Eco Trancoso, Part 4: Learning new skills – Permaculture & Eco Construction.

Our most important reason for being at Eco Trancoso was to learn the theory and practice of permaculture and eco construction. Stefan is largely self-taught and researches online, but I think he also learnt from Gilbert; the elderly Madagascan who is also a horticulturist (we pieced together that Stefan’s land used to belong Gilbert, and that he’d worked with communities in Africa).

From my understanding, Stefan’s goal is to turn Eco Trancoso into a centre where students can stay in sustainable accommodation, take courses in permaculture and eco construction and put their learning into practice by contributing to projects. It’s a great goal and one I hope he achieves.

The land isn’t naturally fertile, as it sits atop a hill and is on the coast and exposed to winds. Before Gilbert and Stefan got there, I imagine it was mostly barren, with low-lying, shallow rooted shrubs – that’s what the area around the farm is like. Whilst there’s clay further below the ground, the earth is sandy so specific trees and bushes need to be planted to get a garden growing (for example, a type of black wattle).

I learnt this and other really interesting big and small picture lessons about permaculture from Stefan during three classes. After the first week, we’d ask him about learning more (we didn’t really have a good grasp of what permaculture even was), so he began classes. Apparently we were the first volunteers he’d had who wanted to learn the theory, which surprised me as Eco Trancoso’s website talks about offering study.

I won’t get into it here, but I learnt enough about permaculture to want to apply it to any garden I have in the future. Look it up. It makes perfect sense; especially in a world that’s facing resource scarcity. I think the problem with Eco Trancoso is that the land is very difficult to work with, there are a lot of projects happening at once, volunteers come and go and I’m not sure Stefan follows his own advice (Gilbert didn’t think so either). But in any case, we were ready to work!


The role of animals and making fences.

The animals are a big part of permaculture; what and where they eat and the advantages and disadvantages of their footprints and waste. For example, Tristan and I dug an irrigation trench from the place where the horse; Bonobo usually pees. It followed the natural curve and slant of the ground and ended near a small banana tree grove.

We used horse and chicken poo to fertilise plants and help nurture better soil, along with fallen leaves that had been sitting for a while. They form a natural structure that new soil and organisms can grow in, so I had to carefully move them with the pitchfork so as to not disturb them to much.

To give Bonobo more space, three of us were tasked with fencing off a large area, covered with small bushes and a couple of trees. We dug fence post holes using a nifty excavator tool and packed in posts that Stefan had found or been donated. Then we wound and nailed wire between the posts, pulling them taught. Unfortunately when it came to hammering in nails to hold the wire, some of the posts were rotted, fell apart and had to be taken out.

I’m all for up/recycling materials, but they need to be functional. It was very frustrating to have done work in the hot sun, only to dig them up again. If they’d been packed in properly, the posts were almost impossible to pull out and many broke off anyway, making it really hard to dig out crumbling wood! Stefan came and went, and kept assuming we had brought out the tools, when we needed to be shown which were needed. However, I now know how to build fences, and Tristan and I repaired the ones around Bonobo’s pen.

Making adobe bricks.

Dayton had been at Eco Trancoso for a few months already, so Stefan had him show me how to make bricks for building an adobe house. Using a pick axe, we dug clay from a large, swimming pool sized hole, trying to avoid too much sand. Then we wheel-barrowed the clay to the ‘mud bath’.

The clay goes into the bath along with increments of water and of fresh reed grass cut up with a machete – fun! Even more fun was getting barefoot into the bath to stomp around and get all the bumps out of the mix. Putting mud on your skin also helped deter the bugs. The aim was to mix a cement that was smooth and not too wet or dry. When ready, it was scooped up and wheel-barrowed to a concrete path in a sunny, covered spot by the kitchen.

We used a wooden frame to make two bricks at a time; rinsing it off after each use. To avoid air pockets, the cement was thrown and patted into the frame. When the frame was full, it was pulled slowly upwards, leaving the bricks to dry. One of us was on ‘brick duty’ at a time, and we each met our daily quote of 30 bricks. Hooray! None of us ever heard a word of thanks or recognition from Stefan, but when we asked he said the bricks were fine and most dried out in a few days.

The second time I made bricks I wanted to check something so I found Stefan. He explained that I’d been doing it wrong, and that there was more of a process than Dayton had taught. While it wasn’t detrimental to the bricks I’d already made, it would have made it easier so it was pretty annoying. I was there to learn the correct processes; not hand me downs. Plus, I found out it was fine to dig clay from the bottom of the hole, and not only the sides, which would have done my back a lot of favours!

Building an adobe house.

We were tasked with laying bricks to finish the en suite walls of a one bedroom adobe house. Before we arrived, others had been busy trying to finish the house as it was where Stefan had intended to accommodate Tristan and I. As it was under construction and without electricity, plumbing, locks or furniture, I was glad that he’d had a change of heart and put us in a house with all its floors and walls!

