Munene, the journey...

Vermiculture in progress We left for Chakra's house at 10am. Chakra has a house close to Permana Cottage. He told us stories of his experiences, and his inventions. He was once chased by people in Aceh after he made them a stove. We met this guy he calls Tarzan that was apparently raised by dogs in the forest. Tarzan can listen to honey bees and know whether they are agitated or not. Tarzan made us some honey bee salad. He makes use of what he calls 'appropriate technology' Built a kiln/oven which dries rice in 1 hour. (superdryer) Customized a diesel engine to use hydrogen for doing portable rice mills Moves from village to village and mills rice for the farmers: 100k of unmilled rice produces 65kg of brown rice and 45kg of white rice Permaculture: using wastes from one food process to feed into another process Using smoke from burnt rice husks to smoke bamboo which helps to preserve Using ashes from the bu...

The day began with a 7.30am breakfast, and at 8.45am, we left the cottage to see rice fields and subaks. Our host for the day was Prof. Widaya and Dr. Sedana (from Dwijendra University). We met at a subak, and they explained to us some of the features of the subak system: Tak tak: the allocation of water between farms. It consists of blocking water from the main drainage canal to a field for a specific time period. The water is termed as borrowed from the downstream farmers Tak taks also determine how much each farmer contributes to the subak for communal ceremonies, rituals etc. Subak heads: elected every 5 years; he is an unsalaried official who helps coordinate a subak Its contact with government, private millers market, nonprofits etc. Water allocation during meetings Conflict resolution about water allocation Rituals, and inter-subak coordination Calendar: Balinese have multiple calendars: religious, mark...