| Lourdes' Home Village & Biz (near Dumaguete City, Negros Island) on our visit in January 2004 |
This is a charity-spirited agricultural-development
poverty- reduction kind of a program, centered on
Lou's family (her mother is proving to be a smart
and reliable administrator), but reaching out to the
entire village area. Things are bad there -- the
global warming changes are bringing on seasonal
droughts and floods, leading to the repeated failure
of traditional crops like rice and corn, so many
entire families around are unemployed, broke and
constantly malnourished and hungry. We're doing
the best we can to get a little prosperity-cycle
going, just by giving them the practical tools they
need to make a decent living for themselves
through hard work. Capitalism at it's most
primitive, and most benevolent. As of 2004 we've
got a dozen adults and teenagers continuously
employed and another half-dozen part-timers
according to need, and a half a dozen children are
going to school who otherwise wouldn't be...
Continuous expansion is planned. So far so good.
poverty- reduction kind of a program, centered on
Lou's family (her mother is proving to be a smart
and reliable administrator), but reaching out to the
entire village area. Things are bad there -- the
global warming changes are bringing on seasonal
droughts and floods, leading to the repeated failure
of traditional crops like rice and corn, so many
entire families around are unemployed, broke and
constantly malnourished and hungry. We're doing
the best we can to get a little prosperity-cycle
going, just by giving them the practical tools they
need to make a decent living for themselves
through hard work. Capitalism at it's most
primitive, and most benevolent. As of 2004 we've
got a dozen adults and teenagers continuously
employed and another half-dozen part-timers
according to need, and a half a dozen children are
going to school who otherwise wouldn't be...
Continuous expansion is planned. So far so good.
| Close-up of the big new kitchen. Built by Lou's brother and other skilled local workers, it's a major upgrade for the dozen people who now make use of this house. |
| Buncha jokers getting onto our truck, ready to go for a picnic on the beach 2 miles away. |
| We took a little hike up into the beautiful hills with a nephew and a niece, for the fresh air and the view. Puffs of smoke from little cooking fires can be seen in the distance;plenty of native people live in little shacks back up there. I would love to build a little retirement house on this hilltop someday... |
Our pig-sty, grown pretty big by Jan
2004, with a good typhoon-proof roof on
it (completely covering it by March). A
dozen good cement stalls inside, a
modern septic tank, its own water-pump,
and decent quarters for our dedicated
24-hour staff. Security lights to ward off
the thieves. A nice wooden bench
outside for hangin' out, pretty niece
standing by. The huge stud-boar they
named "David" up front on the right, lord
of his mud-hole.
Right: David cooling off "David", trying
to not get splattered...
2004, with a good typhoon-proof roof on
it (completely covering it by March). A
dozen good cement stalls inside, a
modern septic tank, its own water-pump,
and decent quarters for our dedicated
24-hour staff. Security lights to ward off
the thieves. A nice wooden bench
outside for hangin' out, pretty niece
standing by. The huge stud-boar they
named "David" up front on the right, lord
of his mud-hole.
Right: David cooling off "David", trying
to not get splattered...
The house we built for Lou's mom & other family
before our wedding in winter 2002 (blue roof; also
below-left, as it was in 5/03). It remains the best
house in that village... On the right of the above shot
you can see the back of the cement Catholic Shrine
that mom built. To its left is the 2003 water-tower,
which provides clean water (a rare treasure there; the
stream is polluted) by gravity-feed from a deep well, after
being filled with a small electric pump. To the left of that is
the new, large tin-roof kitchen that we built attached to the
side of the house in Winter 2004.
On the far left you can see how close it is to the pretty
stream, which is sadly prone to flash-flooding due to
excessive illegal logging in the jungle-mountains
upstream. During a tropical monsoon downpour, the
water can rise 6 feet in 5 minutes, spreading a torrent
over the entire valley floor. There is no warning... it may
not even be raining down in this village. Big logs and
brush make temporary dams upstream, and when they
burst, the flash-flood torrents carry the floating logs as
high-speed battering-rams that can kill people & livestock
and destroy flimsy houses.
In the left-foreground of the above shot is a patch of empty
stream-side land (300 sq m) that we just bought (they've
already been parking our truck in the bamboo-fence-
enclosed sector). We plan to build a strong anti-flood wall
around this entire compound, eventually putting on a roof
and then making it a garage, safe storehouse for grains
and even further housing space as more people join our
project.
before our wedding in winter 2002 (blue roof; also
below-left, as it was in 5/03). It remains the best
house in that village... On the right of the above shot
you can see the back of the cement Catholic Shrine
that mom built. To its left is the 2003 water-tower,
which provides clean water (a rare treasure there; the
stream is polluted) by gravity-feed from a deep well, after
being filled with a small electric pump. To the left of that is
the new, large tin-roof kitchen that we built attached to the
side of the house in Winter 2004.
On the far left you can see how close it is to the pretty
stream, which is sadly prone to flash-flooding due to
excessive illegal logging in the jungle-mountains
upstream. During a tropical monsoon downpour, the
water can rise 6 feet in 5 minutes, spreading a torrent
over the entire valley floor. There is no warning... it may
not even be raining down in this village. Big logs and
brush make temporary dams upstream, and when they
burst, the flash-flood torrents carry the floating logs as
high-speed battering-rams that can kill people & livestock
and destroy flimsy houses.
In the left-foreground of the above shot is a patch of empty
stream-side land (300 sq m) that we just bought (they've
already been parking our truck in the bamboo-fence-
enclosed sector). We plan to build a strong anti-flood wall
around this entire compound, eventually putting on a roof
and then making it a garage, safe storehouse for grains
and even further housing space as more people join our
project.
