Cement Seating Sculptures

One of the projects we hope to get started on as soon as possible after arriving in the village is to arrange an outdoor cooking and general chilling area. We already have a rough plan for a seating sculpture which is to incorporate the recycling of various unwanted items. Here in Israel there is no shortage of available materials to use, from old broken chairs to tires, building rubble, plastic containers, and more which pile up day by day in unofficial dumps around the country. In Voditsa this might be more of a problem - but a good problem in a way. There is very little wasted in the traditional rural villages. While eco-warriors around the world are challenging us all to 'Reduce, Reuse and Recycle', Bulgarian villagers have been living this way for centuries.

The idea for the seating sculptures came a couple of years ago when a friend invited me to join her on a trip to Kibbutz Lotan in the south of Israel. The kibbutz runs internationally renown permaculture courses and they do a lot of building and sculpting using a combination of natural and recycled materials. One of the advantages of their location is the weather - the barely 6 days a year of rainfall means that outdoor structures can be covered with mud without undue worry about weather damage. I came away from there there totally inspired and raring to go! My only problem was that where I live in the centre of the country rain would be a problem. I decided on a compromise: the basic structure would be made of recycled materials, but the covering would be cement.

I shall write more about the various stages in contructing the seating sculpture in my next post. In the meantime check out these amazing camel sculptures in Kibbutz Lotan. They are made with old car tires and mud!