Hello Fellow steemians

I would like to take the opportunity to use this first post to introduce myself. But before I start I feel like I should let you know that this is the first time for me to try out anything like this. I have suffered with dyslexia all my life and was only ever diagnosed once I started university education in the UK. needless to say writing and reading is a struggle for me and by doing this I am totally outside my comfort zone, so please bare with me.

I wasn't quite sure what I would write about and if anyone would even be interested, so I've decided to just tell my story and keep it short and simple. I am also a keen photographer and I like to capture my work extensively in pictures, so I would prefer to just let my photography work do the job of telling the story in the future.

My Name is Hassen Mzali, I am half Tunisian half British. I was born in London but from the age of 6 grew up and did all of my primary and secondary education in Tunisia which allowed me to become fluent in Arabic, English and French. I strongly believe the experience of living between two countries has given me a different perspective on life, you see the difference in cultures is huge between my two home nations and from a very young ages I couldn't rap my head around why certain things were allowed in one place but not another, why certain people were allowed to travel to one country but not the other way round. This lead me to adopting a very sceptical view of the world, questioning everything and generally taking a step back from situations and trying to see the bigger picture. This questioning of the status quo only grew as I got older and the more I discovered the more horrified and alienated I become from the world. It reached a point where for me it was absolutely clear that our current social economic system was in a state of collapse, and that a lot of human activity on the planet was unsustainable. The shock of coming to this realisation triggered some sort of survival instinct in me, and from then on I would become fully focused on figuring out how to survive in a sustainable manner.

The first thing that really captured my imagination was Earthships, buildings made out of recycled materials that cooled and heated themselves passively, recycled the waters through botanical cells that also provided food and captured and stored energy totally off-grid. At the time for me this was it, the solution to a lot of humanities problems and more importantly provided a safe life outside of the system. I then started to do a lot of research into earthships and the different components that make it function, I really wanted to go on a course to learn more but that was in New Mexico and a bit too far. Instead I found a course that provided a lot of what I was looking for and some more at a location just down the road from where I lived, This course was called: A Permaculture Design Course (or PDC for short). This was a pivotal moment for me, the course made me feel like I was finally ecologically literate, I understood how natural systems worked And it also provided me with design tools that I would apply to future project, including being part of a Gorilla gardening group in my local town Called incredible edible.

From then on I would delve even deeper into all form of Natural Building, enrolling on courses and volunteering at a wide range of project across the UK and even beyond. After trying out a multitude of building techniques, one in particular stood out to me and that was Straw bale Building. A construction that could be made entirely out of Natural materials, is vapour permeable, is super insulating and also sequestrates carbon. it just ticked every box for me and I fell in love with it. I have since then participated in dozens of build and it has become my main speciality.

Finally here we are today and I have been invited by the lovely @eco-alex who I met on one of my building adventures, to join the ecotrain on Steemit and I have to say it's an absolute pleasure and honour to be amongst such beautiful and creative people and I look forward to sharing what I have learned to try and bring about a better world .

As I mentioned at the start I love my photography and have extensively captured my journey in picture, so expect to see future posts containing more details about my adventures with a picture story boards to go with it. So please follow me for more ecotrain posts.

hassenmzali