Jungle Camp: I did it!

After spending two weeks building our houses in the bush, my classmates and I moved into our new homes. We spent the next four weeks living in our plastic houses, cooking on our clay stoves, cutting firewood, doing some studying, and enjoying each other's company.

Here's a picture of the outside of my house. We used second-hand greenhouse plastic for the roof, and then thinner plastic for the walls: both clear and black plastic. We also used a lot of screening and so had many "windows." Our ridgepole is 14' high off the ground, to accommodate our loft.

This is what our house looked like inside. These two pictures were taken looking down off the loft, showing our living area and our kitchen. The couch had foam cushions and was actually very comfortable. The bench by the table was only covered with cardboard and cloth. It was not uncomfortable, but the couch was nicer. :)

We had running water in our sink, as we were connected to a network of hoses coming out of the water truck. It returned regularly to the main campus to fill up.

Now, about our stove: The firebox is in the front, and has a metal stove top above it. On the left side (as you view it) is our hot water tank. We'd fill it up with water, let it heat up, and then turn the faucet at the bottom of the tank to get our hot water. On the right side at the back is our oven. The oven was a five gallon metal bucket on its side, with a rack in it. We had an oven thermometer to keep track of the heat. We usually had no problem getting it up to 350 or 400 degrees; sometimes it would shoot up to 500 and we'd have to leave the oven door off so the food wouldn't burn!

Melissa and I slept in the loft, on our airmattresses. Amanada had a bedroom underneath the loft. Also underneath the loft we had a pantry and a shower. Our shower bucket was on a pulley, and so could be hoisted up near the peak of our roof, above the door. You can see the bucket through our wall in the top picture of this write-up. It's yellow. We had a garden hose running from the bottom of the bucket down underneath the loft to our shower stall, where it ended in a sprinkler head for a garden hose. That served as our shower head. It actually worked very well.

While in Jungle Camp, we spent a lot of time just living: cutting firewood, keeping the fire going, cooking, cleaning up, walking to and from the outhouse... We also did some independent studying, had a few classes, and had lots of free time to socialize and have fun.

There were stretching times and there was plenty of work, particularly in the building of it all, but it was definately a great experience. It was lots of fun and it's really exciting for me to look back at what my roommates, my class, and I were able to accomplish.

So, if anyone needs a plastic/pole/duct tape house built, I know 26 people who have had experience... :)