I helped Mr Marin dig the hole for the vine we planted
Barzakh Falh: The Building Project.
By: Adam Baker-Smith
Barzakh Falh translates as the barrier between salvation and judgement.
This project is 25 acres dedicated to promoting a cure through fostering of abandoned and orphaned children who don’t have proper living conditions. It has two phases to it, the first phase is what they are working on right now which is a transitional home dedicated to a safe, stable and healthy home for girls 16 and older. The reason why is because around the age of 16, children are then unable to be in the foster care system. They will be able to stay at Barzakh Falh for 3 to 5 years while they finish high school and find a vocation. While they live at Barzakh Falh they will also learn how to be self-sustaining through gardening and raising animals. Phase 2 is a children’s home. Mr. and Ms. Marin know that they don’t want a conventional intensive way of development (Mrs. Marin is also the founder of the project). Meaning that they want the children to be nurtured slowly and at their own pace without rushing the children to adjust to the new facility, they want it to feel like home with the kitchen as the central location, not an institution.
It started in 2010 when the land was acquired through inheritance from Mrs. Marin’s grandfather. They started clearing the land (since it was covered by brush and thicket) and continued doing so until 2013. They started building in 2011 when they were still clearing. Earth bag house construction was decided on after they considered geo-desical domes, hay bale houses and wood houses. Earth bag was settled on because the earth is readily available, it is organic, resilience to the weather, low maintenance, low price and is better in disasters including flooding and hurricanes. The first earth bag home they built was a dome that is 15 feet in diameter and 17 feet in height. They built it in a dome shape to give the girls a separate sleeping area in the loft and a living space on the ground. It was only after completion of the dome did the Marins find out that the residents were not comfortable with the loft and would not sleep in it. It was culturally unacceptable, so Mr. Marin had to figure out a new design for the next building. During this time they decided to plant fruit trees, build a chicken run and purchase some goats, geese, chickens, peacocks and turkeys.
The most important part was that the land was there and has the potential to be self-sustaining, in my opinion it is doing an amazing job at keeping it that way. Everything at the farm had a purpose and that really impressed me. All the trees grow fruit, every animal either give’s food or are good for selling, the bio-degrading toilets are amazing since all it took to turn human waste into fertilizer was human waste + the carbon in the form of rice hull + Time + microbe activity + temperature and that makes good fertilizer for all of the trees.
The progress on the project is as follows one earth bag kitchen, one earth bag caregiver living quarters, one dome shaped earth bag house, one cylinder shaped earth bag wash house, two composting toilets, five animal pens, one chicken run, one storage crate, and a half finished earth bag root cellar. They still need to add a two story dorm on the cellar and a second two story dorm without a cellar.
Whilst my family was at the project we learnt and did a multitude of things such as how to mix/create cement, the recipe goes: 6 five gallon pails of fine sand, one 100 pound bag of cement powder, 4 gallons of water and lots of mixing. They use this for sealing the earth bag walls and making a smooth surface. While we were there we saw it used mainly for patching the walls.
We then learned how to make white-wash, which is a type of resilient cement paint, the recipe for white-wash goes: 9 scoops of lime, 6 scoops cement and water (the amount varies with each batch). We used this for the inside and outside walls because white-wash is good for keeping the cement walls intact since in the rain the cement on the walls begins to soften and without the white-wash would fall apart.
We mixed the earthen floor which is a 5-5 gallon pails of clay, a scoop of cement and a half scoop of lime. It took 170 - 5 gallon pails of rock and clay to complete the first layer of the earthen floor, the second and third layers were not as thick, on the third layer we used less rock and more clay so it would make a smooth floor for the kitchen. To make sure the floor was level (in the kitchen) fishing line was run in grid. We then tamped the floor (a tamper is a 20-30 pound flat piece of metal on the end of a pole that you use to flatten something). On the second layer we borrowed a gas powered tamper but it made a mess and we returned to hand tamping. The floor will dry until March and then floor will be coated in linseed oil making it water resistant. For the last few days of the project we worked on earth bagging for the cellar. We filled 100 pound bags with dirt and rocks. To keep the bags from sliding barbed wire is placed in between the layers. Once you have finished a layer the bags are tamped on the sides and top to square them off.
I loved this project it was lots of fun and it made you feel like you accomplished something. The Marin’s showed us lots of kindness and were very helpful. I would like to ask all of you who have read this essay to consider coming down to Belize and working with Marin’s on this worthwhile endeavor, take a few weeks, discover Belize and help make a difference in the lives of someone less fortunate. Donations do help and are always welcome but what they need most is the physical labour you could contribute.
| 
