Day 5- Dry Toilet and Retaining Wall

Hello everyone, my name is Sebastian Castro and it's my turn to write for the blog.

Today was our 2nd day of work and things have started to ramp up. When we arrived to the Biofabrica, we immediately split up into two teams, where one team continued working on the dry toilet project while the other worked on both cutting and bending rebar for the retaining wall. The dry toilet is a lot like the kind in National Parks back in the states, but these turn into compost with time instead of being pumped out and are made mostly of wood. At the Biofabrica, the only toilets that exist are the dry toilets, we use them, dump in a scoop of wood shavings, then all the good bacteria do their job to turn the waste into compost. There is currently only one here, our job is to build two more.

Now, the important thing about the rebar project is that we needed to make two basic shapes so we could make pillars of rebar to reinforce the concrete. One shape was of rectangular in form and made from a 160cm long rebar, and the other was a square made with a 90cm long rebar. After they are made, they need to be tied together with a metal wire so it's able to hold it's shape. Once that is done, we can use metal wire and attach them to the bent rebar to make a pillar that can be added to the wet concrete. When that is done, and the concrete has hardened, we are left with a reinforced structure that can handle both compressive and tensile stresses.

After working on the rebar for a good while, David brought over some cement, taught us how to manually make concrete- a lot like making pasta or bread by hand, and then had us pour it into trenches for the retaining wall.

Shortly after, our host families brought us our lunch again and we took a moment to socialize with each other.

After lunch, we split into two groups again where one group would go and help harvest some coffee beans while the other would continue with the rebar efforts. Unfortunately, I could not participate in the harvesting efforts due to my red-green colorblindness, but helping with the rebar was quite fun. Once the coffee harvesting group was done (there wasn't much to harvest on this farm, it is early in the season), our rebar operations were done for the day.

We went back to our host families where we freshened up and began working on our next activity; cooking with the family!

My host family has us preparing a soup called olla de carne which deeply resembled a "caldo de res" and consisted of camoté (sweet yams), yuca, carrot, chayote, cilantro, thyme, potatoes, onion, red pepper, chunks of beef, and a plantain. It's definitely a great and hearty soup with lots of flavor. I definitely would recommend to everyone.

This day was definitely full of wonderful experiences and people. The work is hard, but it also build character and feels rewarding. Take care everyone and remember, Pura Vida!