“No fake chicken news!”

 

Special Note: We are trying to backfill photos and videos. Please keep scrolling back, as our internet sketchiness makes things happen a bit inconsistently . . .

January 14, 2026

We slept hard last night. Some of us think that there was no snoring; some of us think we were so tired we didn’t notice; some of us say there was lots of snoring. Oh well, there was sleep. 

We got up and out faster than ever, especially because we are aware that our time is running short. We are suddenly committed to really seeing these projects through as far as we can possibly get them. We know going in that we have to be aware that the projects belong to the community, as do the timelines. That means that if things are half done when it’s time for us to leave, so be it. But . . . we are close enough on each of our three main projects that we believe with just a little extra cranking, we can get them to a pretty good place. 

In the children’s area (which we call “the Tink Tink Tink” because of the sound made when you set a brick for real), the walls for the various subareas are nearly complete. The actual mason will have to cut in some little filler bricks that are well beyond our skill level. There will be a layer of plaster that covers all of the bricks and mortar and then it will all be painted. We might not be able to get all the way to that final step, but we seem to be on the verge of laying out the toys in the children’s area to see how that space might look when it is all done. 

While at the Tink Tink Tink, Jesse got tapped to DJ again, so he started playing classic American music, including Willie Nelson, the Eagles, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, and more. Wherever we were in the community, we could hear his song choices ringing out through the (slightly tinny?) loudspeakers attached to the radio feed. We realized that we were getting a taste of life from days gone by, as we were all hearing the same thing, rather than individuating in headphones as is our normal practice now. We doubt that this experience will become a new practice for us, but we certainly recognized that in certain ways, we’ve been missing out. 

In the garden, we laid out some new garden beds using scrap wood from other projects that have now been dismantled. Joelma found some viable plants inside the garden area and then went and dug up some others in the surrounding forest, including strong variations of basil, mint, and cumin, among others. Some of these plants are used medicinally, and once re-established can be part of the “living pharmacy” that the DIRT group of 2020 helped build. The pharmacy and the rest of the garden can also be part of the community tours that include the fish farm, the fish food factory, the beekeeping operation, and the ecotourism camp in which we stay. 

While collecting the scrap wood, we realized that some of the saplings that DIRT groups had bagged in years gone by are now huge starts that could still be transplanted into other areas. We might be able to identify them, free them from the plot they are in, organize them, and distribute them for transplanting. We hope so. 

At the chicken coop, we made huge progress. A small but mighty team joined with Junio to re-roof the structure. We made sure that some women got involved, to help us meet our agreement that says “Jobs have no gender.” We want to make sure that all roles are shared by everyone who is willing and able, particularly those jobs that have big impacts, like those that include use of power tools often do. The roof didn’t involve power tools, but it involved ladders and hammering skills that we wanted all of us to learn. We “nailed” it. (Har de har har.) By lunch, we had about half of the roof up. It will probably take into tomorrow to finish that job. 

At lunch, Junio and others joined us and we started to review the completion plans for the projects. When we got to the chicken coop, Junio said that they thought it would be a good idea to bring in chickens belonging to one of our friend Audair’s sisters so that we could take pictures of the chicken coop as if it were in action. Shawny was having none of it. Though neither Jesse nor Sofia was in range, she started arguing (while smiling and laughing) in Portuguese that we want the real chickens to be in the real coop, assuming that there were people willing to care for them. They assured us that people would care for them. So Shawny said that we would not go for some pretend arrangement if we could have the real thing. Then, out of nowhere, Junio yelled out – in English – “No Fake News!” We cracked up and Shawny yelled back, “No Fake Chicken News!” Junio picked up the word “chicken” right away and kept calling out “No fake chicken news! No fake chicken news!” It’s our slogan for the day. 

Junio and Joelma said that someone would have to go to a different community, Maparí, to get them. Shawny and Jesse used to routinely go to Maparí to post the blog in past years, as there is a cell signal that reaches across the river there that made it possible. They just sat out in chairs in the sand uploading things, but that’s what it took before the sometimes-on/sometimes-off signals came to Anã itself. One or both of them will go to Maparí in the coming days to secure some chickens to restart the community coop here in Anã. “No fake chicken news” indeed. More on this soon. 

After lunch we headed toward the garden but went just past it to learn about the beekeeping operation in the community. Years ago, one of the families found a way to lure stingless bees from the rainforest into some homemade hives in their yard. Their operation grew and even though the original beekeeper has moved away from the community, they continue to cultivate the bees, especially to use the honey medicinally. They rub it on insect bites and scrapes/cuts of all kinds. The honey itself is a little thinner and more sour than what we are used to seeing in California grocery stores, so we are unlikely to find ourselves using it in the ways that we normally would use it there. Still, several of us have purchased some so maybe you will get a chance to taste it soon!

We went back to two of our worksites (not the Tink Tink Tink) and kept making quick progress on the coop roof. The ridge cap is going to be a special project in itself but apart from it, we think we are about 60% done with tiling the roof. That’s not bad for one day’s work, and we’ve learned a few tricks that will hopefully help tomorrow go even more smoothly. 

In the garden, we created ten new beds that we think we will start planting tomorrow. There weren’t enough nails to connect them, so we fashioned stakes out of the scrap wood and drove them into the ground to hold up the walls of the boxes. Hopefully, Joelma will be able to secure donations from community members to help generate more starts for the new beds. We also learned that some of the saplings among the trees are ipe, which is a highly desirable wood that is somewhat fast-growing. Junio thinks that several community members would welcome new trees, so we hope to be involved in distributing them. 

At the end of the long workday, we had promised some of the local kids that we would swim with them, so we went right down to the river and did just that. We think that it is going to rain tonight, so we have gathered up all of the laundry that covered the lines and we hope that whatever wasn’t dry will get that way somehow under the cover of the laundry area’s thatched roof. 

We had three world premieres tonight (that’s what we call our videos when we are watching them for the first time) because we got backed up in viewing them over the last couple of days. We don’t post them for you until we have watched them together. For our reflection, we talked about gains that we have made here that we are sure we will take back to our lives at home. We talked about practicing patience, embracing chaos, trusting ourselves in unexpected social situations, choosing simplicity, finding beauty in the mundane, and focusing on happiness. 

We then turned to the Order of the Purple Bike and its next inductee: Lily. Lily is one of the happiest, sunniest people any of us will ever meet. She exudes joy, mostly because she lives in a state of joy. She offers affirmations to all of us that make us feel better about ourselves and all that we are doing. She got assigned to a less-than-thrilling work assignment over the last few days (cleaning around the masonry work in the Tink Tink Tink) and found a way to love every minute of it. She developed special affection for chisels and started wielding them in both hands to clear dropped concrete from the tile floors on which we were working. She was a bit under the weather a few days ago, but even then she kept a positive attitude as we tried different interventions to get her up to speed again. We have also learned that she is a slave to her schedule when at home, booking every minute of the day for maximum productivity. Here, there is no way to be that organized. She has succeeded at finding a way to embrace the chaos, which is a fundamental quality that comes from being a DIRTy. We are grateful to have Lily among us, especially as she is completing her college career with this course. Lucky us!

Taylor passing a roof tile up to Gianni and Isabelle on the roof of the chicken coop.

Our friend Luciano posing on top of the roof.

Audair showed us one of the bee boxes they keep in the community, we even got to taste the honey!

Gianni and James on the roof towards the end of our work day.

Team selfie after completing 80% of the roof!