nader khalili Archives - The Desert Echo

SLEEPERS AND DOMES

April 6, 2011 3 Comments

The dome is practically finished! Just a few foot holds for kids to climb on the roof and soil to be filled in around the bottom so they don’t smash themselves when they tumble off the roof. We ended up bringing in sand for the final render as the landfill just wasn’t cutting it. The plaster already began to cobweb crack as we were finishing it off, but I really like that, I think it makes it the more beautiful. Nader developed the ‘reptiling’ because he had until that moment being working against the crack, trying to work against nature, but one day he sat up in the middle of the night and realised why not work with it, you can’t crack a reptile because it is one.

The whole course was peppered with poems and wisdom that Sheefteh remembered her father telling her as a little girl, and this is one that resounded with the whole group.

No matter how hard you try you cannot wake someone who is pretending to sleep, but whilst in their faux slumber they will be listening and watching with half an ear and half an eye.

Do you remember pretending to sleep as a child?

Many of the people in the group were interested in green issues, many had studied permaculture and it has always been something that just leaves you feeling chilled when you speak to someone who just refuses to believe in something like climate change and what’s more belittles you for your ideals. I had a run in with a “green” developer recently who laughed uproariously at climate change and the suckers who would pay extra for a green building, practically rubbing his hands together. But as Rumi says, you can’t make someone who doesn’t want to know listen and it can just leave you feeling helpless. It is better to do what positive things you can with those who are interested and perhaps the sleepers will come around in the end. What a lovely thought. Can it be true?

Eco building

BALANCING ACTS AND GOAT GUARDIANS

January 15, 2011 No Comments

At CAL-Earth they would make anyone who called the earth “dirt” do push ups or laps, but I think Heather and Sheefteh let us off easier because our “earth” was actually old landfill and many treasures were to be found in the mountains of “earth”: old woollen jumpers, glass bottles, plastic bags and unknown squishy things. But that’s all part of the fun, spongy boots, mud pie gloves and dirty jokes.

This week had the post peculiar weather, it was humid and wet like tropical Asia. Chili peppers everywhere joyfully doubled in size whilst we felt slightly wilted with our boots bogged in the mounds of mud. Dylan added a happy little mud goat man to the top of a window sill for the next group who would finish the top of the dome and I think now that we have all gotten into such a good group rhythm everyone was sad to drop shovel and pack up our yellow dish washing gloves.

Eco building

EARTH BUILDING AND LOST CAMELS

January 12, 2011 No Comments

A man stood heartbroken in the middle of the village square asking everyone who passed by “have you seen my camel? he has a tuft of hair on his head and a white spots on his hind legs.” but no one had. The villagers took pity on him and offered to search the desert for his beloved camel.With high spirits they set out at dawn scouring the desert for the tufted camel. But, amongst the group there was a man with a closed suspicious mind, he whispered under his breath that he thought there was no camel, that the man was an attention seeker, that he was mad, that he was probably a thief. Slowly spreading his poison in any ear that would listen.

At midday they came across a camel by a pool and cheered but the man with the broken heart knew it was not his camel and the group trudged on. It was at dusk when they crested a massive dune, despondent and weary and there below them was a great herd of wild camels . The man at once ran down crying with joy because there amongst the herd he saw his beloved camel. The villagers then realised that the man with the closed mind was missing. They found him with tears in his eyes next to a camel, with a shaking voice he told them “this is my camel, I didn’t know I had lost it, but he is mine”.

This week we began a Superadobe course at CERES to create a dome for their “Dangerous” kids’ playground, as Stephan put it. Sheefteh started the first day with this sweet, funny story by Persian Poet Rumi. Her late father Nader Khalili had often begun his courses in the California desert that way, to remind us that sometimes if you are lost, you should help others on their journey to achieve their goals because whilst helping them you might find your own path. His “camel”, she said with a smile was to develop a fast and cheap, but also solid and beautiful building technique for disaster relief. It uses the materials you would have access to in a war zone, earth, sand bags and barbed wire to tie it all together and celebrates the inherent strength of domes and arches.