Storms at Jiwa Damai

/ Jiwa Damai/

May we share with you the impact of the last two storms in an extremely heavy rainy season which led us to close Jiwa Damai center for at least until the end of January? This is also part of having a wonderful garden, to see the changes brought by a dramatically changing weather and their effect on the soil, trees and buildings.

We have built over the past 10 years our fertile soil on an underlying clay layer. The rains flooded most of our topsoil away and we have begun again from scratch so to speak. Nata and Komang are cutting the broken bananas for compost in our quite funny looking compost area after the storm.

Many hands are helping and we are seeding in our nursery. After sprouting they are placed individually into the containers made from banana  leaves to be later transplanted into the garden.

Our beautiful Mandala garden has changed its face. It is coming along again, with a net spanned overhead in Mandala design, to protect from too strong rains and too strong sun, as well as with plastic tents until the smaller plants are able to take the strong rain.

The ant natural cycle

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This is a yearly phenomenon and very fascinating to observe. After the first heavy rains, at the beginning of the rainy season, the one night ants come out from the grouse in huge numbers and fly into the light, where they dance and then loose their wings and die. At Jiwa Damai we have to eat early at night, before the dark comes. Once the lights are on the invasion is incredible. Again all is recyclable, the lizards and our Toke have a feast day sitting next to the lights on the ceiling and gorging on these ants. In the morning, all the wings and ants on the floors are brushed into the pond, where the fish are waiting to receive their share. This event can last for 3 - 4 days, appearing every evening.

The garden crew and the mud bath

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Here is our new garden crew, consisting of Komang, Ketut, Made and joined by our volunteer, Remy, from France. All are working very hard to make deeper channels to allow the immense rain waters to be drained properly. A hands on job, a mud bath actually. :)

If you would like to volunteer, please let us know at contact@jiwadamai.net!

Karma Yoga in the kitchen

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One of our wonderful Yoga teacher participants was joining our kitchen team for Karma Yoga. During the stay of this group, many participants offered Karma Yoga, such as garden work garbage disposal, cleaning the Shala, the dining area, and of course, last, but not least, the kitchen. Thank you ladies all for this support at Jiwa Damai!

If you are interested in holding a workshop at Jiwa Damai, do let us know via contact@jiwadamai.net.

Mushroom research

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Alejandro Llano, one of our wonderful volunteers wrote a paper in which he described the process he used in order to grow mushrooms at Jiwa Damai. He offers valuable information about early cultivation and the role of mushroom in the nature. He also provided details about the nutritional benefits of mushrooms for both for humans and for the environment.  We invite you to read more!

The mushroom paper

 

Volunteers at Jiwa Damai

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At Jiwa Damai volunteers come from all over the world, have all kinds of backgrounds and all ages. They get to enjoy the calm and beauty of Jiwa Damai, but also discover Bali. 

Here is Dave, our volunteer from Vermont, USA, standing on Mount Batur on his day off. 

If you would like to volunteer at Jiwa Damai we invite you to send us an email at info[@]jiwadamai.net with your CV and other skills you may have. You can read here more details about our volunteer program. We usually request our volunteers to stay for a minimum of one month and we plan their stay with up to three months in advance.

 

 

Learning a special form of intricate painting

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This was a first in Bali. A local priest and artist, famous for his sacred paintings and drawings of the various Hindu gods and goddesses, offered to teach our volunteers and participants of the Yoga teacher training the very special form of intricate painting. 

After he arrived, he first made some offerings at one of our temples. He then explained the symbolic of the pictures and the meaning of the various details of the gods. Our class was highly focused. As you can see, the result is breathtaking. The paintings will be taken home, framed and are highly valued in Bali as protection.

Herbal Spiral

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Here is Dr. Margret Rueffler’s latest creation, a herbal spiral. Up to now, it has been quite challenging to grow western herbs in our tropical climate, at Jiwa Damai in Bali. Here we choose a place half sunny and half covered. After mixing generous amounts of earth with our hot compost, various herbs were plated and then covered with saw dust.

We have White sage, Melissa, Thyme, and many others. If you are passionate about permaculture and want to learn more, let us know! 

Volunteer life at Jiwa Damai

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Dave from the US and Bernardo from Brazil, our volunteers at Jiwa Damai were getting ready for the local Barong festival in our village Banjar Bindu. In order to enter the temple they had to wear a Sarong, just purchased in the market. One of our kitchen fairies, Nyoman showed them how to wrap it properly.

Find our more about our internship and volunteer program here. 

Our first organic market in Banjar Bindu

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We held our first organic market in Banjar Bindu. The focus was to educate about health and healthy food. Therefore, we had a power point presentation which ran nonstop featuring pictures of healthy and unhealthy foods, a great choice of wonderfully fresh organic produce. It was held by our four volunteers, from Brazil, Spain and the US.

The special attraction was the 20 Min Thai Massage given by Bernardo, our Brazilian volunteer. 
 

Find out more about our activities here!