps and decorative art. Last October, San Cristobal de las Casas, inChiapas, got flooded (?). The water entered my house up to 3.5 feet. I lost pretty much all my materials and finishedwork. Tough.

The answer to my prayers came with the realization that the best way to help myself was to share what I hadlearned with others.

A friend of mine took me to "visit" a farmers community. That was it!

The Lpez-Harnndez community is a group of 95 families. During nine years, these people fought againstlandlords gunmen, government corruption and officials institution persecution, imprisonment, and many otherhardships. There is a lot on the topic if you Google OCEZ, or Chema OCEZ leader.narcosphere.narconews.com/.../ocez-leader-disappeared-Chiapas.

Now, they have won the land. Last December, they harvested thefirst corn crop ever of which, after generations, they are the ownersof their labor.

They lack education, (95% of adults cant neither read nor write).Children attend to "school" in what used to be the barn. There areno toilets and you can imagine the rest. (Unfortunately this pictureexists way too often in rural Mexico. There must be thousands ofcommunities under these conditions, after all, out of 123 millionpeople, 50% live in poverty, 75% of those are "indigenous people". (Whatever that means)).

Now, after living and working in a community for a few months, I have gotten rid off the "romantic" perspective onpoor farmers. (I.e. they are poor victims of the system and all that). I cannot pass judgment on them, but there are


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many self "cultural" "educational" and "traditional" issues that do not favor their own development. It all is verycomplex and out of my radar.

I respect the community land struggle and all that, but I am not an "activist" nor am I into politics at all. My approachis not to offer "aid" to those in need. Some times I feel that the people are too much used to getting the "fish"instead of having the desire to "learn to fish". Still, I feel it is worthy.When I first went there, I wanted to create building teams, where neighbors help each other to build their homes.

That was not going to work. (Lack of interest, time, etc). So we decided that the best approach would be to train a"fixed" team of builders, so that they could build their own homes, pass the knowledge latter on, or make a livingbuilding for others. It all has been difficult, but we are hanging in there.

Even if we are already way behind schedule, I am very satisfied with what we have achieved so far. It has becomea give-and-take learning experience. We all are doing things to the best of our abilities. Only one of the guys had abit of construction experience. They all have guts.

Although I had seen a couple of earth bag house projects and participated as a volunteer, and did minor earth bagconstructions (walls, kitchen,), this is my first from "boots to hat" house construction. I do not know, but after all thatinternet research, I figure that one has to jump into the river to learn the meaning of getting wet. I am learning a lot.I am thankful for that, and I am thankful to the people at the community and the "sponsors" for trusting me. I am alsovery thankful to all the people that are sharing their experiences and projects.

The community pays the four people $ 80 pesos per day ($ 7 us). They work from 6:30 to 1:30 pm with a half anhour break. I say "they work" because I normally work much longer (i.e. preparing the carpenting elements,planning, detailing etc). The community provides the food and a place to sleep. They also support me with $2000.00pesos ($160.00 US) to pay my rent in town. I do not receive a salary.

One of the main problems, if not the number one problem we are facing is that the people do not show up for work.This one is hard on my understanding. One time, one guy said that he did not showed up for work, because he hadto go buy supplies for a party he was giving on the week-end. Another time, one guys reason was that he had towatch a Champions league soccer match (in Europe), because he had a bet on it! At least they are honest. Theseare the top examples, but I have not been able to have a full team to work a full week ever!!!!

The other major problem is of course money. Because many members do not cover their community fees, the

community too often has no money to pay the laborers. I have lost two of the original team members, because ofthis situation. Personally, I do not have money to replace or repair my power cordless drill and another couple ofhand tools that are kaput!

The money for materials comes from two "angels". One is Michel Vial, a Swiss photographer who works in Chiapasand has a gallery. He figured that since he is making living selling photos of the people from Chiapas, the least hecould do, was to support the construction of the Clinic. (Among many other little help activities). There is alsoMercedes Ozuna, a very strong and determined activist. She is a woman of convictions and guts. Together, theyhave come up with $ 19,000.00 pesos ($1,600.00 us) for the materials. We also got $ 7,000.00 pesos ($ 600.00 us)from the county government, and $ 1500.00 ($ 120.00 us) from a couple of nice people.

Before we started, I visited the junk-yard and got lots of goodies to make the tampers, sliders, screens (a mesh tosort out the sand (?)). I also got my hands on discarded pallets. Took them apart and built the windows and doorforms out of them. It was a lot of work but it was "free". Getting the bags was a bit of a pain. There are not

suppliers in the area, and the cost of freight was too much to order them from another part of Mexico. Also, since itwas "harvesting season" and all farmers use those poly-bags for their crops, the bags were expensive at themarkets. I build myself a bike-trailer in order to be able to go around all bakery shops in town and I bought 50pieces here, 75 pieces there, 100 over there etc. The no so good thing is that Ive got sugar bas and flour bags.The sizes differ a bit, but, oh well, that is what we have. The rest of the materials were pretty easy after that. Ibrought all my hand and power tools.

