Organic cooking at Jiwa Damai

One of the activities we offer to our guests is taking part in a cooking class with our Balinese cook. From our Balinese cook you will learn about local dishes and ingredients, pick vegetables in our garden and learn how to prepare the dish. We mostly use fresh organic veggies from our permaculture garden.

This is the recipe for our chicken dish. You'll need the following ingredients: Chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, lemon grass, salt, pepper and oil.

These ingredients are all mixed together and ground. The chicken is plugged into very small pieces, only the white meat is used. The tiny chicken pieces are  tossed into the uncooked herbal mixture and well mixed. Its taste  is utterly delicious. The chicken is served with rice and veggies.

Cooking

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Organic food

Permaculture Design Certification Course

Permaculture Design Certification Coursewith Rico Zook and Jeremiah Kidd This is an intensive 17-days seminar, including hands-on experience in the gardens at Jiwa Damai.

The seminar takes place from Febuary 24 – March 12, 2013.

Learn how to develop sustainable systems which can be applied to all aspects of life through the observation and replication of natural patterning We will learn how to create regenerative systems that provide for our basic needs without compromising the environment. Using a variety of learning techniques and strategies. Permaculture is presented as an integrated design approach to create a sustainable human habitat. We present an innovative approach through modeling the structure of Permaculture directly in the environment. The topics are presented through lectures, design approaches, guest presentations, group discussions, exercises, hands-on projects, photos, movies, games, and site visits.

Mandala garden

Topics will include, gray water systems, appropriate technology, composting and nutrient cycling, water harvesting and storage, food forests and jungle gardens, natural building, alternative economics, aquaculture and mapping. Our international faculty brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the program.

Gartenarbeit

Rico Zook has been for the past 20 years a Permaculture designer, consultant and instructor, working with private individuals, farmers, villagers and local organizations to create culturally and environmentally appropriate life systems internationally. www.ipermaculture.orgJeremiah Kidd’s passion is education in Permaculture, natural building and alternative technologies which began in the late1980’s. In 2000 he established San Isidro Permaculture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a design and installation company focused on water catchment, permaculture education, grey water systems, native and edible plant landscapes, erosion control & land restoration. www.sipermaculture.com

Venue: Jiwa Damai Permaculture and Retreat Center is located on a four hectare property next to Banjar Bindu, Mambal in the district of Badung, Bali, in a small tropical valley. The flora and fauna are diverse, including coconut, and banana trees, ponds, a small river, plants and a jungle that is home to numerous traditional Balinese healing plants.

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The course fee includes room at Jiwa Dimai retreat center, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, optional morning yoga, and optional morning meditation. Two optional field trips to other Permaculture centers on the island are planned and can be reserved and paid when registering. All participants will be awarded a internationally recognized Permaculture Design Certificate.

Fee: International Students: US $ 928.00 Indonesian Students: please contact host for tuition info.

Contact: Phone :+62 (0) 361 898 8384, www.jiwadamai.net info@jiwadamai.net

Registration: please visit our Website www.jiwadamai.netHousing: http://jiwadamai.net/upload/Accommodation_information_Permaculture_Course.pdfInstructors: http://jiwadamai.net/upload/PDFs/Permaculture_Course_instructors.pdf

Beautiful flowers

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Nature is just wonderful...

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Galungan Celebration on Bali

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For this years Galungan Celebration our head gardener Ketut built together with two of our volunteers the panjor which is erected at the entrance gate to Jiwa Damai.

A huge Bamboo is cut and then decorate with all details along the stem and the top. A little alter is created to give offerings to the gods. The panjor remains put  for 3 weeks and looks very wonderful.

Penjor

Tradition demands, that each house in the village  places one in front of their entrance.

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Soul, the Jiwa Damai Baby

Baby

This is Soul, the first child born at Jiwa Damai. This picture is taken in Jiwa Damai at age 1 month.

The bay was born in a natural underwater birth, so called Lotus birth, where the placenta remains attached until it dries up by itself, which happened the second day after the birth. The Mom was assisted by her husband and Ibu Robin, a famous Balinese midwife.

In this picture one of our volunteers is taking care of the one month old Soul at Jiwa Damai.

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Here, Margret is visiting Miquela and Soul, which had grown tremendously for age 4 months, in upstate New York.

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Bokashi Balls Permaculture on Bali

Some months ago we had to drain and repair our pond at Jiwa Damai, due to several leaks that caused the water to flow out. http://jiwadamaibali.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/restoring-our-pond/

After we had to rebuilt our high pond, the water quality left to be desired. Emptying the pond, we had lost all the EM which had settled in the nooks and crannies of all the stones. In order to get back to the old clear water we now treat the water with liquid EM (effective microorganisms). Each day a few drops dripping in, slowly but continuously.

The Bokashi Balls are made of clay and EM.

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The microorganisms like to settle between certain type of stones.So we distributed about 500 balls, all handmade under the stones in the water to allow the organisms to settle again. It reduces the moskitoes as well as keeps the algae growth in limits.

Bokashi Balls

So now we hope to welcome back the diverse aquatic life and beautiful water lily’s!

Our pond before the drain

Jiwa Damais Guardian

Margret

Margret at Jiwa Damai permaculture and retreat center, where she takes care of all aspect of managing, running and expanding the gardens as well as supervising the teamwork .

Permaculture garden expansion

A whole new area is being integrated into our permaculture gardens. We are adding to our planting area another 2.000 square meters.The area is being terassed, turned over, covered with rice straw, covered again with earth mixed with our special compost and then planted.

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Presently we have 4 people working on the new fields every afternoon. We should be able to begin planting the first seeds wihtin the next week. Two large tanks will be placed on the downward slope to allow the water to run in the waterways naturally without any further aid.

On this picture you can see the beginning of the creation of our garden labyrinth.

new gardens_JD

Fire place for ceremonies

The latest addition to out retreat center Jiwa Damai is a  fire place for spiritual rituals and ceremonies. The fire place is being constructed close to our little water angel island in the back of the garden. One wall is composed of local large pebbles. The floor will be made out of stone and grass.

Fire place (1)

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Once the floor is done, we will place 12 large stones to sit in a circle, with the fire pit in the center. We choose this area for the fire place, because all thebig  trees are situated in good distance and a fire does not damage any trees or leaves above.

Fire place

River bank erosion control

During the last very strong rainy season lots of damage was done on our premise at Jiwa Damai.  The heavy rainfalls caused lots of erosion, especially at the banks of the small river which is flowing through the permaculture gardens. We had to take care of this erosion and stabilize the river banks. To reduce the powerful impact of the torrentious rains on our lands, we reinforced the borders of the river with sand bags.

Wira, Maha, Suecha and one of our volunteers, Fred from Canada, are doing this extremely demanding heavy work of shoveling the river sand into bags and placing it on the banks. Eventually there will be four layers of sand bags on top of each other.

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erosion

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