Kalisada Eco Village Project

Finally getting there

2011-04-05T11:49:00.006+08:00

After a long time some news from North Bali - so much work here, the weather has been not very friendly with us to say the least...but finally we are getting there:-) All the buildings are now in the finishing state, took ages for the mud walls to dry out under that humid conditions...
Even for the gardens it was just too much rain in times...but after all they look good.

I have chosen all the staff that will be in the Kali Manik team for the start, all young people from Kalisada village, I do English training with them and share some basic knowledge about tourism and in particular eco tourism and of course train the cooks.
Next week we will have an eco training for all of them working together with Made Suraja from Bali Idep and Made Chakra from Tri Hita Karana who will come for 4 days.
Really looking forward to this event.

Finally we have set up our temporary website - please visit us at Kali Manik Eco Resort
There will be more work and info on the website in the very near future so stayed tuned.
And - we will finally open in May!:-)

See you soon!,
verdantly,
Silvia.

Down by the river side...

2010-09-13T01:41:00.011+08:00

My favorite end of work evening views

Gardens

2010-09-13T01:07:00.016+08:00

Managing Waste Water with banana and paw paw circles and vegetated leach fields are Permaculture applications.
Your waste water is not a problem, just think about how much food you can grow on it:-)

Gardens by the sea

Animals on the farm

2010-09-13T00:18:00.021+08:00

Coki the young guard;-)

The pigs

The ducklings freshly hetched

The eel project

Other Buildings

2010-09-13T00:03:00.012+08:00

The Sea Shell Bungalow

2010-09-12T23:36:00.018+08:00

Nearly finished:-)

Holidays in Austria:-)

2010-09-12T22:58:00.019+08:00

I needed a break from building and working and decided to go back to Austria to catch up with my family and friends after more than 2 years. The project is getting close to being finished and the next steps will be to do the finishing in all buildings and start looking for staff. Planned opening will be towards the end of this year, hopefully.

Except the already rather cold temperatures here its nice to meet friends and family and after all this work just to be lazy...;-)I am cruising Austria by train, having my "base camp" in Vienna at my brother's flat.
As there has not been any update for such a long time...I want to show you some pictures from the overall progress of Kali Manik, enjoy:-)

Some mores pictures

2010-03-19T20:04:00.019+08:00

To finish this long due update I post a few more pictures.
I changed the settings for the blog so from now on only one entry will be visible on one page - this mainly because there are many pictures on my blog and for the Indonesian users who might not have such a quick internet access than people in the west the pages might take too long to load...
Just click yourself back - older posts - until the last entry which actually was the Christmas card comes up...Should you wish to see any picture in a bigger format just click on it.

You might have noticed that I decided on a name for my project which is part of Kalisada Eco Village, namely "Kali Manik". "Kali" means the river and "Manik" means the source of everything, so I think it fits quite well.
Love and thanks for your patience!

Overall Building Activities

2010-03-19T18:57:00.027+08:00

The octagonal bungalow is close to be finished,

the big "seashell" bungalow (see blog entry "the miniature") is being built

and we started the "tipi" bungalow.

When I will be able to open "Kali Manik" - frankly said - I don'tknow...as soon as everything is finished and the way I want it to be. We are working 6 days a week, nothing more that can be done...

The Snakes

2010-03-19T18:44:00.005+08:00

A couple of rather big snakes started a living in our garden hut which was not a problem until they started mating and got a bit aggressive. Also the shed is not soo big so we always had to be very careful when entering and looking for some tools or such, in short, it got a bit annoying. Lets get them out. Not an easy task as the following pictures show;-)
Kaca then brought them down to the river - unfortunately I have not got any pictures of it as just in that moment the batteries of my camera went flat...;-( I can only tell you that it was circus like, full of elegance and grace:-)
By the way they were back after 2 days and we had the same action again....

Stormy Weather

2010-03-19T18:38:00.004+08:00

We did have some serious storms and heavy rains in February but compared to last year we were quite lucky and could go ahead with the buildings nearly every day. I got the feeling though that the rain until now was not enough to refill Bali's ground water ressources and hope that it's not finished yet with the rainy season...