I "borrowed" from the design of the project "the rocket and the rabbit hole" www.youtube.com/antiismistix, but didmajor changes in the design. At the beginning I wanted to include a dome in the design, but considering that here it
http://www.youtube.com/antiismistixhttp://www.youtube.com/antiismistixhttp://www.youtube.com/antiismistix


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rains a lot during the wet season, I decided against it. Having very limited resources, has forced me to find creativesolutions. I like that, but I also hope that the next project will give me a better chance to "explore" different options.

There are three rooms. The circular one is 4 mts (around 12 feet) in diameter. The two other rooms are 5.90 mt x3.60 mt (aprox 15 x 11 feet). Foundations are 45 cm deep, rubble trench. (15 cm gravel, and three rows of double-bag filled also with gravel).There will be a dry toilet outside. There will be a French perimetral drain.

We used:- About 22 pallets for all the windows and door forms.- About 1600 bags. Only the ones for the windows and doors are lime stabilized, the rest just wet dirt from site.- 6 rolls of barbed wire,- 5 rolls of twine cord,- 6 kilos of 2" nails,- 50 lineal meters of nylon sheet,- 50 m for the earth floor),- One half roll of chicken wire net (20 mts x 0.90 mts).

For the tin roof, we are using- About 52 (3.60 mt x 0.90 mt) sheets of corrugated tin.- About 24 pieces (rafters (?) (6 mts x 0.10 mts x 0.10 mts).

- 40 pieces of timber (4 mts x 0.08 mts x 0.04 mts).- 8 kg 5" nails,- 5 kg 3" nails,

One important issue about the design was also a cultural one. I know that circles are better and cheaper and allthat, but the people at the community are more familiar with box-housing, (see photos). I tried to explain to them allthe advantages of circular houses, but the look at their faces told me "slowly Cato...slowly". I decided that it wasbest to introduce a couple of rounded corners and a circular room combined with square corners and rectilinearrooms.

Also, since one of my goals is to show them what can be done with what they have on site,

we are using almost all local materials. For example, all stone for outside floor, and outer wall rain-protection comefrom the river nearby. Also, we only use supplies available at near by hardware shops.

Right now, I am in town (San Cristobal de las Casas, 80 km away from the community) learning how to make goodquality inexpensive arc-windows, (we had a carpenter who was supposed to help us, but has chicken out). I havelearned to make them, and now, I will teach the people at the community how to make nice looking, simple, arcwindows.

I will try to send you some photos.

Now, to be on the clear side, I will tell you about what is up next with me.

I am not part of the community, but involved only on this project. As I have mentioned, I am not interested in givingpeople a fish. To be honest, the response from the people in general at the community has been "grey". I do

respect them and I am not trying to change their mentality. It is the way it is and it works for them. I am very happywith the results, and I am confident that at least a couple of them are ready to build a house for themselves. I amthankful.

Although we are 85% finished, there is still a lot of work. Because of the "skip work" and "money problems", I amnot sure when we will finish, but we will. I am committed.

If I could have it my way, as I mentioned in my email, I would love to create an initiative to address the need foraffordable housing in Chiapas. I would love to be able to go around different communities or rural areas wherechildren need a decent house and teach the adults this technique. I know it can be done; I am not sure how to goabout it though. I am by myself (but not alone, if you know what I mean).


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Since I have not "fixed" sponsors, nor I have a "next project" arranged, and since I have not money of my own tosupport myself during the creation of an organization, I must look for paid private work. I have been asked topresent a quotation and a project to a private person to build some cabins, I think I will have to do so, if only tocapitalize myself in order to be able to work for free sharing and helping others soon.

This is why I wrote to you guys. I know that your environment is different and people and institutions you work withare different, but I think, all can be adapted to ones particular situation. Just like building with earth-bags!! You are

where I want to be, like the person in the bike magazine. I would like to learn from you, how did you start yourinitiative? how did you guys team up? How do you guys go about sponsors? How do you go about findingprojects? I would also like to have a web-page. I have tried with weebly.com, but my internet connection is tooslow. Also, my digital camera drowned in the flooding, and so most of the photos we have of the process arecellular phone photos. We have a few taken with digital camera when people with one visit the site but not many.Ive never started a blog, I have a facebook account that I never visit. And honestly, I do not understand much aboutphoto sizes, links, zipping, etc. I feel overwhelmed with all that. But when I saw your web-page and the content, Isaid, "..Thats it!! It sounds like a good adventure... I had to smile.

Thank you Eric for your time. I know your eyes must be tired after all this, but I certainly hope there is a smile inthem.

Sincerely

Cato

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