In July 2001 Becky Bee had a wonderful adventure teaching a cob workshop in Puerto Quito, Ecuador. It was a true natural building experience. We had a sick car and virtually no $. We had no tools except for an Ecuadorian hoe, a shovel, 3 precious buckets and a few tarps.

We flagged down a truck and they helped us get a big load of round river rocks nearby, which we used to fill old tires from the dump for the foundation. . We were lucky to find sand and clay nearby to haul to the site in buckets and we cut the grass stalks from a neighbors field with machetes for straw. Water too was hauled in buckets.

73 people mostly from Ecuador and Columbia gathered to share life stories,to drum, laugh and learn to make a cob cooking stove and kitchen counters and shelves and a big salamander shaped cob couch underneath a palm thatch roof. Many languages were spoken at the workshop Spanish, Native Ecuadorian languages, English, Danish, German with a lot of ESP and magic mixed in.

Ecuador is a warm friendly country with a huge biodiversity extending from the Pacific to 19,000 foot peaks and back down to the Amazon basin. They use US dollars and it was inexpensive to travel, lodge and eat there.