I am at this very moment in the southernmost region of Siberia called the Altai. I am here with a small group of natural builders who have volunteered three weeks of our time to bring straw bale knowledge to this cold mountainous region. Our hosts and partners, the non-profit group Fund for 21st Century Altai, invited us to lead them in constructing a straw bale home at their new off-grid ecotourism center. However, the cost of building materials in this fast-growing region has tripled during the past year, and our hosts are finding themselves several hundred dollars short. We recently learned that the roofing material cannot be purchased and installed soon unless together we can raise $800. Please help by sending $50, $100, or whatever you can spare. Everything we receive will go directly towards the completion of this building and the ecotourism center. If we can raise an additional $1,000 to $5,000, they will be able to add wind power generation on-site.

Please send your gift to Builders Without Borders via credit card as soon as possible so that our bales and earthen plasters are well protected this winter. To donate, please call the Builders Without Borders office at (505) 895-5400, or for more information visit www.builderswithoutborders.org or email Derek Roff at derek@unm.edu. We will be here until August 26th. Please give today so that we can put the roofing material on before we leave!

P.S. We are writing this from a tent nestled against a rock cliff, facing the beautiful Chemal River, surrounded by pine and birch forests. Our neighbors are Kazakh sheepherders living in yurts. We just completed the foundation with the local masons and will begin the bale work today.

Thank you very much!

The Altai Team:
Jeff Ruppert, P. E.
Odisea LLC
Boulder, CO
www.odiseanet.com

Alyson Ewald
Center for Safe Energy
www.centerforsafeenergy.org

Paul Koppana
Skyhawk Construction
Crestone, CO

Cindy Smith
Mudcrafters
Crestone, CO

I hope that together, we can provide the needed financial support to complete this exciting international project.

Derek
Derek Roff
Director, Builders Without Borders
derek@unm.edu
bwb@zianet.com