how to build a bamboo hut.

I know everyone, at some point in their lives, has scratched their head and wondered 'now, just how do you build a bamboo hut?'

Well friends, your days of being lumped together with dandruff and head-lice sufferers are over; I am here to tell you exactly how to build a bamboo hut. 

To start with you need an obliging boy who is willing to climb up into the forest wielding a machete, grab onto roots and branches and hack away at thorny bamboo til you have a nice stack awaiting use as the foundations of your hut (thankyou Will). Then you need to de-knob (haha) it all. This will take a lot longer than you think but don't worry, it is strangely satisfying.  

                                       

Then you need to dig holes and move grass and even stitch together bamboo sheets. You need to make a border of rocks or bricks so you know where your future house will be (actually, this step is completely superfluous but don't tell us that). 

Then you probably need to have a break and try to light a campfire in your new house, with wet wood and lighters that don't work. After half an hour the fire will be hot enough to boil water (just); your tea will taste like bonfire smoke but if you are accustomed to camping this won't be a problem. Plus you will feel satisfied: you have provided, elemental survivalist style- and in your house-to-be no less.

                        

Fortified with smoky tea, you will begin work on the structure. There are two very important phrases you will need to learn when building a bamboo hut and now you will employ the first one: "Ahhh, don't worry, it doesn't have to be exact". So, the walls won't be straight. So, the roof is not two perfect triangles. So what? It doesn't have to be exact.

                                                                                            

Excellent! With the help of shitloads of coconut rope and so many knots, some rough measurements and a lackadaisical attitude, you have the skeleton of your house. Now you need a roof. Get a pile of palm fronds and a group of lads willing to sit on a roof of questionable strength and stability to tie up said fronds and in no time, you will have a roof. The walls are next- this is the easiest part, as they are made from bamboo sheeting that just needs to be strengthened with pieces of leftover bamboo. 

You are really, really close now. Before you do anything else you must wait for a monsoonal downpour to test what manner of shelter your new house actually provides. Now you will learn the second very important phrase to be employed at all times when the first is not appropriate: "It's ok, we can just cover it in plastic (or sticky tape, depending on the situation)". So the roof leaks? No problem, for you have come prepared with stocks of plastic of all sorts. Plastic All Sorts. It's all you need. 

So now you have moved in your things and you keep catching yourself standing by the front door with a goofy smile on your face like a boy unconsciously staring at his first crush. You're just so impressed, you can't quite believe it's finally finished. There are only a couple more things to do (and actually they are completely optional, so if you are already totally smitten you can leave now and hang out with your new structure). If not, then...

                         

Make some windows! Do this however you like, but if you have an embarrassing amount of empty plastic bottles lying around that are burning a hole in the eco-aware section of your brain then you should cut them in half, stitch them together with wire, put up with everyone teasing you about your mad spinster-like hobbies and then impress them all with these babies:

                         

And then, in a comforting circle-esque scenario, get digging again. You are now making a garden bed to give your hut that extra something (and also to stop yourself, ahem other people, from continuing to use the old path even though bamboo has already been planted there and the way is blocked by leftover bricks).      

And now, and now. You have a new home! So what are you still doing here? Go and admire it, inside and out. Show all your friends. Get excited. Get ready for gasps of  'wowww, so much light!', 'amazing triangle-y windows!' and the simply speechless 'you guys....'. You can now call yourself Grand Hutmaster 2000. At least that's what we're doing. 

where do butterflies go when it rains?

For the second night in the row we are still awake at midnight. I know, I know- we are grown ups and that is pretty normal for people who aren't ten and all, but...this is the jungle. We sleep in a hut made of bamboo with palm fronds for a roof. It is glorified camping and everybody knows that when you are camping your days are determined by the sun. And here the sun sets at 7.30. So what's going on??

Yesterday we worked (quite) hard, digging holes and building stone paths and transplanting some peachy hued flowers, and so we celebrated our physicality with a few hard-earned beers. So we were still awake at midnight.

Tonight it was the Our Home talent show (the initiative of some visiting Americans) and we watched our kids sing and dance and impress and entertain us all. Then I played an abysmal (on my part- my 10 year old opponent had nothing to be ashamed of) game of chess and we ate rice with green banana curry and turmeric spiced curd. And then we drank TicTac flavoured vodka. And so we are still awake at midnight.  

And elsewhere...We have been building huts and learning Indian curries (soon there will be a book, illustrations and all) and playing playing playing. Chess, mud soccer and skipping are what's what at the moment. Between us we have it covered. Will is all over the chess; my game is, as I said, abysmal, an embarrassment to the sport. I think I'll stick to skipping. The other night Neha and I did 100 tandem skips. The fact that she and Will managed 248 does not dampen my spirits. I am good at skipping. We have been dodging the monsoon, and admiring the rainbow of enormous butterflies that flit about the plants in front of our huts when the monsoon rests. Now I know where butterflies go when it rains (does anybody else remember that book?). They hide under the leaves of the benevolent trees. Or, if they are unlucky or unprepared, they freak out and fly like mad things through fingernail sized raindrops.

And so it goes with our family in the jungle. Our Home is starting to feel more and more like our home and I am beginning to get worried about how hard it is going to be to leave this place, these people. But that is a fret for future me...right now I am happy to enjoy the love and smiles and insanity of this family of forty.

And this table- the very first thing we built here and of which we are inordinately proud. As you can see...(there isn't a lot you can't do if you have coconut rope and electrical tape.)

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of red cliffs and black sand.

From my journal, on the twenty eighth of June...

