Volunteers for an Earthship inspired structure!

We are planning to build the first Earthship inspired structure in Bali, in the beginning of 2016. Jiwa Damai is launching a call to action for all the people who have experience in sustainable building to join as volunteers.

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“The Earthship inspired structure model fits perfectly with our permaculture garden, recycling and taking care of the earth. It is an organic extension of our garden. We are searching for people interested in sustainable living and we offer them a unique experience at Jiwa Damai.”, states Margaret Rueffler, caretaker of Jiwa Damai, Organic Garden and Retreat.

Located in the heart of Bali, Jiwa Damai provides sanctuary in an idyllic, powerful environment where volunteers can put to work their ideas and build the first Earthship in this region. Jiwa Damai is looking particularly for people who have an inner interest in sustainable living and ideally people who have attended the Michael Reynolds, Earthship Academy in Thaos and thus have prior knowledge and experience.

Besides the hands-on experience, Jiwa Damai will provide food and accommodation for the volunteers and also access to yoga classes and Meditation through the Heart.

If you are interested, drop us an email at  contact@jiwadamai.net

Fresh from our permaculture garden

Our permaculture garden brings joy every day! We discovered that tomatoes and hanging lantern go together very well.  Ow, and just have a look at that fresh salad! We are looking forward to dinner!

Permaculture Courses in Bali

Permaculture Courses in Bali

Permaculture Courses in Bali

If you want to grow your own vegetables, we invite you to discover the Jiwa Damai Permaculture Courses. The next one will take place in October: Living Permaculture Through the Heart!

Rice Straw for the Garden

Today we received several truck loads of rice straw and you can see our Balinese Team along with our volunteers working closely together and transporting the loads into the organic gardens to be used as mulch. When broken down in the rains, the straw offers a nutritious layer of top soil. Another very important function of the straw is to prevent the grass and weeds from growing in the garden beds. In our tropical climate this is a major challenge since the weeds grow throughout the whole year.

Wealth and abundance from our garden

In the basket you can see the wealth and abundance our permaculture garden offers us. The basket will go to our kitchen and we can nourish ourselves with organic high quality tomatoes, beans, kale, salad spinach, okra and other healthy goodies.

Permaculture courses Bali

Don’t forget to register for our Jiwa Damai permaculture courses. The next one will take place in October: Living Permaculture Through the Heart!

Permaculture courses Bali

Barong Festival

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In the banjar(village) of Wira, our Foundation president, many ceremonies unfolded these last few weeks. Here is our intern Natalie with the village ladies carrying the Barong, a type of a lion-dragon monster, through the whole village. In the next picture you'll see our Volunteer from New York dressed in traditional festival garb with Wira in the front of a beautifully carved door at Wira's home. Kevin being very tall, the sarong is a bit short on him.

EM made from scratch

Our permaculture garden is looking very rich and green at this time. We had more rains than normal and the veggies and salads and fruit are growing in abundance.

Our local team, Kadek, Gede, Fendy and our volunteer Cedric are carrying the rice straws to mulch the beds. Cedric had made some EM (effective micro-organism) from scratch and we are now looking at the difference between the beans with and without his brew. The first plants are without, the second with. We would say that the difference in height is quite visible. What do you think?

Permaculture Bali at Jiwa Damai

Permaculture Bali at Jiwa Damai

We kindly invite you to check our Jiwa Damai permaculture courses or internship programs in Bali in order to put your own ideas in practice!

Open House and Independence Day

We were happy to celebrate the Indonesian Independence Day with an Open House event at Jiwa Damaiin August. We know that it has been a while, but we want to share some of the images with you! Our team and their families began to come around 11 am. We used the pool until around 4 pm and plenty children games were organized.

Open House at Jiwa DAmai

We also offered an extensive Balinese buffet, for both meat eaters and vegetarian. One of the specialties the Balinese love is the babi guling, roasted pork. On the table there was also sate, chicken and tuna on skewers, several veggies as well as much salads and desserts.

Open House at Jiwa DAmai

The day was a great success.

Preparing the Jiwa Damai Open House

During August we celebrated the Jiwa Damai Open House day and we are happy to share now some of those moments.

Early morning balloon blowing in preparation for our Open House at Jiwa Damaifor our team and guests. They were given to the children of our local team members. It seems that the adults have much fun blowing them up as many were exploding as well :)

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Balinese Ceremonial Tools

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These precious tools, Melati and Balakas, are worn by Balinese males during festivities and are actually used as tools. They are passed down from father to son and are very valuable to the family.

Our intern ran the Bali Marathon

Natalie, our intern in psychology at Jiwa Damai is an officer in the German army and a great athletic woman. She ran the famous 21 km Marathon in Bali with over 5000 participants. Next week she will also go to Java to participate in the Mount Bromo Nationale park marathon. Congratulations Natalie!

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