Natural Building Intensive Workshop

Liz Johndrow of Earthen Endeavor Natural Building and Ryan Chivers of Artesano Traditional Plasters will return to Rancho Mastatal to join the Ranch staff in late-March for 2-weeks of hands-on and feet-in learning and classroom theory and discussion coupled with slideshow presentations and evening topic discussions. We will cover everything earth, lime, and clay from site selection, foundations and earthen wall systems, to the fine art of sculpting, Moroccan tadelakt, and finish plaster. You will want to join us for this opportunity unlike any other! The Ranch provides years of beautiful and inspiring natural building to emphasize successes and learning curves, beauty and function. And Liz and Ryan both bring expertise, passion, fun, and serious learning opportunities to their workshops.

Cost
Central Americans, US$700; residents and ex-pats, US$900; foreigners, $1,100. Cost includes 13 nights lodging starting on the night before the start of the class, all meals except on Sundays when we patronize the local restaurant, course instruction and full access to Rancho Mastatal and its private wildlife refuge. A $250 deposit will secure your space in the course.

See our website for more details-
http://www.ranchomastatal.com/pages/programs/events2.php?Grouping=TopMenu&PageName=events#X228X

Scott, can you please explain the different pricing structure? It doesn't seem quite logical? Different folks pay different amounts? I understand offering "grants" and "tuition reduction" for students and the related but you metric is a bit of "turn off" to folks like me. Why would I recommend a student of mine come there if the class is fill with a population of folks treated differently based on there geographic orgin?

Also, what are the qualifications of the instructors?

How long in the natural building field?

How many structures and locations do they have in there experience.

Regards,

j

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the questions. I assume you followed the link to learn more about the instructors and our infrastructure before responding, but if not I'll share some more links.

We employee this pricing metric for a number of reasons and have been operating all our workshops this way for over a decade. The reduced price for Central American's is essentially a scholarship as you mentioned, this is tied to that fact that many in CA would be priced out at the full rate. The reduced expat rate exists as this is one of the communities that supports us the most, they are often our repeat customers, they buy nursery material, employ our services as design consultants, and we want to encourage this relationship. It is also tied to the fact that most of the expat/resident participants are doing similar work as ourselves without the benefit of a full-time job with US based wages, we want to build the Costa Rica permaculture community as much as possible. In the end our goal is to create as diverse a student body as possible, and pricing based on geographical location allows us to to this.

We've been in operation and successfully running workshops such as this since 2001. We are widely considered leaders in this field in Latin America.

We only work with the top instructors in their field. Both Ryan and Liz have extensive experience, which you can see on their respective websites below.
Ryan Chivers http://www.artesanoplaster.com/home.html
Liz Johndrow http://earthenendeavors.com/

To see more about our campus, take the time to look at the Accommodations Page on our website:
http://ranchomastatal.com/pages/links/page.php?Grouping=Accommodations&PageName=rooms

Or here is an album on our built environment on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.589169821103024.1073741825.162868273733183&type=3

Please don't hesitate with more question,
Saludos
Scott