With 2020 being a completely ridiculous year, my plans have basically been thrown in the bin and I’ve spent most of April to June flipping and flopping about what to do with myself – both for the rest of this year and going into the next several years. Even for me, the queen of non-commitment, it’s been an extreme display of indecisiveness. While I realise how fortunate I am to be healthy and to have options, I had become a ridiculous person, changing my mind weekly about what to do with myself. I pity the friends who had to listen to my ever-changing, hair-brained schemes.

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Back in February 2020 I headed to Costa Rica for a week-long timber framing course at Rancho Mastatal and, since I was flying all the way out there, I was pretty keen to tack on something else to make the trip a bit more worthwhile. I’m not so into travel for travel’s sake these days and I much prefer doing something or learning new things to backpacking around and looking at waterfalls, so my internet search began! Luckily, Costa Rica is packed with cool projects, communities, and natural building opportunities and after a bit of searching I found Bamboo School Costa Rica. Bamboo as a building material has intrigued me for many years but I’ve never had an opportunity to work with it before, so I jumped at the opportunity of taking this course the following week.

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I’ve just finished a couple of week-long natural building courses in Costa Rica – one that was exceptionally excellent that focused on timber framing, and another on bamboo that just wasn’t a good fit for me and led to one of the more boring weeks of my life. Seeing an awesome course contrasted with a less awesome one was a big eye opener and it got me thinking about how they’re definitely not all created equal for all people. It seems so obvious now but I feel like if I’d asked better questions, I would have had a better experience due to a change in expectations.

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I’ve just finished up two weeks in Costa Rica spending a week each on two very different building courses. The second course was a challenging week learning about bamboo (which I’ll write about later) and the first course was on timber framing and held at Rancho Mastatal – it was one of the best courses I’ve ever taken!

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One of the main benefits of my current semi-reluctant, nomad-y lifestyle is the freedom to be able to spontaneously head off in the direction of the latest shiny thing to capture my interest. Straw bales are my latest interest (yes, straw bales) and who would have ever believed that there was a conference relating to them? Yes, a straw bale conference.

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This is my third year in a row of coming to Portugal and I’ve decided to put myself to work once again in an effort to keep learning as much as possible about building while keeping my living costs low. I keep coming back to the same area not far from Alpedrinha and Vale de Prazeres in the Fundao region, south of the Serra de Gardunhas. Since I’ve spent a bunch of time in this area over the past few years, I’ve met a lot of people and I feel like I’ve started to become a small part of the community.

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I’m back in the Fundão area of Central Portugal for the third year in a row, this time with the possibility of buying land a little closer on the horizon. I’m not sure I’ll be in a position to buy anything until around November, but I’m keeping my eyes open and if something great crosses my path, maybe I’ll find a way to make it work. In the meantime I bought a rather glorious bicycle, I’m reluctantly on the lookout for a car, and I’m slowly accumulating tools.

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I’ve spent a good amount of time at Keela Yoga Farm over the past couple of years, first arriving as a total stranger in 2017 for six weeks and then returning as a friend in 2018 for three months. Half of that three months in 2018 was spent doing a natural building internship (focused specifically on working on their awesome new community building) and the rest of my time was spent starting to paint a mural of a map of their land and also attempting to construct a compost toilet.

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Back in May I posted about my grand plans for funding my future Portugal land purchase and all of the adventures that will come along with it. Ah May… back when life seemed so clear and simple! Back then, I was 99.4% certain that a partnership I’d been working on with a business dude I know in Kenya was in the bag. We’ve worked together in the past and when he saw my first Kigali map, he seemed keen on helping me bring one to Nairobi.

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After about five or six weeks at Keela Yoga Farm living communally, working hard every day, drinking copious amounts of red wine, pooping into a bucket, and having cold showers I think I was due a bit of a break. Happily, Sinead and I had the opportunity to head over to my friend Keri’s place for a few days to help out and hang out. She’s been living in Portugal for a couple of years (making awesome natural products) and building up her property and her business and I was curious to see what life was like over at hers, at least for a few days. I felt a bit of time off the farm would be good opportunity to gain a bit of perspective, try some different work, enjoy a hot shower and sleeping in an actual bed, and to go back with a renewed appreciation for the Keela experience.

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