My Temporary Home

2010-03-19T18:19:00.012+08:00

For the time being I am living in the - to be - farm shop and I do enjoy it a lot! Lovely building, great athmospheric environment in the cob building, most beautiful view on the river and the sea. It's small but really cozy and everything one needs is there, sleeping, cooking, bathroom and work desk, what more does one person really need...

The Ducks

2010-03-19T17:44:00.006+08:00

New kidz on the block again - I bought a group of 7 ducks:-) They enjoy grazing the big gardens and a splash in the river of course. The females should start laying eggs soon and one of the males is actually big enough and ready for the oven by now...;-)

The Tower of Power

2010-03-19T17:31:00.007+08:00

Gede Oka made the design for the tower which will accomodate -in the underground floor the genset, batteries etc, on the ground floor 2 public toilets with adjacent waste water gardens, first floor a veranda with a view, well suitable for a nice breakfast place or sunset, then the actual water tower and on the very top the solar collectors for the hot water. The building comes up well and looks good I think, everything round, no sharp edges or corners.

Path and Gardens

2010-03-19T16:37:00.025+08:00

We laid the path in front of the restaurant and moved about 60 m3 of soil to start with the flower gardens and prepared round beds mixing the soil with homemade bokasih from cow manure, rice husks and leaves. It was then Pak Kaca's idea to "frame" the beds with grass "carpet",which looks really neat.

2 pick ups of trees and flowers have been planted already but there are still quite a few beds to be filled with colors and scent.

In the meantime the vegetable garden has been a bit neglected and is "running wild" but after all this certainly does not hurt the garden and it is still very productive. I pick for my dinner every day. It's just that it takes a bit more time to find the food;-) but there is lots of it. Neverending Aubergines, salads, spinach, spring onions, beet roots, squash, bitter gourds, loofa, broad beans, the first paw paws, pomegranates, lemons and bananas, sweet potatoes of course and chilies, all kinds of herbs and rosella taking over the place...flowers everywhere, lots of butterflies and birds, frogs in the ponds.

Kali Manik Restaurant

2010-03-19T16:21:00.009+08:00

Oh yes, we are still working on it...doing bits and pieces like make the rail, build a book rack, lay the wooden floor for the cushion area and the library etc. etc...And yes, everything takes quite a bit longer than I expected...but then again everything turns out really nice and it certainly does not help to push either...

Bring you some Flowers

2010-03-19T16:02:00.011+08:00

As I have not been on here for such a long time I thought I bring you some flowers before anything else...;-)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2009-12-23T18:25:00.007+08:00

to all of my readers:-)
Love and a big hug from Kalisada,
Silvia.

Praise to the gardeners

2009-10-14T15:57:00.024+08:00

Diar, Kaca and Acong are exactly the crew I needed and it seems that we developed a very good mutual beneficial relationship. Besides of providing them jobs and a steady income for their families I allocate a big "playground" for organic farming where methods can be tested without facing the risk of loosing income. Unlike in the west there is not such a thing as a financial support for farmers here who are willing to convert their farms to organic methods.

A piece of wire, some bamboo, some stones, some palm leaves, they build supports for plants, shade places for us and our plants, table and little stools for the coffee break, planting trays...incredibly creative, incredibly sweet hearted.
Together we smile at the first flower opening its bud. They bring seeds and seedlings from their homes and road sides. They treat animals with respect, watch the big snake in the pile of bamboo but not kill it. If it is in the way - under the sheet mulch - just throw it out carefully with a stick.

When we finished the pond of the herb spiral I mentioned a frog would be nice in there, few minutes later one of them brings one along in his hands, frog dunks in the pond, big smiles all around.
They feed me fruits and nuts from their home gardens, Balinese sweets. They prepare coffee on the fire place, roast some sweet potatoes in the fire. Nice moments of chatting and dreaming of the future gardens, we could plant this, we could do that...

