SPCC A Casa Amarela

Well...apparently, yes, they can!!

Just got two more hitchhikers telling me the others are hitchhiking back here. Madness again. And hopefully, working-madness again.

The last time they were here, one bunker got cleaned and a pool-garden construction started. Also, i got a lot of comments like: "This is amazing", "I'm in love with this place", "This feels like family", so i guess overall we are making it work. I couldn't be happier with the results

I'm just curious to clear out something: Most residents are out (specially the loud ones), only me, J and S) and i wonder if that takes some effect in the house, being helping the house to get to this stage or not.

Now...let's just wait for the 2nd part of the invasion *plays the imperial march*

<3

after the hitchhiker craze (which still has some aftershocks, like the guy that showed up in the middle of the night and left running some hours later), work has been flowing nicely thanks to D and our new HelpXer. HelpXers, even when just passing by, have a much better work ethic than couchsurfers (seems obvious, doesn't it?). the fact that now the house has 6 people, 5 workers has made it much better to stay and live in. guests are more and more saying things like "feels like home" and "feels cozy". it only gets this way because people clean and work for it permanently. besides that, raves and parties are going on without fights, just interesting, happy conversations and good mood.

but the main thing is that our new culture of work makes people want to work, makes everyone more creative, and makes the freeloaders feel awkward. not that it makes freeloaders work (good luck with that) but it does offset that behavior and makes it marginal, not the main feel of the house.

D is going crazy workaholic, so they're building a pool out in the back, and they want to build a garden all over the place. we definitely need more soil to green up the place.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we're getting a couple of hitchhikers for the gathering, i expect more to come, since the gathering is this coming weekend in sines.

the new lounge outside is turning out amazing. people now gather outside, in the front of the building, and we're back to the escotilha8/nomad base feel. yesterday we had about 10 people from all over: Serbia, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Estonia and the US. we are now succeeding in creating a loving, giving environment for travelers. everyone is happy, sharing and contributing positively to the community.

it's been a tough ride, but now we're getting there. people really are shallow. prettying up a place changes everything. making cleaner toilets, nicer walls, fancy cane constructions, makes people feel less afraid i think. only a few can visualize the potential in their heads. most people get stuck on small things and that was a big hurdle to jump over.

also, the next door company has been closing down the plot of land because of all the people dumping shit there. i don't know whether that is warning us of something or just making our situation better. fact is someone destroyed one of the road blocks, so we're back to the trucks dumping shit every day. sometimes it's good, we get new stuff to work with every day

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

our new sub woofer works great, but i think our PA is overheating. we're now pushing the 600W of music on the 2nd floor successfully. the party was great, as usual, so i think we'll host them regularly now. we also got T's laptop to work as a full DJ system, so we're set. the audio out is good enough for our purposes (48000Hz 32bit)

daniel and a new random guest (out of a hitchhiking forum) have been busy. daniel designed a very organic flow to give shade in the front of the building. it looks amazing, all built from string and cane. overall budget maybe about 20€.

our solar system is perfect now. we can use everything we need. we'll see how it works once the rest of the residents come and start using it more.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

i went a little crazy and got the house a new 160AH battery (Lead acid), produced locally by a Portuguese company (Autosil). we now have full electricity all day / night (depending on consumption). all i need to know now is whether we can keep adding batteries to the system, or if doing so will fuck it up.

also, week end party for the non profit i've been a part of for the last 3 years.

plus new damaged solar cells for a full 100W panel. i'll be starting it today, and working on the speakers for saturday.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

I uploaded some photos of the making of the solar panels. Soon J will post an article explaining how to make your own solar panel and save some money!

Probably today i'm going to make the last details on the chill out before the INDUSTRIALPT party. Tomorrow i'll add the photos from the chill out too.

<3

Wha..what?

Yesterday at probably 14h or around that we saw 2 police cars plus a normal car in front of our building looking really nervous with their guns up.

