Community Kitchen Goes Up!

We built our community kitchen this last week, with recycled hardwood posts, site-found wood (Canela Laurel trees), galvanized tin for the roof, and good help!

Marcelo, Juan (our neighbor and carpenter-extraordinaire), Elorry and Paxcal (two great volunteers), and Kimberly (taking the photo).

Creativity comes in handy out here. We used oil drums for ladders, and to get to that super high beam, our truck was put to good use.

Once the structure was up, we moved in the goods, including our food for the week, pots and pans, and a fantastic table made out of recycled pallets...

(The kitchen is now more organized than this photo shows, although I think it is a perpetual work-in-progress...)

... and we installed our "big bertha"

wood-burning cookstove on a
stone-laid floor made by Elorry...

...and Juan and Kimberly built a firewood stand just outside the kitchen to the left of the stove (not pictured) to keep our wood dry even in the jungle humidity and rain...

...and our simple dish-washing station proves to be water-effecient and fun!

(as modeled here by Kimberly and Eleanor)

And we also built our humanure compost pile with pest-proof wire mesh and the tops of the canela laurel trees (left-over from the kitchen structure.) So far the compost toilet filled with sawdust from the local mill has been working great...

And let´s not forget the fridge-- a total ecological necessity if one is to store butter, dulce de leche, dulce de batata, and milk from the neighbor´s cows! The 5-gallon bucket in the creek with a rock on top works great... and it´s just below our tent site for midnight snacking and splashing.

And we have a front gate! Mostly to keep the neighbor´s cows from wandering in and eating our soon-to-be-planted garden, but also to add a little prestige to our humble wilderness abode.

You can´t really make it out in this photo, but you have to go down the rose-lined road and cross the creek to officially "arrive" at Mama Roja.