Tristan had already spent a couple of days laying bricks, so he taught me how. We used the same adobe cement mix used for the bricks, and nailed and weighted strings provided a guiding line to keep everything straight. It went fine until we wanted to check the guide with Stefan, spent 20 minutes finding him and then realised we were ever so slightly off track. Work was quickly rectified though, and by the time we left we’d almost built a whole section of the bathroom – pretty satisfying.


I also learnt how to build wine bottles into a wall to create a feature that will look cool and draw more light into the bathroom. They went on top of an existing wall, just under the ceiling, and were filled with water to better capture light. We put chlorine in to prevent mould, and sealed them with cork.

Unstable scaffolding aside, putting 1cm of adobe mud between bottles was a bit tricky. I was thankful for my small hands! Each layer had to be as thin as possible, but strong enough to hold the bottles in place. This is because cracks and gaps form as the mud dries, so layers are added after the previous one dries. I did three layers over a week. It was great to see the result, but I was sorry I didn’t get to finish it completely (due to us leaving early).

At one point I needed a little more cement but it wasn’t worth making a new batch. Leftover cement was kept in buckets and covered with water to stop them drying out, and I spotted an old one. After smelling it to ensure it wasn’t mixed with manure, I lifted the bucket only to have the rusty handle break (this was common and I was glad I’d had my tetanus vaccination!). As the cement splashed on my face, I realised; it was manure after all. This was the grossest thing that happened.

Working on the house was fun, especially since I got to listen to music and use the adobe mud to protect my arms and legs from bugs. Making the bricks was great too, as it involved varied tasks and squishing mud between my toes. This really helped after my toe was bitten by a mysterious, evil, blood sucking little black worm. I’d seen one stuck to my leg before but quickly swiped it off. This one must have been there a while as it took several flicks to get it off and it hurt like hell. With a surge of adrenalin I sprinted to the kitchen and poured alcohol all over it. The pain subsided and the small gouge took about a month to heal. No one had ever seen or heard of the worms. The mystery continues.

The duck pond.

A duck pond had been built but the ducks had ripped up its plastic lining while scrambling in and out. A duck without water is… well, I’m sure that there’s a saying for it and that it’s partially why the ducks were getting sick. Chloe dug a whole and inserted a round plastic tub around a metre deep and across. It’s edges were broken and sharp so we worried about the ducks feet, but our initial concern was simply getting them in. They’d seemed to forget they were ducks!

To coax the ducks into their new pool, we shooed away the chickens and held corn kernels over the water. Only two went in, and only because they teetered too close to the edge trying to get the corn, and fell in. It was pretty hysterical. Only one duck liked it enough to stay in for a minute and none ever did so voluntarily. We tried in vain to catch them, so resorted to splashing them. They seemed happier being wet though, and liked preening themselves. I hope they’ve found their ducky natures by now.

Chloe is a talented artist, so she painted a gorgeous giant mural on the kitchen wall. It instantly made the place feel more welcoming.

Key-hole gardens and nursery.

Some of the others worked on key-hole gardens, which were designed for dry climates and originated in Africa. They built a shade and nurtured new soil. Sage spent a morning creating the key-hole shape with bricks only to be told they’d been laid incorrectly and had to be redone. Stefan believed this was part of letting volunteers experiment with different techniques, but I believed we had to learn the right ones first; especially when working under a harsh sun. Like me, Sage suffered severely from the bugs and often worked head to toe in clothes. The day before we left Stefan decided to start the day an hour earlier to avoid the hottest hours; a wise move, particularly as the next project was digging swells into the land to create ebbs and flows for irrigation and planting.

A small plant nursery was in the most shaded and lush part of the farm. Cuttings from various plants were put into plastic bags with soil and later transplanted to the key-hole garden and around the farm. Tristan and I planted six passionfruit sprouts and by the time we left all but one were growing well. It’d be interesting to go back to Eco Trancoso in about ten years to see how they, and the farm and Stefan’s goal, are coming along.

As well as trees and plants that provided shade and nurtured the earth, Stefan also planted banana, mango, passionfruit, cashew, cinnamon, a bean stalk and probably others I’m forgetting. It was the wrong season, but we were lucky to enjoy the garden’s limes, ginger and delicious palm kernels.

With all the media around not using palm oil, I instinctively hesitated to eat palm kernels before realising that of course there are no orangutans there! You notice how very oily they are as soon as you pick them, and I liked using the oil for lip balm. To eat them, you can either roast or boil them. Once I learnt to scrape the flesh off the stringy middle with my teeth, I loved them – the taste is mild and a bit nutty.

Another common plant was citronella, which deterred the bugs and was used to make an anti-bug tonic by crushing it with cloves and alcohol. I think it worked pretty well! I also tied bunches of the plant’s blade like reeds and burnt them; every night I walked around our house waving it around like some religious ritual. I still have the tiniest bit left and it’s much better dried – I’ll miss it when it’s used up!

I decided that when I have a garden one day I’d love it to consist of plants that have a purpose; whether it’s eating their fruits or vegetables or making tea or insect repellant with their leaves.