When I am getting a bit stressed from overseeing my building sites they call me in the garden to relax, they know about the therapeutic effect gardens have on us garden lovers.
They make me happy, very happy. They treat me with respect but also tease me -one of their favorites - putting a flower head on a plant that doesn't flower yet and then wait giggling for my reaction;-) They ask for my advice but are not obedient, they are farmer's sons with knowlegde, experience and self esteem. Lovely guys!

Progressing

2009-10-14T14:36:00.008+08:00

I hardly spend any time on the computer, consequently blog entries are a bit rare for the time being...real life here in Kalisada is so much more interesting and challenging.
The restaurant finally gets into the finishing phase, farm shop is close to be finished, small bungalow follows soon.
We are enjoying the Galungan holidays, which means a break of 3 work free days for the workers and me:-)

Some pictures from the building progress:

My beautiful playground:-)

2009-09-18T22:49:00.015+08:00

Here some more views from my land in Kalisada, more than words...

Small Bungalow

2009-09-18T22:42:00.004+08:00

Got a good offer for a ready made "Bale Bengong" and decided to make a small bungalow out of it. Veranda and mud bathroom will be added.

Restaurant Roof on:-)

2009-09-18T22:15:00.014+08:00

Restaurant roof is finally on:-) After the local crew finished the wood construction the mountain crew was here again and made the grass roof. Amazing! Once in your life you ought to build something really big;-)

Next Steps

2009-09-18T21:46:00.014+08:00

Already about 1 month living in Kalisada by now, good feeling, different life style - I am tanned and I get up 6 o'clock every morning except Sundays - most of you will know that this is rather unusual for me, but here is the proof:-)

The mornings are wonderful here! At 7 all the workers come, chatting and joking, me and "my guys" start working in the gardens, I am outside most of the time and rare time on the computer...
11 till 1 is rest time and then the afternoon shift until 5. I am cruising between gardens - nursery and planting out and different building sites...very busy and sometimes also very exhausting, but everything runs fine. Still my favorite building- the farm shop -
I LOVE COB:-)

The Miniature

2009-08-04T00:31:00.016+08:00

After spending several days full of concentration drawing the layout for the first bungalow on paper and on my laptop I decided that making a model would be the best thing to start with. My 3D imagination is not very good and although I bought a CAD program I did not have the time yet to sit down and deal with it...Anyway - the job was a lot of fun and the 2 Ketuts and I had a great time:-) and by now Gede and most of the workers got the idea of what I want to build. We start soon and I am looking forward to!

Getting greener

2009-08-04T00:20:00.005+08:00

Gardens are developing; we are harvesting sweet potatoes for dinner and rosella for tea. Lemon balm seems to like the climate and grows very well in the nursery. Next week I hope to start with the vegetables:-)
The piggies are growing and do their evening strolls, nibbling on the leaves of ubi. They will get a bigger area in the next days.

Beautiful Cob

2009-08-03T23:36:00.014+08:00

The farmshop is getting shape as well, until now my favorite building, truly sustainable and turning out really pretty:-)
As we used another type of earth than on the garden hut we had to play around with mixtures. Used not enough sand in the beginning which lead to cracks...Fortunately everything turned out well. The walls are hard as hell, even after spraying them with water you need a crowbar to be able to carve them.
The temperature is very nice inside the building, one can really feel the difference, quite a bit cooler than outside.

Village people come and look at it and most of them seem to be pleased and surprised that a "Bule" - Western people - would build in this "old" style...The most surprised is the "grass roof crew", a very special group of people coming from a village high up in the mountains to make the grass mats and put them on the roofs. They are true masters of an old trade and do a wonderful job. The Balinese beach people call them the "primitve mountain tribe". These guys are indeed living in mud huts and would not expect a Western person to build in this style;-)

The counter and tables are built with raw bricks. The thermal chimney still has to get a bit higher. By now we start to cut channels in the walls in order to bury electric cables. Then comes plastering, our first mud floor and painting inside.

