Training, Kintamani and tourism stuff

I went to IDEP for some more permaculture training, particularly about patterns and design.   It has been really good, pragmatic and hands on training.

A day trip to the temple at Tannah Lot

Whilst, here, myself and Stella are teaching the students at ROLE about permaculture.  This exercise demonstrates the interconnections of elements in eco-systems, which permaculture seeks to mimic.

 Back to the classroom for more on healthy soil = healthy people

 and building layered compost

Making Aloe Vera juice up at ROLE's Warung.  It's anticeptic, anti-fungal, anti bacterial, good for the stomach, good for skin or wounds, good for hair and its a dynamic accumulator in the soil! Role has heaps of Aloe, they just need to start processing and selling it.

I went up to Ubud and then on to Kilamantani one weekend. Many of the major roundabouts have the most amazing and huge statues.

 Mnt Batur at night, which I climbed the next day and looked into the cauldron.

View of Mnt Batur from Kintamani

The road goes up for many km from Ubud to the volcanoes and it cools down as you go.  There's lots of intensive polycultures in action, like these citrus trees with brassicas growing underneath.

The land at the base of the volcano is rough and rocky, but every skerrick of useable space is put to production.

Here's what it's like to drive in Bali traffic - in the countryside

Second Week in Bali - ROLE foundation

Unfortunately the project I came here for did not work out.

Luckily there is a foundation nearby which needs help, the ROLE foundation.  It has two campus'.  I'm working on one a bit like a small version of Ceres Park in Brunswick.  I've been organising a crew of staff to plant seeds and prepare vegie beds.  I'll be teaching a bit of Permaculture and may help with fund raising.

The Foundation has a truck which collects rubbish from the local village every day.  The rubbish comes here where it is sorted:

Most of the waste is organic.  This is composted in bays, and used on the garden beds.

This is Tini, helping me in the Nursery.

These are the raised beds, under shade cloth which we're fixing up. There's no manager on site and they need someone who understands permaculture, so I've kinda drifted into it.  I want to show how to grow five or six valuable crops, like tomatoes and eggplant which they use a lot, and they can use the produce in their Wurung and at their other campus.

ROLE also does womens education and a heap of other stuff I haven't got my head around yet.

Drive down the road from ROLE though, and this is the development all along the coast, south of Nusa Dua.    Hotel after hotel. 10ha each.  You can work in one of these and earn 60,000rp a day ($6) or work as a farmer growing rice for 20,000rp.

This is what they look like when finished. It's another world.  Mike, who 

founded ROLE works hard at getting grants and donations from these guys.   

I spent last wednesday up at IDEP (Bali Permaculture research institute) learning about Integrated Pest Management.  I rode up with other ex-volunteers from the first project.  Unfortunately two bikes (four people) fell off on the way.  Just grazes luckily.

IDEP has great experience and resources.

And some tourist pics. The hero shot of the temple

Beach at Jimbaran, before dinner. It goes on like this for miles.

And during dinner.  Last night I went to the Continental with Mike for the launch of a new English language newspaper, close to this. It was the usual swanky affair, just as you'd find anywhere else.