#7 Happy House Farm – Around the world
Asia is here! We left France exactly 5 months ago, and now we flight towards Philippines. Our last month in Latin America has been really sporty. Our volcanic odyssey went on – in our last article we had just hiked the Maderas and Concepción volcanoes on the Ometepe Island – as we decided to hike up the most active and smoky volcano of Nicaragua: the Telica volcano. It is said you can observe magma in fusion at the bottom of the crater if you go there by night. So we decided to set our campsite at the bottom of the volcano in spite of the few rocs that were ejected of it the last days – not afraid to paraphrase Eminem. Unfortunately the bad weather conditions, the gases and the smokes di not allowed us to see anything
Firefighters assaulting the Telica volcano
We left the city of León feeling that we did not achieved what we came there for. Our next challenge called for us in the north of the country: the Somoto canyon. Many dangerous jumps are waiting for us there. We will remember the epic fail of Tanguy slipping on the rocks at 8 meters, and hitting the water with his head – ouch – while Yvan flied with birds jumping from 15 meters. He can thank Elise who was there to give him courage… We also keep polishing our surfing talents on the Las Peñitas and Popoyo beaches on the Pacific coast. Kelly Slater should better prepare.
Immersion in the Somoto canyon
Sunset surfing at Las Peñitas
We came back for a few days in the Rancho Canarias to say goodbye to Juan and then left to Mexico DF to take our flight to Philippines. We had to go through Honduras, Salvador and Guatemala. Arnaud, a friend from HEC, welcomed us in Mexico. We took us to the Lucha Libre, a crazy wrestling show with a few interruptions made of Mexican food and beers. We stayed there a week and then took our flight to a new continent: we went to Vancouver and Seoul, and finally arrived in Manila after 26 hours. We decided to go directly to the farm to come back to a healthier way of living. Time had come.
Lucha Libre !
Welcome to the Happy House Farm! The farm where we worked is located on the western coast of the main island of the country, called Luzon. Our first contact is amazing. We won’t hide the fact that we are happy to leave behind us the rudeness of the Nicaraguan people to find the constant smile of Philippians. David, Carol and their little daughter Kyra were our host. They already welcomed more than 600 volunteers! People came and went as we stayed there. It was the first time we worked with other volunteers and we loved it!
Sunrise on Crocodile Hills
Sunset into the sea
The climate is tough. The raining season – typhoon season too – usually go from end of May to August. But the rains from the last season began far later, at the end of June. As a strong sun kept burning plants and your skin, David used to remind us that water is the biggest problem for him. To fight it, he set a collecting and enriching water system. A big tank and a fishpond collect water during the raining season. The water at the surface of the fishpond – rich in bacteria – is then mixed with cow shit, David’s piss – “don’t loose your piss!” – and the seaweeds volunteers collect at the beach. We thus spent an entire day at the nearest beach – hour away walking – to collect the seaweeds we could on the sand and in the sea. Collecting seaweeds is hard, not really productive, but necessary to David’s system. The seaweeds then have to be washed with pure water – to extract the salt – and dried. David showed us that only a work of precision and clever composting and collecting systems allow him to grow his farm under such a tough climate. The mixture produced – really rich in nutriments - is then used to water the plants.
Travelling Fishers
Fishing is good!
It was the first time we worked in a farm with a fishpond. This one had only be set a few months before we arrived and should allow David to collect more water during the raining season. The fishes will enrich the pond’s water and the plate of the volunteers. To maintain the water, David set a filtration system. The water is pumped and goes in five smalls ponds before going back to the fishpond. The first pond is filled with a micro seaweeds that absorb the nitrogen in the air; the amount of seaweeds double every day and is used as food for fishes. The next two ponds are filled with a mix of duckweed and the seaweeds mentioned above. Duckweed absorbs ammonia in the water; nitrites and nitrates are then produced by the chemical reaction. The last two ponds are filled with water lilies that absorb ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, and filter the physical particles in the water then rejected in the fishpond. When it comes to agriculture, everything goes back to physics and chemistry. Strong knowledge in those areas – the interested ones of you should read The Countryside Explained by John Seymour - as well as continuous experimentations are necessary to adapt the principles of organic farming to your climate and your land.
The fishpond
The water filtration system
Let's water!
The dry season is also the Soil Management season. No worries, it is not a new class taught in business schools. As the soil is dry we were able to organize the land in order to be ready for the raining season and to make the infrastructures more welcoming. Who said agriculture could not fit with landscaping? The Happy House Farm also aims at being a gathering place for the volunteers and the local community. With our shovels, axes, hammers and rakes, we learnt how to do and use cement - for the filtration ponds -, level the field, and build stairs and pathways. In this post we choose not to talk about the usual farming works – maintaining vegetables and fruits basically – because we already told you a lot about it in our previous articles: we would REALLY NOT wan to make you bored.
Back to childhood and mud plays
The house we helped to landscape
We were deeply touched by the exchanges we had and the people we met in the farm. We will not forget David’s craziness, Carol’s sweet dishes, Johanna’s beautiful voice and Maria’s scary shovel capabilities, Ariel’s smile, and Jordan’s serenity.
We left them with sadness to go to Batad’s rice terraces in the North. We walked on sumptuous and dirty paths for two days. We then went to Baler, one of the first surf spot in the Philippines (Apocalypse Now’s famous surf scene was shot there). We met Germain and Sébastien, two friends from HEC, by luck. We surfed together the waves of Cemento Beach with local people and then took the boat to Palawan Island. We explored the virgin beaches and beautiful corals of Coron and El Nido. Paradise on earth.
Buena onda in Baler
Batad's rice terraces
Exploring the marine wildlife of Coron
Bikers gang within sight
The blasts of March
We leave tomorrow to Bangkok, where a few friends are going to join us and then travel with us through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. We were expecting it so much since we did not see them for 6 months now!