The Restaurant - next steps

2009-08-03T22:52:00.003+08:00

Although the majority of the workers were mainly concentrating on Brigitta's house for the last weeks in order to facilitate our move things also went ahead with my projects.
We started to build the wooden roof construction. So heavy that coconut wood, one pole had to be carried by 12 men...

In the meantime the building looks like the following pics. They joined the parts on the ground before getting them up with a rope winch and connecting them with the poles. They were not less heavier either...Working sky high did of course not deter the Balinese crew from singing and joking:-) true acrobats, surely would impress any circus audience...

Brigitta's Balinese housewarming ceremony

2009-08-03T21:41:00.016+08:00

2 weeks again...everything a bit delayed...the bathrooms were not yet finished, the carpenter, the plumbers - hard cases btw...but anyway - now it's time to move:-) And after all - it only took a bit more than 3 months to nearly finish Brigitta's house thanks to Gede Oka and his wonderful crew!
As we had to move out of the rent house we were lucky to find a room in a nice little hotel. Lovina / Bali is really packed with tourists these days and everybody is enjoying a great high season. Has not been that full for years...The hotel is a nice, clean and relatively quiet place right in the center of Lovina Central with extraordinary friendly and helpful staff and a small but well prepared menu and really cold beer:-) www.villajaya.com
Brigitta had her Balinese house ceremony on the first of August, Saraswati day, a Hindu holiday dedicated to the Goddess of learning, knowledge and wisdom.

Finally moving:-)

2009-07-14T17:42:00.001+08:00

Sorry guys, long time no new entry and pics, I am just packing and sweating and moving my belongings to Kalisada and will be back here next week after I have settled again.

Ahead we go:-)

2009-06-28T16:43:00.040+08:00

Much has been done again since I wrote here for the last time...time is running and so does Gede's crew and sometimes I feel that the speed of development is nearly too much, a constant challenge...but it's good of course, nothing to complain about:-)
The search for the right materials is sometimes very time consuming, now I am after copper pipes and fittings and affordable tanks of the right size for the hot water systems I want to build...last week good quality pipes for waste water systems and again fittings, not so easy here on the island... Next week I plan a trip to Banyuwangi - East Java for that purpose...

The walls of the farmshop are up:-) Kids have school holidays now and our builder Gede had the great idea to involve some of the junior high school kids of the village, also some of their mothers were in the team, all together 35 people. As you can see on the pictures they had a lot of fun throwing the mud loafs to - and of course sometimes as well at - each other;-) So they could make some money in their holidays, got a foot in the project and learnt that it must not necessarily be very difficult and expensive to build a house with a group of people working together. Unfortunately the girls were missing, they did pop in to have a look but still seemed to be shy...

.

Now the craftsmen are back again making the tables and inside walls.

Kitchen roofs and roof tiles are on, next comes the roof construction of the actual restaurant.

The garden hut got some more plastering and the young pigs start roaming around, they are about 3 times the size they were after birth. Very much fun to watch, they are really fast and therefore difficult to have their pictures taken...;-)

Brigitta's house is coming close to an end, finally the scaffold is down. Looks like we can move to the land pretty soon:-)

Views I love...

Latest developments

2009-06-16T15:22:00.025+08:00

Although having a lot of work with planning and sometimes wracking my brains with all the necessary research and thoughts, where to get the right materials f.e., making floor plans, electrical plans, plans for the vegetated leach fields and septic tanks for the waste water, piping and so much more things I have never done before, (not to forget about the gardens...) everything is running very well.

With Gede Oka we have a great local builder from Kalisada who is a real multitalented guy working very good in the more usual concrete and brick construction like Brigitta's house, but is also familiar with western standards and luckily does not get scared either when trying other more unconventional things like cobbing, earth pipe cooling etc. Great guy and also very fair with regard to prices! The word we would hear most often when confronting him with more questions, proposals and ideas usually is - "Bisa" which means "can do":-) coming out of his mouth in a very comforting chest note accompanied by a big smile. His lovely wife Komang is taking good care of the "catering":-)

The bamboo shingle roof of the cob garden hut is finished, as well as the earth plastering and I am very happy with all of it.

After laying the earth pipe for cooling

we did the foundations for my next mud building - the future farmshop and office. The bamboo for the poles and roof construction is soaking in the river for 10 days to get eventual bugs out. The foundation has been made and the windows and door frames of coconut wood are fixed in. I think it looks very nice already:-) As the building is pretty close to the water front we decided to use some concrete in the stone foundation but only on the inside of the stones so it will not be visible.

Finally also the wood for the restaurant's and kitchen's roof construction and all the poles have arrived and the roof is getting up. The roof tiles are painted in a light color for keeping the head of the buildings - and mine, too - a few degrees cooler.

And - Brigitta's house will be finished in about 3 week's time and as she is so kind as to offer me to stay in there until I will have my own we will finally be able to move full time to KEV about the middle of July:-) I am so much looking forward to it!!!
P.S.: The cows are the neighbour's...

New Kidz on the Block:-)

2009-06-16T13:47:00.003+08:00

Last full moon night the first of my mama pigs gave birth to 5 lovely piglets, 1 female, 4 males. Ketut Diar and Ketut Kaca acted as the midwifes. All are healthy and growing from day to day. Everybody gets a smile on his/her face watching them produced by thoughts that are probably in the range between "my future pork chops", and "so cute, so sweat, so small" and "suckling pig";-)

Rainy weather again...

2009-05-29T14:44:00.024+08:00

We had to have a bit of a break - at least at the cob building - as the weather played crazy and it started to rain again...had to cover the building with plastic tarp and wait...

Concentration went on the gardens where we planted more fruit trees and I started to move some of my nursery pots to their final destination. They seem to like their new surroundings the same as I do, look healthy and start growing:-)

In the meantime the roof of the garden hut is nearly finished, we make bamboo shingles. The locals say the building looks "antique";-)

I prepared the plans for the next building - farmshop and office - hope we can start next week. It will be a combination of cob and bamboo. I plan to integrate an earth pipe cooling system and a thermal chimney for natural "air con", very much looking forward to how this will work...:-)

Brigitta's house is coming up amazingly fast! Only 10 days ago the ceiling has been concreted, "cor" (tschorrrr) as they call it here. What an action - a team of 30 workers started working at day break until 2 o'clock in the afternoon with only one very short lunch break, bringing up bucket after bucket of mix in a row...
Luckily - or thanks to the priestess - we will never know...it only started raining at 2:30:-)

By now the window frames are in already and in the next days the roof will be started.

What Else...

2009-05-12T01:19:00.023+08:00

I can only tell everyone that the decision to move from Kubu Lalang was a very right one for me, I'm very happy that I pushed myself to take that step:-) I do really love the new land, each time I go there my heart opens, so quiet, so beautiful...
For the other people living in the community -
Lynda and Glen, our English folks are already living in their beautiful house,
Paul is building as well and Brigitta started to build her private house.

So finally the place is getting busy and it is a fantastic feeling to take over the responsibility of the land:-)
I hope you did enjoy my intro and promise to be back here on a more regular base from now on...

Let's get dirty;-)

2009-05-11T23:48:00.029+08:00

Started "cobbing" 2,5 weeks ago. What a great experience!:-))) Hands and feet, mud, water and some rice straw and you are ready to build a wall. It is very satisfying, easy and basic and going along very well. And - as the Balinese would never miss a chance to make a joke - the job is a lot of fun and in times pure slapstick;-)

I decided to build a garden hut first as our trial project. If everything runs well until the end - which I am pretty sure of by now:-) - I will go ahead with this technique for the other buildings as well. Great room climate which you can feel by now already, no single piece of steel, no concrete;-) Love it!

What's next - the vetiver grass is drying in the sun to be used for the roof, I do some further research on a "recipe" for the plastering. The building and the vibes in it give me a very special, absolutely pleasant feeling:-)

The Gardens

2009-05-11T22:52:00.015+08:00

One thing is for sure - it's not gonna be some bungalows and a garden. It's gonna be a huge garden and some bungalows;-)
The big orchard is being prepared, we plant "undis" - local black beans - for nitrogen supply and "ubi" - sweet potoatoes - as a ground cover for the young fruit trees. The vegetable garden will be a big mandala shape with 30 m in diameter.

