Volunteers at Jiwa Damai

A wonderful volunteer group with incredible supportive skills. Evan from Australia, giving much love and knowledge to our garden, Iseult from France, supporting with her graphic skills improvement on the website, Lulu from Brazil, introduces many wonderful recipes how to prepare cassava from her Brazilian cooking heritage. Our Chilean fairy, filming and producing four wonderful videos, last not least Boris from Bulgaria, working though our website and company structure. A great group.

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If you would like to join us as a volunteer, find out more. 

Awan Damai Earthship building work in progress

May we introduce our glass bottle bricks? The bottles are cut in half and the two bottom half taped together. A beautiful way to later create a great glass wall in various colors to let the light come in. They will reflect the sunlight beautifully. At this stage we are cutting about 500 bottles and maybe more.

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If you would like to join us as a volunteer, let us know at jiwadamaibali@gmail.com

Motorcycle gang at Jiwa Damai

What a surprise! On Indonesian National Independence Day, Margret found this motorcycle gang parked in the Jiwa Damai parking lot:  a huge number of heavy motorcycles with the accompanying drivers as well. Rasio Bali group which is connected all over the island.

Wondering why they were parked here, we tried to find out their purpose as well. After much back and forth talk, they were willing to offer support if needed for our educational and social foundation, Lagu Damai. They stressed that they support good causes and if we let them know they will support ours and we can also support theirs.

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Join our Earthship inspired build

Kevin, our Project manager from Australia with Mattheo a young and enthusiastic architect from New Jersey, USA. Both are standing at Awan Damai in front of our makeshift kitchen. This is their 3rd day in the mountains and they feel that they are adjusting well. Since it is winter right now in the southern hemisphere, the nights are quite cool, even cold.

At this time until we have more volunteers arriving by next month, they are doing their own  cooking. Later on, one of our kitchen fairies from Jiwa Damai permaculture garden and retreat center will take care of their nourishment. Of course vegetarian and organic cooking.

If you would like to join them and the Earthship inspired build, read more details here!

Goodbye celebration

Lukas and Analee are leaving and they gifted us with the most wonderful divine chocolate mousse cake for their goodbye celebration. This was their last evening Jiwa Damai. We are so grateful for their presence and wish them all the best in their new life. They will get married in the USA. We wish them lots of love!

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Our residential cat, Orchid

Our resident cat, Orchid loves to be petted and lives in the garden Lumbung. She's very good friends with our guests, volunteers and interns.

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Garden visit

Another lovely visit form an International School in Bali to our permaculture gardens.

These young ones, ranging form 7-11 years were extremely interested in our gardens and especially all the animals they encountered during the garden walk. Butterflies, Tokes, all kinds of lizards and some of our beautiful birds, like the kingfisher, which resides here.

Opening a coconut, trying the meat of the coconut, cacao fruit, tasting basil and mint and then enjoying for lunch a banana pancake with cinnamon and honey. This was topped with a dip in our pool. Everyone left joyful and very happy. We really enjoy having young people discovering our garden.

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International school visiting Jiwa Damai

We received students form the International School of Canggu. 12 youths from 12-14 and 2 teachers wanted to learn more about  where their food is coming for. They were very interested in our gardens. From trying cacao beans fresh from the tree to each planting a set of pepper seedlings after mixing the soil with sand and sawdust and compost, to trying to open a coconut, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. So did we. A powerpoint presentation about healthy and unhealthy foods, a healthy lunch and an after lunch swim complimented the visit. It is so wonderful to see our young people interested and quite knowledgable about heir food and health.

The beautiful creature of our gardens

Our long time volunteer Lucas found this beautiful creature in our gardens. Is it going to be a butterfly, or will it remain like this? Its emerald green color is so impressive.

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A gift that kept on giving

Arabella was our volunteer from Amsterdam. She stayed at Jiwa Damai for 5 weeks and shared with us her enthusiasm and positive energy. After her program was over we wanted to share with you her story because we found it genuinely inspiring.

„Previously, I worked as a project manager and marketing consultant at an advertising agency in Amsterdam. But I had a wake up call after travelling the world and hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, I shifted my career with a focus on sustainability and circular economy, and started working at Blue City in Rotterdam.

One of the reasons I do wwoofing and came to Jiwa Damai in Bali, is to learn from nature and reconnect. And also work with the context and come up with possible solutions within that context.

I found this quote by Antoine Lavoisier very intruiging... "In nature nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes.”

During the 5 weeks I worked on several projects; restarting the mushroom project, shaping the compost areas, seeding and transplantation, organizing the seedbank and planning a family veg garden as an empowerment project with the purpose of making them less dependant on external sources.

My time at Jiwa Damai was wonderful and so much more then just a wwoof experience. It was a gift that kept on giving. The place is magical with endless (sometimes hidden) learning opportunities and the possibillity for cultural exchange.” Arabella, our volunteer from Netherlands.