lots of straw and a nomadic vet

I'm once again on my friendly farm two hours north of Berlin and have spent the last three days building a straw bale house with a bunch of other women. The actual wall building went incredibly quickly: Friedi, our trainer and architect, explained us a bit of theory and the basics of straw bale building techniques on Monday, a little more on Tuesday, and today, all walls are standing and waiting for the anchoring ring to be set up on top. Straw is a fantastic building material - so easy and clean and fast. The big blocks stack up quickly, it is relatively easy to shorten or separate a bale in two, saw bits out to go round poles, they are relatively light to carry, and there is no back-breaking work involved. What's more, straw comes from nearby farmers and is a by-product of cereal production which is produced anyway - so no factory, cheap or even free, and short transportation ways. And the only by-product of construction is - logically - straw, which lovingly covers the ground with a golden touch.
The complete opposite of working with, say, cement: cement is heavy, messy, dries up in the most awkward places, the rests cannot easily be disposed off, it is polluting, dries up your skin, is transported over long distances from the factory, expensive...

To have an idea of what the construction of a straw bale house looks like, look here. Ours is much much smaller (only one room), but it's the same principle.

This weekend, we'll start covering the walls with a mix of earth and horse poo.

I'm so thankful to be able to learn all I've learned in the past three days. And a construction site of women is a great way to learn and empower myself too, as I otherwise tend to step back and let "those who seem to know better" (usually men) take over. As ridiculous as it may sound, I wouldn't have used the electric saw, or the drilling machine, or tried out all the different bits of the construction site if men had been around to take over these tasks. It's a lot about fighting my own instincts (he must know better), and about men having to fight their own instincts too (i probably know better) - not that all men are like this at all, don't get me wrong.

But I see what has happened on the other construction site that is running in parallel, with a mixed team. Those who plan and decide and do the machine work (and thus learn more) - are men plus Lisa, who boxes herself into all male decision circles, come what may. Those who end up unsure of what there is to do and step back are for the most part women - who are thus pretty frustrated. Discussion has taken place, but apparently to no avail, and specialisation tendencies have continued to develop, or so I've been told (by a male observer).
We on our construction site, made sure that the other women did what they wanted to do, learned a bit of everything and could take part in each work process. It's a world of a difference, and I don't think I would have thought saying something like that a year ago, but having only women on the site is a form of protection.

One of the women is Nini, a nomadic vet, who has been without a "home of her own" for the past eight years. She works three or four months a year as a replacement vet and spends the rest of the time doing what she wants - such as learning about strawbale building. I can relate very much to her life style, hitch hiking from one place to the next and being where she wants. The most surprising about her (so far) is that she looks so - normal. Hehe.

In any case, it's good to be back on the farm in spring - it looked so dreary this winter, so sad, so impossible to master, so much like a dark hole of work. In spring, it appears full of potential and beauty, and those are the moments when I think - aha, after all, perhaps I CAN imagine moving to this project. Which I would only definitely definitely do if my friend Anna moved there too.