I spent about 2 weeks at Din Dang Natural Building Center, 1 week volunteering and then 1 week laying in bed writhing in pain or sleeping with Dengue Fever.
Din Dang is a natural materials building and permaculture farming community in a small village called Pak Song, about 60km from the nearest sizeable town, Ranong. Basically way out in the boonies. It's run by Bow, a local who for years has been very active in advocating for using natural materials and sustainable farming methods in rural Thailand. Volunteers come to Din Dang, and live at the homestay (really just Bow's house), and help expand the project while learning about natural materials, organic farming, and permaculture.
(Above, our fearless leader Bow, taking a quick catnap on the porch of one of his cobb buildings.)
This is Pak Song, just a short strip of buildings on the highway.
It has a small market once a week, a couple corner shops, and a bus stop. And that's about it.
Oh and sweet pickup trucks that remind me of Arkansas! I guess country folk everywhere appreciate a good set of muddin' tires.
Meet some of the volunteers that were at Din Dang while I was there. We all became fast friends and had a great time working and playing together.
Our commute to work (actually we usually just trundled through the jungle, but on this day there was this Beatles album cover rip-off opportunity, so you get this photo instead).
Lorenzo, a baker from Italy, making pizza for us one night in the clay frog oven. It was awesome.
Above and below: Here's us building a small damn on a nearby stream to raise the ground water table, with the hope of getting more water into Din Dang's well.
Above: The stream dammed up.
The well's lookin' pretty dry.
Dimitri makes a sexy pose with his tools and cigarette after the damn-building is complete.
And here's Ing, Bow's niece, whose job it was to basically run around and be cute and make everyone happy. She certainly succeeded.
We spent a lot of time riding around in Bow's truck to do stuff. Yeah, 11 people and a bunch of farm implements in the back of a pickup!
And musical instruments and dirty feet.
We also spent quite a lot of time working on the buildings themselves, decorating...
Constructing with clay and cobb...
and more decorating...
mixing concrete...
I learned the basic principles of mud-brick construction, and actually got to make some bricks. I also learned how to cut and build a little with bamboo, a material that I think is pretty awesome and super sustainable. Bow also has a bicycle-powered irrigation system for his garden, which provided us with much of our veggie power for the week. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that one.
Here's Bow again, this time at the permaculture section of Din Dang, explaining what kind of foliage makes up the farm. It just looks like a jungle doesn't it? But it's actually a farm, producing coffee, Betel Nut, mangosteens, and many other edibles and cash crops. All the plants are mixed together and there is plenty of unkempt underbrush, which keeps the soil in good condition, and means that although Bow's farm is not as productive as a commercial, monoculture plot of land, it's basically maintenance-free, and will continue to produce food indefinitely, without the need for fertilizer and without damaging the ecosystem or destroying the soil.
Above: Hiking up the steep mountainside to harvest Betel Nut, a nut that locals use to dye clothing and/or chew for a mild caffeine-like effect.
Below: Me picking coffee! After picking, we took the coffee home, and dried it in the sun for several days. Normally there is a machine that separates the husk and bean for you, but I took some of the un-husked coffee with me when I left, and 2-weeks later, I'm still working on husking it all, one bean at a time.
Din Dang is a pretty awesome place, and I would definitely recommend volunteering there for a stint to anyone interested in environmentally friendly food-growing methods, or building with natural materials. I stayed for 2 weeks, but unfortunately after the first week, I came down with the Dengue, and spent the next 9 days or so with a terrible headache and fever, sleeping, and having a decidedly crappy time of it. I'm sure if I'd been able to volunteer for that second week, I would've learned a lot more cool stuff! Thanks Bow, for teaching us so much, and letting me be basically comatose at your homestay for a week!
(Above, our fearless leader Bow, taking a quick catnap on the porch of one of his cobb buildings.)
This is Pak Song, just a short strip of buildings on the highway.
It has a small market once a week, a couple corner shops, and a bus stop. And that's about it.
Oh and sweet pickup trucks that remind me of Arkansas! I guess country folk everywhere appreciate a good set of muddin' tires.
Meet some of the volunteers that were at Din Dang while I was there. We all became fast friends and had a great time working and playing together.
Our commute to work (actually we usually just trundled through the jungle, but on this day there was this Beatles album cover rip-off opportunity, so you get this photo instead).
Lorenzo, a baker from Italy, making pizza for us one night in the clay frog oven. It was awesome.
Above and below: Here's us building a small damn on a nearby stream to raise the ground water table, with the hope of getting more water into Din Dang's well.
Above: The stream dammed up.
The well's lookin' pretty dry.
Dimitri makes a sexy pose with his tools and cigarette after the damn-building is complete.
And here's Ing, Bow's niece, whose job it was to basically run around and be cute and make everyone happy. She certainly succeeded.
We spent a lot of time riding around in Bow's truck to do stuff. Yeah, 11 people and a bunch of farm implements in the back of a pickup!
And musical instruments and dirty feet.
We also spent quite a lot of time working on the buildings themselves, decorating...
Constructing with clay and cobb...
and more decorating...
mixing concrete...
I learned the basic principles of mud-brick construction, and actually got to make some bricks. I also learned how to cut and build a little with bamboo, a material that I think is pretty awesome and super sustainable. Bow also has a bicycle-powered irrigation system for his garden, which provided us with much of our veggie power for the week. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that one.
Here's Bow again, this time at the permaculture section of Din Dang, explaining what kind of foliage makes up the farm. It just looks like a jungle doesn't it? But it's actually a farm, producing coffee, Betel Nut, mangosteens, and many other edibles and cash crops. All the plants are mixed together and there is plenty of unkempt underbrush, which keeps the soil in good condition, and means that although Bow's farm is not as productive as a commercial, monoculture plot of land, it's basically maintenance-free, and will continue to produce food indefinitely, without the need for fertilizer and without damaging the ecosystem or destroying the soil.
Above: Hiking up the steep mountainside to harvest Betel Nut, a nut that locals use to dye clothing and/or chew for a mild caffeine-like effect.
Below: Me picking coffee! After picking, we took the coffee home, and dried it in the sun for several days. Normally there is a machine that separates the husk and bean for you, but I took some of the un-husked coffee with me when I left, and 2-weeks later, I'm still working on husking it all, one bean at a time.
Din Dang is a pretty awesome place, and I would definitely recommend volunteering there for a stint to anyone interested in environmentally friendly food-growing methods, or building with natural materials. I stayed for 2 weeks, but unfortunately after the first week, I came down with the Dengue, and spent the next 9 days or so with a terrible headache and fever, sleeping, and having a decidedly crappy time of it. I'm sure if I'd been able to volunteer for that second week, I would've learned a lot more cool stuff! Thanks Bow, for teaching us so much, and letting me be basically comatose at your homestay for a week!
