Arborloos

Speaking of toilets, I just stumbled upon a blog post from our friend Chris Canaday of El Parque Etnobotanico Omaere. Chris was the one who initially trained my counterpart and me in dry toilets. His post shows some of the pictures of the construction of an Arborloo (disclaimer: I have not read the whole book at this link, but his basic idea is really cool). An Arborloo a different type of green toilet, in some ways much simpler than the ones we constructed in our community, and the one we constructed was made from mostly recycled materials (i.e. super duper cheap to make). So, if you're itching for more information about how to poop green, check out his blog! Here's the link:

Un modelo (parcialmente reciclado) de ArborLoo

(His post is in both Spanish and English--scroll down to the blue for English.)

Some Peace Corps volunteers and community counterparts put the roof on the Arborloo. Look at that door!

Finishing the Arborloo.

..kirstie..

This post is part of the Rethinking High Tech series.

New Blog Features, Old Blog Rules

Hi Friends!

We have two new blog-related pieces of news for you. First, we now have a comment box! As you can see (you might have to scroll down a little), there is a comment box in the right sidebar. Please use this to ask us any questions you might have that you'd like to see us answer in a future blog post!

Second, Kirstie has a new blog called Girl Parts. (Yes, that is the name.) She created this to be able to share some of the woman-related things she's been learning and thinking about that not everyone who reads this blog maybe wants to read. Both female people and male people are welcome to check it out--just don't go if you don't want to stumble across something about "that time of the month," etc.

We also want to mention that thoughtful comments and questions are ALWAYS welcome here on our blog. We did get our first spammy comment though--all spam, flames, and trolls will be deleted! And here is a primer on what these words mean:

Spam - fake comments with links that usually give your computer horrible viruses if you click on them (like spam in email). Also, a questionably-food meat product made in Minnesota that Hawaiians love.

Flame - mean things, either against us, the blog, other commentors, or anyone else connected or not connected to the blog. However, if your name is Calcifer and you're a fire demon, you may say whatever you like because you are awesome.

Troll - usually off-topic comments (sometimes in the form of flames) that are intended to push readers to an emotional response. For example, in a blog about cute, fuzzy kittens, one might write that three-toed unicorns are highly superior to the cutest, most powerful kittens--all in an attempt to create feelings of angst, fear, grief, anger, etc. in the other users of that site. Of course, this is also a troll (and this is an amautalik by the same artist).

[Edit Sept. 2012 - We will also delete all swearing/cussing. This is a family-friendly blog.]

The last half of this post was mostly just to make you smile... We love your comments, love that you're reading our blog and thinking about us, and love that we have so much that we can share with you!

..Kirstie and Isaac..