As all of you at home plunge deeper into the dark days of winter (which, from what I hear, can only be described as Arctic), we are sitting on the grass of our hotel, under a frangipani tree, the monsoonal waves of the Arabian sea crashing onto the sand 10 metres away from us. We are lolling, relaxing off a huge morning beach walk and subsequent feast of a lunch. We are listening to the waves, the urgent whistle of the lifeguard in the background. It actually doesn't sound so urgent anymore. It is so frequent- sounding as soon as anyone gets their shins wet- that after a few days it becomes merely irritatingly insistent. 

We have made friends with a dog. She sleeps on our balcony and we feed her our leftovers. She is with us now but she won't sit on the grass because it is too prickly. Her favourite time- apart from leftover o'clock- is when the cleaners leave the cushions and sheets to air on the grass. Her name is Ana.

The ladies who work here have just, in a sudden burst of activity, gathered all the coconut halves that have been baking in the afternoon sun into baskets on their heads. It smells faintly of sewage, but only faintly and we are too relaxed to move. The breeze above our heads is tickling the palm fronds but failing to reach us We are waiting for a skype call. There's that whistle again. 

We are at Varkala, of the red cliffs, black sands and strong waves, and we leave to tonight on a train.

So it seems I wanted to paint a picture for you all, as I sat with my journal and reminisced on our week that was Varkala.

We walked, sometimes, past fishermen and grazing buffalo and boys collecting coconuts. We ate breakfast with our hands to the sound of fire crackers exploding respectfully at the temple across the road. We tried to sneak past the lifeguards who weren't letting anybody swim.

We enjoyed the quiet heavy stillness that is Varkala in the monsoon season- shops boarded, restaurants dismantled and people who would rather have a midday nap than harrass tourists- as we wandered those red clifftops and looked out to the rough Arabian Sea.

At Varkala time is different...you spend your days doing nothing (or maybe you intersperse the nothing with a little walk, a bit of reading, a game of cards and a beer) but you don't get bored. Time seems to stand still but then you look up from your beer/book/nap and realise that a week has gone by and you really don't mind. 

 

 

 

you give freedom!

We have spent the last month staying at Our Home, a home for about 40 children up in the tea and ginger hills of Kerala. It's an exceedingly lovely spot; surrounded by banana and coconut trees and forest, with a mountain in the background. Green everywhere. They live there with Mummy and Achen ('father' in Malayalam, the language of Kerala) aka Avi and Chacko, and whoever else happens to be staying at the time- volunteers, friends, teachers...

We lived in a bamboo hut on the property- the property also houses a boy's and girl's home for the children- which we shared with lizards, spiders and cockroaches. It was actually quite cosy, although one night we did eat some snacks in bed and I woke up to tiny little ants biting my arms and legs....from then on all snacking was done outside the hut. We ate mostly all of our meals (which were delicious but very rice heavy) with the children, as well as a coconut or two, that the kids liberated from the forest, every few days.

As well as eating we did actually help out a bit while we were there. We spent the best part of 3 weeks taking spoken English classes at the Good Shepherd Public School, also on the property. This was very challenging but a good experience. A lot of difficulty and frustration interspersed with small moments of triumph and success...we played a lot of games and tried to get the children speaking as much English as possible, while also trying to get as many of them on our side as possible. One day I gave one of the classes a small amount of homework and I was both excited and surprised when one girl actually did it. The children who lived at Our Home were very helpful though, they were always the most well-behaved and acted as translators when we were struggling. In one class two of the boy's from Our Home took this very seriously, shouting directions and disciplining the other children in the class who acted up, which was pretty funny.

We also spent a good amount of time moving rocks from an area designated for banana and tapioca crops- fairly tedious work but good exercise.

The best part about staying there was getting to know the children- and learning their hilarious take on English:
fastly = quickly
blood is coming/my leg is paining = my leg is bleeding/hurting
come, go = come on let's go (this we heard A LOT)
simply beating = hitting
...and Will's favourite quote from the whole stay: 'you give freedom!'. The story: one afternoon some of the younger boys came running up to the hut with a backpack which they showed us had 3 baby mice or rats inside (somehow, not sure how this happened). The boys thought it was hilarious and we left them giggling and discussing what to do about the mice when we heard on of the boys- quite a smart lad and very good at chess- exclaim 'you give freedom!', at which they let the mice go and Will burst out laughing. So the kids are smart, they just don't have all the words yet to say what they want to say without sounding a little hilarious.

So we had a good time. Will played a lot of chess and soccer every night. I played hide and seek and shared my make-up and moisturisers with the girls. Will became quite good friends with a bee that was always outside our hut- it used to come and sit on his hand for some reason.

I realise this post is long (we were there a month) so just quickly, here are some other things that we think are note-worthy about our stay...

We saw a bull being slaughtered (as it's India, most of the country thinks cows are gods so it's probably the most unlikely place to see this happen) then we ate beef for the next week, morning, noon and night.
We helped open two bakeries, which entailed us dressing up in traditional Keralan clothes and handing out cake to all the Indian people standing around. I wore a sari, which is basically a skirt and top with 6 metres of extra material wrapped around you, and I am completely baffled as to why it's such a popular outfit- it's boiling and horrendously uncomfortable.
We ate a lot, like an unhealthy amount, of treats. Nearly everyday we would go to the corner shop or the bakery in the closest town and gorge on tea and coconut cookies and egg puffs and other delights. It's just so cheap! We never spent more than $2.50 and we ate heaps. Lucky it was a 40 minute return walk from Our Home or we'd probably both be battling some health issues by now...

So that was our last month. A great, very full-on and interesting experience. We left last Thursday morning, with watery eyes (me) and promises from both of us we would be back next year. Then we jumped on the bus and headed south.