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In the village of Tintinto, the Gambia, Africa, an eco-buildingproject is taking place.
An A-list team of builders and friends entered an exciting adventure. Bonnie Vooijs (owner,designer) and her friends in the Gambia are in on the project of building a house in ecostyle made out of car tires. Gambia's very own videoproducer Isaac Turay will capture the process on video.These clips, when ready, will be added to the website.
The actual build started in August 2011, after weeks of preparing, thinking and debating technical (im-)possibilities and designs. We are starting with an 8 x10 m U-shaped building. In the next few years we'll work on some more. We hope you enjoy our stories which will be updated frequently! 
In the village of Tintinto, the Gambia, Africa, an eco-buildingproject is taking place.
An A-list team of builders and friends entered an exciting adventure. Bonnie Vooijs (owner,designer) and her friends in the Gambia are in on the project of building a house in ecostyle made out of car tires. Gambia's very own videoproducer Isaac Turay will capture the process on video.These clips, when ready, will be added to the website.
The actual build started in August 2011, after weeks of preparing, thinking and debating technical (im-)possibilities and designs. We are starting with an 8 x10 m U-shaped building. In the next few years we'll work on some more. We hope you enjoy our stories which will be updated frequently!
Tunnelview
Febr, 20th '11: Drying in the sun again some roundshaped objects with a hole in the middle, but this time they are "tunnels" to be placed inside of the well, so it will be concreted. These tunnels are also handmade from a mold. We'll need app. 25-30 of them. They look so good, I thought to have some more made and leave them on the land, to make little ponds in them and see what habitats would grow naturally. Until I realized mosquitos like to place their eggs in still water and the Gambia has some severe types of malaria...Not a good idea 
Powered by
Since there's nothing here yet, apart from water from the well, I am going to need solar power for electricity or "light" as they call power here. The workers who are digging and cementing the well and installing the pump, were far ahead of me. Their little solar panel (on the left) charges their phones while they are working. Btw: I am actually in this picture myself. Also powered by the sun!
Trees
My neighbour Musa, a beekeeper, knows a lot about nature. Walking throuh the garden, he shows me what grows here and what its nutritional and medicinal values are. This tree is a Dembo Tree. "If you cut the bark and cook it in some water, it is a cure for diarrhea", he says. I am also very fortunate to have a Santang Tree. It was there all along! Its sap gives "churail", the best natural incense, to my opinion. It smells wonderfull and is used for special times, mainly in bedrooms.... Anybody know how to spell "churail", btw? Google says this spelling means "female ghost, spirit, jinn", a very scary one with red eyes...I wonder if it has anything to do with it?
Celebrity in the house
The house isn't finished yet, and already a national celebrity visited it! Meet Omar Mendy. Omar's band "Omar Mendy and the Yaagon Band" has a few clips on Youtube and his music videos are often shown at GRTS: Gambian tv . One I like in particular, is "Sunyaroke". The clip makes me happy instantly and the dancing is just amazing! Here it is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnnZaEkRZdM&feature=related I'm very happy that Omar is my friend. He's a nice, wise, creative man and a warm personality. He gave me some valuable ideas on the design of the rest of the building.
Jan. 24th 2012: The video is ready!
We proudly present: "Bonnie's Rubber House" THE VIDEO!: take a look at the videopage (in the submenu), or click on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESyfDbcbG8w&feature=youtu.be
Exciting: when does he hit water? Our estimation was that it would take 2 days of digging, then it became 3 days, 4 days.... and then yesterday: water! over 15 m deep!
Well, well
Jan. 12th 2012
Here, we're determining where the well 's going to be. It's amazing how Gambian's dig a well: hard work and all by hand.
Dec. 16th 2011
The house will have two double doors, one in the front, in the middle. The other one at the side, carefully designed to be placed there so at night it will be easy for the cooling breeze to find its way from the ocean straight to my bedroom.
Dec. 3rd 2011
The house will have two double doors, one in the front, in the middle, the other one at the side, carefully designed ot be placed there, so at night, it will be easy for the cooling breeze to find its way from the ocean to my bedroom.
The window and door openings were made. The walls are going to be plastered, so the tires, bottles and cans will be hidden. Next step: I'm flying back to the Gambia soon to decide some things for the next stage of the build.
Heavy!
Last row is being put up to the ring beam.
A Pigmee Kingfisher up in a tree. There was a couple around in the raining season, plunging into buckets filled with water,like kingfishers do, then flying back to their same favourite spots on the branch . Yes, just like the turquoise ones, but aren't these much more colourful ? To be honest, I was never very interested in birds, until I visited the Gambia (and took my real cool camera with me). The colours, variety and sounds are amazing.
New pictures!
November 10th '11 There are some more pictures in the album...tires going up to the roof, now we're 7 rows high. We had a little adversity: the roof peak had to be made higher to get the right angle to lay the grass that will eventually cover it (see below).
Picasso
The highest point from the centre of the floor up to the top peak of the roof measures 5.46 m.
Hmm.. might leave the plastic on, it's a nice colour blue. And it almost looks like a piece of art this way, doesn't it?
In the meantime...
The avocado tree is growing and still holding up pretty good between all those tires. I'm waiting for new pictures...Well, I hardly can...
Oct. 30th 2011
Although the builders are a bunch of strong men, the tires are too heavy to lift up by people. So the next rows, all the way up to the roof, have to be put up with some help. Meet Alieu, the Ironworker from Tujereng. He already did some more work on the building and now he makes us a tire pulley .
Oct. 22th 2011
Below you can see that the walls are made out of used car tires and bottles. Building with garbage is possible! And what does "garbage" mean, anyway? In the Gambia, people are used to recycle and sell their used bottles.5 Dalasi a piece. It's normal here to buy palm oil and delicious homemade drinks and fruit juices like Baobab juice, Wonjo and Mango juice in bottles that have had other purposes before.