The Headman

2009-05-11T22:19:00.008+08:00

I was more than happy to find a wonderful team of workers in Kalisada, in the first place Ketut Diar, my foreman, always helpful, understanding and overseeing all my projects with never ending patience, enthusiasm and trust in my sometimes probably a bit "strange"concepts...

He has a special liking and big interest in organic farming. His father is the head of the farmer's "kelompok" - group - in Kalisada.
Together with his wife Luhtu he gave me a very warm welcome in the village and since then things are running a lot easier for me than before...
As unfortunately I am not living in Kalisada yet it took a while since the village people and in particular the hard heads and politicians would come down from their perception that we will be building another big "villa project" or some kind of "Hilton Hotel";-), since village voices stopped shouting "the investor comes" whenever I drove down the beach road...in the meantime I am "Sil" again, which feels so much better:-)
The first 2 years were not always easy...especially being under that kind of misconception...meeting after meeting...quite a job...but after all - we have done it and now I can say that it was worth all the hard and sometimes in fact very annoying work...

The Grass Roof

2009-05-11T18:29:00.009+08:00

The alang - alang grass is made into mats by village people instead of buying the already finished ones as actually during the last years it turned out that the quality of the bought ones was getting worse and worse...

Building Start, the Restaurant

2009-05-11T17:37:00.023+08:00

January, February and into March we were in the middle of the annual rainy season, no way to start any building...We had some heavy storms and big rains. Power of nature - in particular the sea - was very present and commanded respect as nearly every year in these months...
But finally the rain went somewhere else and I could start building:-) and started with the restaurant as this would be the biggest of all buildings and expenses...I found a local contractor from the village and all I can say - I am overwhelmed! In 14 days 20 workers from the village of Kalisada built what you can see on the following pictures:

Everything went superfine, perfect vibes and morals:-) The group of workers once even touched me to tears when watching them making the concrete floor passing buckets to each other and singing at the same time in scorching heat...more than impressing! For the time being we are waiting for the coconut wood for the roof construction.

Vetiver

2009-05-11T16:34:00.015+08:00

Although only short time before the rainy season started, we planted 15.000 Vetiver plants to stabilize the river bank and the slope behind Lynda's and Glen's house.

The fantastic effect was to be noticed very soon. During a rather big flood when there was big rain up in the mountains and once in a sudden the river filled up until the edge and the vetiver was totally submerged in water these wonderful plants have already proven to be very effective! When the water level dropped again to the usual height the vetiver plants just stood up again as if nothing had happened and we did noty loose any land to erosion. For the ones interested to read more about that "wonder plant" please have a look at www.vetiver-indonesia .com

The Permaculture Course

2009-05-08T01:47:00.014+08:00

After settling in my interim rent house at Tukadmungga Beach in fact not far from the "old" Kubu Lalang - can still see it from the balcony - first thing I started was organizing and attending a Permaculture Course.
What an experience! Old friends - mainly women - gathered once again and we all had so much to learn...Agriculture, water, building in the tropics and community projects were our main interests and Norm vant Hoff, our teacher, had more than a lot to tell us about each of the subjects, never getting tired to teach, explain, push and take the group to the edge.
It was breathtaking, thanks to the fantastic teacher and charismatic man Norm, who made these days very special ones for all of us!

For more in detail information about the course please visit
North Bali Permaculture Blog

Norm - together with his wife Linda - is running Sarinbuana Eco Lodge on Mount Batukaru. Have a look at
Bali Eco Lodge, a fantastic place to stay!

The Start

2009-05-08T01:37:00.031+08:00

It's about time I start this blog, I am quite late to get going...Since I sold Kubu Lalang many little steps have been done on the new land in Kalisada, day after day, week after week, month after month and more and more busy I got and involved and inspired...What a beautiful piece of earth!