A New Tourist House for Kwau village

I am now in the process of designing a tourist house for Kwau village. The reason for the design and construction of the new wooden house is to provide accommodation for tourists who want to visit Arfak mountains that is closer to the main road. As a novice user of Google Sketchup, I feel challenged when trying to draw the wooden roof trusses that look complicated in the following 3D presentation. After several attempts, I was finally able to draw the beams and girders which entirely will be made of wood.  The cover for this roof truss is the corrugated metal roof sheets locally called seng.

The current tourist house that belongs to Hans Mandacan is a two hour walk from the main road - too far for elderly tourists. With this new tourist house, it is expected that tourists will be interested in visiting the rainforest of Kwau village.

In the rainforest of Kwau village, tourists will be able to watch bower bird, magnificent birds of paradise and learn the local wisdom of the indigenous Papuan people in using herbs to cure various kinds of diseases. There are hundreds of local and national logging companies operating in West Papua right now. Tens of thousands of hectares of rainforest in this tropical island have been converted into monoculture palm oil and cocoa plantations.  Eco-tourism project is one of the alternative solutions that, we expect, can prevent further destructions of tropical rainforest in New Guinea island.

This tourist house will have six rooms. However only four rooms that will be allocated for sleeping. The other two will be for study/ library and store room. Every room of the house will have windows and ventilation slots to allow light and air to enter it. Because Arfak mountains are located in tropical region, the humidity of the surrounding environment greatly influences the wooden structures of the house. Therefore, all the surfaces of the wooden poles, beams, blocks and panels will be painted with base paints and anti termite solution. 

This tourist house is still in design concept. According to our plan, the construction of this wooden house will be started if the fund is available. Villagers will need around Rp. 50,000,000 (fifty million rupiahs) or approximately 6,100 US dollars to build it. The cost of building this house can be reduced to this minimum level because timber, sand, gravels and stones will be taken from the nearby river. So, the money will be used only to buy portland cement, corrugated metal roof sheets, nails, plywood-triplex, paints, toilet bowl, and some tiles for the shower room. 

The purpose of this eco-tourism project is to provide jobs and increase the income of the indigenous Papuan people in Kwau village so that they will not be tempted to give up their lands, and tropical rainforest for irresponsible exploitation. If you are interested in supporting the construction of this eco-tourism project, you can donate your money to me 

Leo Charles Roring

address: Jalan Brawijaya, Samping SD Padma 1, Manokwari Papua Barat, Indonesia

via Western Union.

After transferring the money, don't forget to send me the MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) to my email charlesroring@gmail.com so that I can withdraw it from the Western Union counter in Manokwari city. When you donate money to this project, we will give you written report on how the money is used to build this house. by Charles Roring - blogger of Ecotourism Manokwari Papua