Next phase?

In early November I'm heading down to Anapra, Mexico, which is Northwest of Juarez, which is just over the border from El Paso, TX. While I'm there I'm going to be involved with building an addition to a medical clinic. It will be built with strawbales and pallets.

The strawbales will be the exterior walls. The pallets will be used to build interior walls and roof trusses.

I think strawbale is a wonderful way to build simple, decent housing that can be very energy efficient.

The trip is being organized by the World Hands Project who I found out about from Builders Without Borders, which is run out of the Black Range Lodge in Kingston, NM.

I'm hoping that my time in Mexico will give me a good understanding of what I want to do next and where I will go to do it.

Some things that I'm thinking about are going to Central/South America to study Spanish and live with the people for a while, heading down to the New Orleans/Mississippi area and helping with the rebuilding, heading to New Mexico and study straw bale housing and other eco-building possibilities.

I've had a desk-type job for the past year, and I realize that desk jobs are not that fun for me. I like physical work and thinking about more efficient ways to do it. Sometimes, I just want to work hard and have no efficiency involved. As it is now, I sit still a lot of the time and don't do much more than stare at a computer screen.