Today, we are going to learn how to build a bench using earth bags. Mariana spent the morning explaining the theory part of the building process. Materials & tools needed are barbed wires, tamper, polypropylene woven roll (to contain the earth), soil, shovels and water.

After the theory session, each of us carried the tools to the work site. Here’s a brief outline of the whole process :

1. Outline the shape of bench
2. Dig a trench
3. Lay gravel and use the tamper to level it
4. Prepare the earth bags
5. Measure and cut barbed wire
6. Mix the soil with water (for houses add stabiliser like cement for that extra holding strength, but for benches, that’s not necessary since it’s not weight loading structure)
7. Add bucket of soil into the polypropylene bag
8. Tamper to level the bench
9. Fix barbed wire in between each layer of earth bag to hold them in place
10. Repeat for 3 layers of earth bags

It was a very labour intensive process and hard work! All this effort to build a bench. Imagine building a dome house!

Hurray! Our bench is complete!

Rest and relax for the rest of the day.