Finally! The stacking of the tires. It's starting to look like a wall now...
Some tires need to be cut to fit around the concrete posts, so the walls can be filled up later on with tires, mix and bottles. That cutting is a hard job and it 's all done by hand. Again, I'm very proud and lucky to have this team of builders. These guys know their jobs.
Return to Sender
Progress of the building: I hear the stacking of the tire walls has started! Pictures will follow soon.... In the meantime I got so bored that I actually voluntarily did my administration and found something neat between the paperwork:
"Return to Sender" is a brand, sold by the HEMA in the Netherlands. It was founded by Katja Schuurman and promotes fair trade and produces sustainable products. Exactly my kind of thing. Today I sent in the leaflet that was attached to this little notebook that I got on my birthday. "Return to Sender" asks their costumers what they do with their products, in order to complete the good story that RtS has started.I hope they will tell our story on their website! I told them that this notebook travels back and forth with me to the Gambia and contains sketches and calculations of the tire house building project.Here a picture of a first sketch I made of the inside of the building.
Saturday Oct. 8th
Wow. Means "Yes" in Wollof. And "Wow" in Dutch and English. With every new batch of pictures it gets better and better. Greg found some beautiful rugged posts for the roof to land on. The frame is ready.More pictures added to the album today.
Drawing in the rain..just drawing in the rain..
Since the building is not as fast as it was before, because of circumstances caused by the wheather conditions I started doodling the house as it might look like when it's finished....
Mon. Sept. 26th:
And all that beautiful red wood is up! Like spokes on a cartwheel... The next thing: the roof will be covered by plastic, so the building of the walls can start. It's still the raining season and this gives me some more time to find the best grass to cover the house and the porch with.
Sept. 13th 2011
It is still the raining season in the Gambia and big rainstorms are affecting the country. Most of the time, the (non-solar) power is down and some more heavy storms are predicted even today.
Generally, finding dry, seasoned wood is a problem. Even in the raining season, Greg knows where to find it, though. Apart from this beautiful and strong red wood, he also found some rugged wooden poles today to sustain the grass roof. More pictures in the album. A request was that I make a separate album with the buidling pictures. This album will follow soon!
Sept. 8th 2011
The roof frame is coming up! And more tires were packed today. Very soon now, the walls will be stacked....
Tuesday Sept. 6th
Fresh pictures: the ringbeam's ready! And today,the guys have cleared the land again. After heavy rains, everything grew so quickly, weeds had to be removed again. In the album more pictures of the house and some trees: they planted avocado, orange,lime, banana, grapefruit trees today. I can already see myself have a tropical fruitdrink from my garden, sitting on the porch..mmmm
Generator
In order to use some powertools we need a generator. The plot of land is not connected to the grid, exactly what I wanted. Some things don't charge on solar power, though...
August 29th: Ringbeam
Concrete pillars and a ringbeam frame: some more pics in the album on how everything is made. After this, the walls will be stacked and a roof frame will come up. The house is going to have a porch all around the round side, covered by the roof. Here you see the dirt-pounded tires dry in the sun. What a beautiful day!
August 25th: pillars up
The concrete pillars are coming up: the concrete is drying today. We've had a little delay because of the heavy rains. In the middle of the raining season, the rains can last for a few days ! After the pillars, a ringbeam will be made. New pictures are added to the album, made by Isaac Turay Aug. 24th 2011
skills in the Gambia
Have you seen "Spuiten en Slikken" on Dutch TV this week? This episode was about the Gambia and the Gambian so-called "bumsters"; unemployed guys who are after older white women on the beaches in the Gambia. There one of the solutions presented, was setting up skillcentres. Well here's one! We proudly present just uploaded on Youtube, a video clip of the Marcus Garvey Peoples Foundation, founded by our friend Gregory George. Many of the craftsmen on our team of builders are members and, in their own time, volunteers on the MGPF. A great organisation in which we believe. It combines environmental awareness, employment and charity and is a regular win-win-win-win-scenario. Go have a look on our videopage or on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v71HncOe8xg
On this picture, MGPF's founder Gregory George is being interviewed by Louis Mendy,reporter at Gambian Television GRTS at the opening in Tujereng on July 30th 2011
Update Aug 18th
The compost toilet and the bathroom in the making. Foreman Darbo is connecting the pieces. Some more pictures are added to the album today.
Pounding
The soil is pounded into the tires so they can be used as bricks when ready.
Evergreen Tintinto
Staying in one of the roundhouses was certainly not a punishment. Friends and neighbours Greg and Maria offered me a stay with them in one of their roundhouses, just around the corner of the buildingsite. Great service and food, at the soon to be opened Evergreen Tintinto Ecolodge: http://evergreen-lodgesgambia.com/
The A list
Surprised at first, and now just as excited as we are, our team of builders is working hard to make the project come true. Conditions: Raining season in the Gambia and we now are in the month of Ramadan. Respect! Their names (no kidding): Lamin, Lamin, Lamin, Lamin, Lamin and, kneeling; Darbo. In the Gambia the first-born son usually is named Lamin.
25 more!
Bonnie driving back from Fajara to Tintinto with again 25 tires on top. The Landrover can carry up to a maximum of 20 more inside.
Isaac Turay filming Gregory George
First row now ready to build
Estimation: for the rubberhouse we'll need 600 tires. Here we're still collecting....All of the Gambia's little and bigger garages are actually surprised at first, but then happy, when we ask them for their tires. In this country tire-burning luckily, doesn't happen very much anymore. But where do they go after being used, some to the wire? We've heard that these small businesses have to export their used tires. So what's better than using them again, but this time on an eco-friendly, tropical building project?
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