The Bamboo Hut

Current Location: The Bamboo Hut, SE Grenada

This one is for all you budding eco-home builders.

We’ve just spent two nights in our friend Paul’s temporary living structure, otherwise known as his bamboo hut. Paul’s dad was black Grenadian, his mother white British. He was born and brought up in the East End of London, neither white nor black. He had a hard childhood. But he became a BBC documentary maker before returning to Grenada, the land of his father. Here he sells LED lights to locals and mega yacht owners alike. He is an unusual and fascinating man and a super person. He has also lived in Stroud, close to the flat we have recently purchased and is a performer at Stroud’s annual Fringe (I think that is its name).

When Paul discovered we had several nights to spend aboard Petronella he said “that’s hot and dusty with lots of mosquitoes. Come and stay in my bamboo hut instead”. So we did.

The hut is his retreat from the village where he has his main home. He spends around 3 nights every two weeks there. We arrived via a 10 minute red, muddy, slippery slope on friend Jenny’s land. At the bottom of the hill, in the rain forest, was the hut. Made from local bamboo this was his second attempt. The first one was quickly attacked by termites because the bamboo had been cut on a waxing moon rather than a waning one. This meant that the sap was still in the bamboo which in turn attracted the termites which in turn ate his house. It only lasted a few months!

The Hut - first impressions

Bamboo hut with raw material growing in the background

Mossie net in the bedroom

It’s beautiful down there but far from quiet. The river was quite high and as night fell the tree frogs started to shout too. And then the fire flies came out to play. Some orange and permanently lit up, others white and flashing. Then in the middle of the night the rain started and the noise was deafening. By the time it stopped the river was roaring and Gill got up to make sure we were not about to get washed away.

Construction

The view upstream

The view downstream

Time for a cup of tea

Surprisingly there very few mossies up here even though everything was damp and either growing or dying. You can happily walk around barefoot (and bare everything else if you wish). The ground is soft and covered in decaying vegetation. As in the rest of the Caribbean there were not many animals. The islands are nearly all volcanic and very recent in geological terms so there just hasn’t been enough time for animals to colonise. There are a few monkeys higher up but no snakes and very few mammals except mongeese. Lots of lizards and iguanas though. It is just a fabulous place to be. For two days we had no jobs to do. We simply swam, lazed around, read a few kindle books and did some puzzles. I spent half an hour standing in the water doing the washing up after breakfast, which included freshly picked bananas. We made a fire which was absolutely hopeless at cooking our sweet corn and squash but it didn’t really matter.

Nightime approaches

Time for bed

Skinny dipping

The fire that never was

On the evening of the second day Paul and Jenny came to visit us for cheese and biscuits together with some of Jenny’s freshly made juice drink and her menagerie of rescue dogs. We put the world to rights which was remarkably very simple and straight forward to do in a beautiful place with beautiful people.

Paul - mastermind of the hut

Jenny with one of her rescue dogs

As well as the bamboo structure itself, which consists of a bedroom/kitchen and balcony Paul has all services laid on. Water comes from the stream – you just take a pan down to gather water for cooking or jump in for a wash or a swim. Electricity is generated by a small solar panel that sits on the roof and feeds a yellow controller/battery. Into this box you can plug up to 6 LED light bulbs and two USB connectors. There is also a flashlight function. Sewage is managed via a high tech hole in the ground with a concrete block surmounted by a wooden seat and surrounded by a couple of bamboo screens. Actually it’s not high tech at all. Apparently if we had some wool and bits of coconut we could have caught crawfish in the river. But we didn’t, so we couldn’t.

Toilette - au naturelle

The beating heart of the electrical distribution system

Solar Panel

 But by this morning we had to return to the boat so we carted everything back up the even slipperier slope back to Jenny’s wonderful house at the top of the hill before she drove us back to the boatyard. Two days in a wondrous environment. Perhaps an eco-house will be our next big project someday.