An interesting aspect of traveling abroad is that you can see, there are different methods of reconstruction of different cultures and their ancestors.
BY ANA STANKOVIC
I recently got back from five weeks away on my honeymoon in the United States, Mexico and Cuba. To say that this is the most amazing holiday would be an understatement.
But, as well as enjoy our visit and our new beginning, as husband and wife, we took note of the different methods of construction and modernization of methods used in those countries and their ancestors.
Funny how some things that are widely available in nature you can also provide humanity.
A perfect example comes from Cuba. I really don't understand what people mean about falling in love with the place until I visited Cuba. He has so much natural beauty and most especially wonder of the human spirit.
For a country where people earn much money or don't have a lot of things and restrictions, such as the United States arms embargo to live with, they have the most positive attitude towards life, embrace of music and dance, as second nature and really enjoying every second they have.
Travel through a country like Cuba, you notice that people – especially farmers – they are creatively adapt their properties to find solutions, the most cost-effective methods.
One that really stood out was to do with fencing. In a place where they don't have much money, farmers still need to protect their crops with fences from other animals, trampling and eating their products.
So they found a new use for cacti. These are so accessible and easy for them to multiply, farmers planted Cactus plants along the borders of their properties like type of fencing to protect their products. How clever that!
And there are all these innovations, which are used by civilizations of Maya and Aztecs in Mexico, some of which are still used today.
We visited a number of temples in Mexico, and was interested to hear from local leadership in one of these holy places, they are accustomed to use honey instead of concrete (that do not exist in those days) in construction between those big stones. As amazing. I never knew that honey can be used for things like that. I mean, it makes sense. This is important for those who have honey drip on the surface and left it there for a bit, it dries as very solid, concrete as a material.
Nature is truly amazing. Sometimes we forget that there are so many different kinds of various plants and other natural elements, and it's wonderful to get reminded of those.
Another fascinating thing we found in Mexico this plant extract is used for waterproofing.
This is surprisingly resilient – and of course natural – and it is used in many parts of Mexico, for waterproofing of swimming pools, as well as some repairs to the bathroom.
I think we can easily forget sometimes look natural things that could help us with construction and instead, we turn to easy synthetic materials, which are also quite often contain chemicals. But we don't need.
My grandma still cleans using vinegar and bi-carb soda and swears that they are better than any spray available in stores clean.
Maybe we should look back to materials and methods used by our ancestors and learn a little more from them and the more sustainable our repairs. Their construction has a remarkable record of lasting hundreds of years, and maybe we can too.
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