I couldn’t help but wonder, what kind of world would we be able to create? Just like a parent would wonder, what kind of person will my child grow up to be? As an adult, you understand there are so many different paths one can take. They could grow up to be world leaders, philanthropists, or doctors. Or quite the opposite. They could grow up to be workers in a cartel, imprisoned, or shot. Even a child that has their entire life mapped out could make one slip and ruin everything. As an adult, you have witnessed how an innocent child with good intentions can turn out, for better or worse.
As a parent, you always want to give your child the best chances in life. Start teaching them their ABC’s early, maybe throw in a little Mozart. In early childhood, you put them through music classes. In middle school you encourage debate and sports, attempting to give them skills they’ll need later on in life to succeed. After giving them all of the necessary tools to survive and thrive, you hope your offspring will serve as a functional member of society and grow to be something greater than yourself.
Lying here on a new world, I had the same feelings. What we all wanted and how it would actually turn out, could be two completely different things. Especially when the planet had such a ridiculous beginning. The basis upon which the planet was being built, a mockery and a sham, was now expected to work. A bad joke gone wrong, we were hopelessly destined for failure. We would have to overcome the rough start we were dealt and succeed in the face of extraordinary odds.
The hard dirt of Earth had never felt this good. It had never caressed my body and beckoned me to sleep like Circadia’s did. Once I succumbed to the feeling, my body and brain washed away in a wave.
WHEN I WOKE UP, THERE was a camera pointed directly at my face.
“What the hell are you doing?” I swatted at the camera. “Get it out of my face. I’m not in the fucking mood. Get it?” My words came out stronger than I intended, but I was tired, and apparently sunburned from lying out in the sun.
“You know the drill. I have to record,” the cameraman said.
“Get out of her face, or I’ll show you where you can put the camera,” Garrett said, now inches from the cameraman’s face. The cameraman scampered off to go video someone else sleeping.
Garrett caught my eyes, and I felt my face flush red. I looked quickly to the side at the ground, as he approached me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I looked back up to meet his brown eyes once again. “Yeah, just a little tired, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. What did you do last night?”
“I sawed some trees down and hauled them back to camp like a lumberjack, naturally,” I said, giving off a bit of a sarcastic undertone.
“That figures. I helped unpack supplies, so nothing really exciting.” Shrugging his shoulders, he began to walk off.
“Garrett!” I hollered after him. He turned to look at me. “If you want to see something really exciting, go for a walk in the woods.”
He nodded and twisted his mouth into a side smile, before turning back and walking away.
Ronald rounded everyone up and instructed us on how to create ‘wattle and daub’ huts. The idea was simple: insert strong posts vertically into the ground in a rectangle, about a foot apart, as tall as you wanted the hut to be. You then wove in smaller twigs or sticks and added mud to the weave. A ‘wattle and daub’ roof was meant to provide excellent air circulation. A fire in the middle completed the shelter.
The vertical posts would need to be as tall as we wanted the hut to be, and deeply embedded in the ground to maintain the structure’s integrity. To do this, we sharpened the end of the posts with the knives from our MACE suits and twisted them into the ground. We found nearby rocks about the size of our hands to beat the posts into the earth.
Weaving the twigs and branches throughout the posts was my favorite part. We had to find flexible limbs to work with so that they did not crack or break, or else we would have a weak structure. Once I had the hang of weaving, it was quick and easy work. When the weaving was completed, we started on the roof, which was the same concept. Strong posts were held together with nails and woven limbs between them, and then fastened to the rest of the structure to provide good shelter from the sun and any possible rain. Once that was done, the vision of the structure became clear.
The next step was to build a ‘stove’ in the center of the shelter. The stove was built up with clay we had found in a nearby creek, and a vent dug into the ground underneath. This would provide heat to bake the clay onto the structure. Also, it would provide a nice cooking stove for new clay utensils, food, and heat.
Adding the ‘daub’ was the most difficult—but fun—part of building the huts. First, we mixed the clay with water by hand so that it was pliable. Next, we mixed in a one-third ratio of dead flower weed we had harvested from the field. There were tons of it lying underneath the new growth. The hollow stems of the flower weed added extra structure to the shelter. Once the two were mixed together, it was applied to the ‘wattle’, or weaving. We had to make sure to insert the ‘daub’ into every crevice of the ‘wattle’ and then smooth the edges on the inside and outside so that the fire inside and the sun outside would create a protective crust until everything was