2 of them went in forcing the entry, and they went up with their guns pointing everywhere, including us. I just asked "Good afternoon, what's the prpblem?" The cop just asked me really nervous if i saw a naked man, pushing shopping cart with a shot gun. What the fuck?? haha The cop seamed really worried about the naked man and nervous. I told him that we sometimes use the shopping carts to transport big stuff around. I asked my Austrian guests if they were using the shopping carts this morning with a shotgun and they started laughing, because they found a playing gun.

We took the cops downstairs (they were still nervous by this time haha), and the austrian guest showed them this TINY LITTLE playing gun that was BLUE AND GREY!!!! As soon as i saw the gun, i started laughing, because it didn't resemble a shotgun by ANY chance. The look on the cops face was saying "Shit..." all over.

In total they were 8 cops. Funniest moment of the day.

On another note, past two nights were great! We are getting (finally) those laughter and multicultural moments with our traveling guests. Finally the house has the perfect setting to make people comfortable, interested, motivated, available to sharing, etc. Last night they made a camping fire outside. It was cool. Not only we had couchsurfers, but also some kids that live near by, and also Harald joined us with 2 of the 11 babies from China. I am really happy to see that happening again.

JJ did (again) an awesome job with the DIY solar panels. They look pretty neat because he used some transparent acrylic sheets. Also Teddy and Mara have one spare battery from an old car, and they might give us to had to the solar system.

Our questionnaire system is working pretty fine. My austrian guests are really excited and working really hard.

The freeshop is ready. Since we are going to have a party for INDUSTRIALPT in the next 31/07 i'm not going to work on the internet point and the screening place for the movies, because we will need space for the dance floor.

<3

last night we had a long-missed multicultural spontaneous party, bringing back many memories from the past. i missed falling asleep to the sound of laughter, music and silliness. thanks to a lot of freecycled alcohol from the festival (super bock super rock, thanks Teddy & Mara), it got everybody's spirits up. it's a sign that we're finally succeeding in creating a welcoming traveler community like we wanted.

i also successfully finished and installed my first home made solar panel. even though it could output about 100W, i think it will hardly go that far, since i didn't have enough tabbing wire and used very thin copper wire instead, and the cells were very damaged. i measured the resistance and it's high for cable standards. that means current won't be as high, and may even fry the cable. i really enjoyed using acrylic sheets though, and loved the look of a fully transparent solar panel. i'll write a proper story on how to make solar panels soon, but you can google it, it's really easy. it just takes a lot of time (it took me about 12h for a 100W panel). we now need more batteries for the battery bank.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we're starting some cane constructions but our first tryout failed. we're planning some cane structures to make the front of our building look nicer. other than that, same old. the dutch guests brought two austrian guests that are really into building stuff, and want to build our windmill. just the other day they were building stuff out of all the bones.

our chapito guests have been there a lot, and are excited about the possibilities, but are beginning to hit the same wall we did: electricity and cooling. their power requirements are much higher than ours, so in their case i suspect a generator would be the best, maybe a modified diesel one to run on DIY diesel.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

Yeah, the title is cliché, but it's true! Tipping point again!

Problems here is that Punks here are the majority. So they built up a little tribe. That little tribe brought us some consequences:

