“David Gullette: Dreaming Nicaragua”

-Excerpt from David Gullette’s new book “Dreaming Nicaragua”
 

“–Surely you’ve heard. They want to build a canal from San Juan del Norte on the Costa Atlantica up the river and across the lake and right out into the blue Pacific, either right here in San Juan del Sur, or possibly up in Brito. With just my luck they’ll run it right down past my house so I’ll have brass bells and steam-whistles waking me instead of drunken poets and farting pigs.
–Ah yes, I’ve heard that rumor, says Jesse. It’s an old dream. Why even Baron von Humboldt used to salivate about cutting a trench between Brito and the lake. So did Louis Napoleon. Old story, ropa vieja. A pretty threadbare dream. I wouldn’t sell my horse for a rowboat just yet.”

   Trevor Stine (owner/lead consultant of Pangea Proxima) met David Gullette (US Professor/San Juan community leader/author) around 7am in the morning on his first morning in San Juan del Sur. David greeted Trevor with a smile/brief handshake and proceeded to guide him in the back of the crowded bed of his Toyota Helix. The double cab had already been occupied by another handful of volunteers. The bed was already occupied by five volunteers who happily made room for Trevor and his friend Andrew who were bound to see and participate in some of the positive community projects they heard about the night before. This particular project was a rural preschool, which was being constructed with natural materials with a combined group of revolving volunteers and locals. And so they went…. 

David Gullette (US Professor/Author/Community Champion)

    Since 1988, David Gullette and his wife Margaret have led the charge of the citizens of Newton, Massachusetts have joined in a partnership with fellow activists in the Pacific Coast town of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua (pop. 18,500). They have built or renovated twenty school houses in remote villages throughout the 250-square mile San Juan school district, constructed model homes for teachers, painted and renovated existing schools, rebuilt playgrounds, sponsored teacher workshops, and supported village pre-schools. They have helped create the Newton Workshop on Appropriate Technology where they build innovative water-purification systems and smoke-free cooking stoves. They also serve as the pass-through for the innovative Free High School for Adults.

….. The ride was extremely uncomfortable, but the destination was worth the discomfort. Upon arriving at San Antonio de Baston, a rural village about 30 minutes north of San Juan del Sur, the truck full of volunteers were warmly greeted by a handful of local women and children. The agenda for the day: sift earth, dig post holes and make compressed earthen bricks. Within minutes of unloading the truck and exchanging greetings the work began. Andruw Russell (carpenter and sustainable agriculturalist) and Trevor were assigned to the post digging group for the first two hours of the morning. The post holes would initiate the outer wall system which would form an octagonal shape. So there we (California and Vermont volunteers alongside a 14 year old and a couple other kids around 11 years old) were at 7:45am digging eight four-foot-deep post holes with a one pick axe, one primitive post hole digger and one long metal lever. We had quite an efficient system in effect by trading off tasks and finished all eight holes within a couple of hours. 

Andruw Russell surrounded by local children volunteering on the project

    After finishing our task we revolved over to the compressed earthen brick-making station. The design for the brick making machine was downloaded from the internet by David, and then fabricators were hired to produce the design from steel. It was quite a simple and efficient machine, which could be operated by women and children . It produced about one compressed earthen brick every three to five minutes (if the sifted sand and clay mix is pre-mixed and ready for use). 
   
Here is the efficient labor system we used to operate the machine:  

1. A mixture  of sand/clay (ratio needs to be tested according to the area's soil content) is packed into the machine's empty rectangular space.

  

    

                                                                                                                                                             
2. A worker (or a couple small workers) pulls the level to compress the bricks.

 

 
   









   






  




3. A worker flips the necessary moving parts which allows the lever to function and cleans the rectangular space of debris. 
  

4. The brick is removed and placed with the others and notes the sand/clay ratio being used by engraving the new brick.

   All of the volunteers seemed to enjoy working together to make the process as efficient as possible. The smaller children enjoyed the challenge of pulling the lever down hard enough (most times by hanging on the lever with their full weight) to complete the compression process.

   After a couple more hours of producing bricks we revolved over to the sifting team, which was located about a quarter mile away at a land where we quarried and sifted the clay and sand used to make the compressed earthen bricks. 










 
















    It was truly a process that included all ages and genders from the community and at the same time produce a visible end result, which led to a sense of group accomplishment.

Pangea Proxima is thankful to have shared a wonderful volunteer experience with David Gullette and his group of enthusiastic volunteers.

Community volunteers standing near their nearly completed area preschool (built with natural materials), one month after the post holes were dug.

To learn more about the Newton-San Juan del Sur Sister City Project please visit www.newtonsanjuan.org.

To learn more about David Gullette’s book “Dreaming Nicaragua” please visit http://mybookthemovie.blogspot.com/2011/06/david-gullettes-dreaming-nicaragua.html.

David reading an excerpt from his new book "Dreaming Nicaragua" to an audience at Gato Negro coffee shop in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua