Hi everyone and sorry you haven't heard from me in awhile. In fact, depending on how long it took for you to figure out there was a problem and check out the blog, you may have thought I'd dropped off the edge of the earth completely.
Actually, I was only out of commission for a few days. After acting up ever since I left California, my computer finally decided to die altogether. I am now using a borrowed computer but I have lost my address book and all my contact info that was in it. This includes the list of folks who were receiving my blogs via e-mail. For the time being, all I can do is add entries into the blog and hope you all can figure it out on your end.
I'm working with Russ back home to try and resurrect my old address book, but for the time being I will only be able to add folks to my new list if they send me an e-mail so I have their address.
If I thought it would do any good, I suppose I would consider getting upset about this but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't. Besides, I don't want to be like that guy in, "Caddy Shack". This guy was a businessman of some sort and he was playing a round of golf with his friends. Every shot this guy made turned out great, including the one he hit into the woods that bounced out and landed right next to the cup. He was having a ball. On the 18th hole he was on the green ready to sink a short putt for the game of his life. His putt ringed the cup but didn't fall in, ending up an inch or 2 away. He holds up both hands, one with his putter, and screams, "God Damn it!" By this time it had started to rain and he is immediately, and quite appropriately, struck by lightening and killed.
With all the blessings I've had on this trip, it would be very ungrateful of me were I to whine about this relatively minor inconvenience. Besides, I'm pretty certain it would not help, would make me some degree of miserable, and would also make it more likely I would be unkind to someone else.
So, "kui bot nahin."
Meanwhile, life continued. On Friday (10/1) I went for a hike with Haddi as it is the Muslim day off. We went up into the hills (pretty much any direction you go is up into the hills) and saw some more fantastic scenery. The highlight of this particular hike was watching a group of about 20 guys harvest the grass that they will store until winter for their livestock. Together they formed what looked like a giant, human mowing machine as they went up the steep hill they were on, cutting a swath perhaps 100 feet wide. As we watched form the hill across a narrow valley, the remarkable thing about this group was the sound of their banter. Clearly they were teasing each other and otherwise talking and laughing up a storm.
It was impossible to determine if they were playing while they were working or working while they were playing. Whatever, it was very sweet.
Another blessing has been my new heart (thank you Dr. Zei). After my procedure at Stanford in May I've been able to go on hikes like this and my heart has worked like it used to, like it's supposed to. Now, if there is something I can do about these 58 year old legs….
Saturday we built the door and window bucks as well as the trusses from wood that was only days earlier standing in a forest somewhere. Aside from being very heavy with all of the water it contained, most of the pieces were oozing with sap. It got everywhere and it was all I could do to keep it off of my camera. At one point I was trying to scrape it off my hands and using water in a futile effort to get the worst of it off when one of the guys came up to me with some weeds in his hand. At first I thought he wanted me to eat the stuff but then he started rubbing it between his hands. Soon I realized it was cutting through the sap, and doing an admirable job of it. Near to where the corn was growing, we went to harvest some more. There was plenty for our needs.
Ah, native knowledge.
The other difference in how I would do things back home is that these guys have no power tools. Each cut must be done by hand, with a saw that cuts on the pull stroke. By lunch I was not the only one exhausted. After lunch I developed a method of supporting the piece to be cut in a way I could use both hands to pull the saw, allowing my legs and back to get into the game. By the end of the day, all the guys were trying this method as it was considerably easier. This may turn out to be my biggest contribution to the project.
Sunday was another day for ceremony. This time we traveled several hours north to Battal. We were cutting the ribbon on 2 houses for folks who had been hit hard by either the earthquake or the fighting just north in the Swat valley. These guys WERE Taliban, but they were refugees from the fighting and could not have been sweeter. The actual fighting up there is promoted by agencies of various governments with their own agendas. This includes the governments of Pakistan, China, Iran and, of course, the usa (think CIA). They find the poorest of the poor who are the most desperate, offer them some small amount of pay, put a gun in their hands and tell them who to shoot.
And then our media gives these guys a label like, "the Taliban" and tries to make us believe that we need to be afraid and that we need to wage war for some noble cause. Everyone I talk to here about this "gets it" in a way that most folks back home do not. They understand that the people do not hate and do not want to wage war (including the reported animosity between the people of Pakistan and India). They understand that media = propaganda.
Yesterday (Monday, 10/4) was the coming up party for the house. After 8 days completing the foundation and getting all the bits ready it was time to start stacking straw bales. By noon the bales were all up, as well as the top plates. By the end of the day, the trusses were all up and only a bit of framing remained before we'll be ready to install the corrugated metal roofing. Of course it helps that we are not building a McMansion, but still the process goes quite rapidly.
There is a lot of engineering that has gone into this construction technique, and all phases must be complete before the structure attains its final form. At this point, the walls are quite flimsy. Bamboo is placed every 2 feet on the inside and outside and tied together, through the straw bale walls on every other course, to keep the walls upright. Later, after the walls have settled, the nylon netting will be pulled up and attached to the top plates. Once the earth plaster has been applied the walls will attain their final strength.
But not just strength. Like a tree in a windstorm, these walls and the entire system is designed to allow the structure to yield without breaking. Much flexibility is designed into the system. Today I learned that the bottom chord of the trusses is purposely made of 3 pieces (joined with metal plates) when it would be possible to use a single piece of wood. This allows the truss to flex some, which helps to dissipate energy in the event of an earthquake or large wind.
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