- They are dirty and messy. I mean REALLY DIRTY AND MESSY. I'm the only idiot that cleans (now with the help of A, our italian guest from CS) J is working his ass of all day to put food on the table, beer, set up energy, plumbing, etc.
- What does a punk does when he is alone or in a group of different people? He puts is headphones and shakes his head to the sound of his music. What does 4 punks do when they are with 2 persons that don't like punk music? They will take over your sound system, put it in max volume. Now imagine how our CS guests feel when they are in this situation where you can't barely hear your thoughts, and every single one of the punks ignores you and continues to speak in portuguese. CS guest is going to feel outcast, and runs to the next internet point to get a new couch if he arrives during the day, because if he arrives during the night, he puts up with it a leaves next morning.
- Only one of the punks doesn't have a dog. I have one. And O and R adopted more two not-house-trained puppies, and they actually don't look after them. That means we have 6 shitting machines with 4 legs each walking around the building. Kikas and Durga, are puppies, as well as the new adopted ones, which means that they shit more, and are still learning to hold themselves. Xunguita and Kaos are bigger, but they sneak out the hosting floor to shit somewhere else. I'm the only idiot reprehending my dog, when she shits inside the building. But...what about the other 5 dogs? Yeah..shit all over the place anyway. Now imagine a soccer player, when he is trying to go through another team player with the ball. Right, that's how you need to walk in these stairs. Every single guests is starting to feel uncomfortable and he's only on the stairs...

In my birthday i cleaned all of the stairs. I said: "It's the last time i'm cleaning this shit alone. When you see shit, pick it up and clean right away!". My b-day was on the 3rd. 10 days after...nothing done. Every single shit on the floor was there, pilling up along with pee. ENOUGH! I cleaned everything with M's help (a guest from north of portugal, that realized what was happening sooner, and changed his behavior).

Punks came "aww we were going to clean that tomorrow". FUCK OFF!!

Next day in the morning, i sat in the living room waiting for everyone to wake up.

I started with something like "Fuck off, i'm not your mom, maid nor this is a hotel". I was rough on them. I had to. I told them that:

- they are lazy, dirty, selfish. Arrogants towards mine or J's guests just because they are not part of the same "tribe".
- they didn't worked a third of what me and J worked for this project and this house, they didn't even helped with the start of it. We are not going to allow them to impose their dirty, messy, and loud lifestyle. Our basic principle here is that you need to RESPECT THAT DUDE THAT IS SITTING NEXT TO YOU AND HIS SPACE. I don't care if they have a fucking pile of shit in their room, as long as it doesn't smell in my room or the communal areas of the house.
- They were all warned in the first day they came what was the project of the house, and how it's managed. They had the choice to not stay with us if they don't agree with these facts.
- They are not allowed to take over the partys with their drunk punk friends, change the fucking music to fucking punk AGAIN, leave it all a mess for me and A to clean up.
- They act like arrogants towards our friends and CS guests, just because they don't have a fucking mohawk and spikes covering their clothes. They ignore them all the time, and make them feel outcasts.
- Dumpster diving is not enough to state reciprocity in their relationship with the community. Dumpster diving it's cool, you can save some money, but the most expensive things like a bottle of 5l of olive oil (8euros) is J that pays, and it last for a week or so. Also, most of the things they are not good to eat when we don't have a fridge.
- They are having this attitude because they have everything for free in this house. If they don't buy food or recycle, J buys it. If there's no booze, J buys it. Goes on with, gas for the stove, internet, electricity (solar system supported by J only) and even DOG FOOD!!! We are on the second bag of 20kgs of dog food, and nobody gave J any money for it and he doesn't have a dog!! So basically they are FUCKING FREELOADING!!!
- If not comfortable with these facts they can always leave. If their behavior doesn't change, they have to find somewhere else to start their own squat. Although i love them, and know that their are great people, we can't allow them to push back the evolution of our project, just "because".

I also asked, before i started the conversation, to everyone if they ever started a squat. Most of them started, but none ended one. That says pretty much everything, at least for me.

In 2h fucking miserable hours, they built the stage they where planning to do for MONTHS. At the same time, they did everything they do everyday: Drink beer and whine, smoke joint, talk and laugh. After that, they thanked me for open up their eyes to their attitude.

I had this conversation with them, along with J, several times. None of them was so rough like this one. This also puts me in a situation that i don't like. I really HATE to do this. I would prefer just to see people acting normal, and working just because i stand up and work everyday, or even better because they want to participate.

Let's see how it goes like this.

<3