Hi from sub-tropical Dominican Republic

[paulindr]

Hi.

I live in Constanza, a small but important town 1,200 metres above sea level in the central mountains (obviously!) of the Dominican Republic (which is two thirds of Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Caribbean, shared with Haiti). At this height, we have mostly hot or warm days but always cold nights. At 18 metres (40 minutes away) dew settles on everything every night and significant frost is not unknown. Winter (December to February) is decidely cold; day times need sweaters or jackets and night times are best passed in bed with plenty of blankets and company!

I am in the final stages of building a tourist-focused bar-restaurant and hope to build my home along the same or similar lines. The entire bar site was created without any formal design or plan and is already a landmark building even before it opens. Construction used small amounts of cement and cement blocks, instead relying as much as was possible (here) on tree trunks, sawn wood (pine), bark (pine), roots (various), woody vines (various), rocks, stones and coral rock. In this country one can never be sure but I tried to source everything legally and hopefully from sustainable resources (though I´m dubious about the legality of the coral rock and wish I´d sourced something else - but we all learn from errors!). No trees were destroyed to create the building except one sour-orange tree that was diseased so better destroyed than maintained. However, the site is awaiting several thousand trees including lime (citrus), mandarin, sweet orange and avocado pear. So overall, theere´s a net gain in trees exceeding several 1000´s percent!!!

The next phase of the project will be to build cabanas (small "cabins"). These will be very romantic and again will use natural materials. However, this time, the aim is to use zero cement blocks and almost no cement. To this end, walls will be created using woven branches and then covered in any material that looks good and can be applied without too much cement. I can do this with small rocks and stones (that need cement as glue), wood (uses nails), bark (again nails) and something like gesso (sticks by itself!). Not sure if anything else will be useful but I´ll consider anything that is natural and will look good once applied. (Dung, mud and equivalents will not work ourtdoors as there´s too much rain here.)

The location has sufficient land to allow crops to be grown. A must will be as large a variety of fruit types as is possible. Locally, everyone grows the same so almost anything needed will have to be sourced from outside the Dominican Republic. However, varieties of "fruit" here include citrus (limes, oranges, grapefruit and shaddock, mandarin and hybrids of any of these, all in various forms or varieties), avocado pear, banana (varieties), plantain (varieties), strawberries, barbados cherry, Italien cherry, raspberry (reputedly!), wild blackberry, sunflower (for edible seeds but the variety grown here has very small seeds!!!), macadamia nuts, cashew (for fruit and nuts), macadamia nuts, mulberry and various other more unusual fruits. I´m also growing root crops such as sweet potato, llautia (dasheen, tarot, or eddoe) and normal veggies such as onions, garlic, etcetera. I hope to grow rarer veg. I have friends in the USA so can hope to obtain plants or seeds there and have them kept for me until I visit my friends or they visit me.

I have an as yet unbuilt do-it-yourself ram pump and I use low consumption light bulbs throughout. Other than that, there´s no special technology except some new lightbulbs I discovered that reputedly deter biting insects by giving off light that disorientates them! Amazingly, today´s evidence (day and night) is that they seem to work!!!

Why am I here (in this forum)? Well I´m hoping to get some good advice so as to increase self-sufficiency but also to be more ecologycal and energy efficient. In addition, there are niggling problems to solve that relate to the subjects of this forum even if not directly. Some examples (but I´ll post individual help requests for each when I´m ready) are:

- how to stop muddy water (when the river is in flood) entering my water supply pipe that draws water from a river

- how to ensure, economically!, that the water supply (still drawn from a river) is clean and safe (especially to remove or kill parasites and microbes in general, giardia and amoeba are dangerous and common here)

- when I build a cabin that includes a fireplace and chimney and that will presumably have at least one but possibly two water storage tanks (fed from the river), how can I use the chimney to heat one of the water tanks (they´ll probably be plastic!). Or is there a better way to derive a limited supply of warm or hot water cheaply.

- for cabin walls that are based on interwoven branches, is there something elsethat I can use that isn´t earth or mud but that will stick and be hard. It needs to be unfriendly to nuisances such as ants, wasps, scorpions, and spiders. Also needs to be cheap and envirobnmentally more friendly than gesso or plaster.

' and in all cases, is there a better way!

OK. So I´m not looking for answers via this post (though all will be received with interest) but am using my "needs" to help describe me.

I suppose I should add that I´m actually an ex-pat Brit, reputedly retired after a life that includes (so far), teaching (UK and Barbados), adult training, authorship (5 educational books so far), computing (CASE Communications, DEC, EDS), business services analysis (i..e. a problem solver) and specialities such as Flexible Working consultancy (i.e. how to be a home worker, how to design offices to be space-efficient, etc). I´m still a botanist, specialising in carnivorous plants.

One final thing, especially with regard to being self-sufficient, assuming the reader wants to be such. NEVER (NEVER EVER) marry anyone with Dominican Republic nationality or heritage. Such marriage is totally incompatible with self-sufficiency - you´ll end up with nothing!!!

Again ' hi!

Paulindr
(Constanza, Dominican Republic)

[Durgan]

Well, all I can say is you are sure out in the wilds. I know the Dominican Republic fairly well, and use to work in the University environment for about 30 years from 1970 to 2000, by visiting several times a year to service electron microscopes for Hitachi.

Tourism has done a lot to destroy the native life in the DR. Whether this is beneficial to the inhabitants is problematic, since most of the revenue generated goes to the USA owned interests. My travels were with the elite of the Island and they do lead great lives; in spite, of the corruption and political shenanigans. I consider the Island economy to be untrammeled capitalism at its basic level, much like Adam Smith's view of England when he wrote his great book The Wealth of Nations. Most people live at the subsistence level of wages if they have any at all. As one elite told me everybody is an entrepreneur, since there are few social benefits. Them and us.

The population is around 10 million, and probably eight million live less than an ideal existence. However the beautiful climate and abundance of fruits probably alleviate the life of those at subsistence level. Labor is cheap if one has an outside source of revenue. The people are friendly and the females are the most beautiful found anywhere. All inhabitants have the most perfect teeth from eating raw sugar cane, which massages the teeth.

Most or many people immigrate to the USA, and the street level drug industry in NY is operated by Dominicans.

That said, to become self sufficient with an outside income should be as no brainer. Lots of slaves to produce the necessities is a great assistance. I love the Island and people.

[Millymollymandy]

Hi and welcome! It all sounds very interesting and I'd love to see some photos.

[spider8]

Hello and welcome paulindr and wow, what a great introduction - good luck with it all

[MuddyWitch]

Welcome to ISH

MW

[Green Aura]

And from me too, welcome to Ish