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My name is Giuseppe Spadafora and this is Edna Lou the free tea bus. Other than
being my home for the last ten years this bus is also a mobile free tea house.
I grew up traveling abroad with my family, my grandparents, and then I went
to a traveling high school as well so experience real learning was a big part
of the curriculum. Traveling inside the country in middle school and outside the
country to Asia, Central America in high school. About two weeks after I turned 18
I hopped my first freight train and I spent ten years on off riding freight
trains and hitchhiking in between living in my truck and the beginning of living
in this bus. I loved riding freight trains and hitchhiking because it gave me a ton
of freedom even if I did lose a lot of security but living in a vehicle I felt
like I still maintained a lot of that freedom but had a little more security
a little more grounded. I bought this bus. It'll be 10 years ago in March. I
moved into it the day I bought it so this bus is 99 percent salvaged wood 75
percent hardware including screws, plumbing, latches, fixtures. It runs
on recycled vegetables so there's a lot of that reclaimed element to this so it
wasn't like I could just go into the store and buy parts and hardware and
wood. I really wanted to seek them out find them. Most of the conversion took
place in the first five years. It was a very slow process but also very
intentional. So many elders and community members kind of helped make this project
happen. People helping with design elements and teaching me how to weld. I
didn't have a lot of skills when I started this, this was a learning process.
So this is Edna Lou the free tea bus. It's a 1989 short bus on a Ford
Econoline chassis with a 7.3 liter diesel motor pre power
stroke. This is a handicap door. This opens up when I'm serving Tea. This is my
solar battery setup two trojan t105 six volt golf cart batteries. It's powered by
a 320 watt solar panel on the roof. I also have the ability to charge if I
want to from my engine. This is a 30 gallon that clean vegetable oil tank. I
learned how to weld stainless steel just to build my vegetable tanks. On the other
side I've got a 60 gallon dirty vegetable tank. So this is my hidden ladder that's
for accessing my roof box, cleaning my solar panel. I can also come up through
the skylight on the inside. Inside some of these like cross members there's
telescopic poles they kind of come out to create a shade structure. One of my
favorite newer projects are these sliding screens. I really like
having screens on my windows it's super crucial in buggy areas but I also like
having access out the windows and not having them in the way. This is my water
fill. I have a 42 gallon freshwater tank. The drain for the water tank is right
here. It also acts as an outdoor spigot. Outdoor speakers, waterproof speakers, for
dance parties on the street. I tend not to use fossil fuels for very much but
I do have a propane tank under here and five gallons of propane will last me
about three months. I should show you my workshop this is my tool shed
so this area is kind of where a lot of my tools are. I really like tools and
hardware. This is all my vegetable oil stuff so no vegetable oil stuff really hangs
out inside the vehicle like a lot of vegetable oil systems except for this box.
This is my pump and funnel and some stuff like that. Sorry we're a little
tight here. So this bracket here this is for my sink
head it has a sprayer function and it goes out the window and goes right here
and this is my shower. This is where I mount my centrifuge for centrifuging
vegetable oil so that's for cleaning vegetable oil on the road. My dirty
vegetable tank is mounted underneath here. This is my vegetable oil filters to
catch any last debris after centrifuging. I've got some controls here
as well for adjusting pressure to the centrifuge. Now come on inside of Edna.
I have a co-pilot chair here. This guy rotates and faces forward. My
inverter is underneath here. This is just a nice little storage box. It's got a
fold down front that allows a passenger to put their feet down. So this shelf is
on a hinge it's really nice. The tool bucket rotates. This is the bookshelf.
This is so nice to have. It's not you know the best idea to put a bunch of
weight up high these whole things can come out and if I'm doing an event if I
want to put my library out this is a unit that's a unit that can come out.
Each one of these gauges does two things gauges are expensive but switches are
cheap so like this gauge this is my clean vegetable oil tank and if I flip the
switch it goes to my dirty vegetable tank which is a little over half full. So this
area, this is my closet. It kind of drops down in the back and the shoe storage
underneath all of the clothes and then below here hidden comfortably as a seat
this is the solar-powered fridge. The first thing a lot of people notice when
they come inside of here is this wood stove. This is a navigator stove works
little Cod. This thing is amazing. It heats the space plenty. You can also make
tea on it. Most people don't realize that burners on wood stoves
were designed to be taken out to put your cast iron or tea kettles like this
directly into the flame. One of the systems I'm building right now is this
it's a copper pipe a copper gutter downspout and the way this works is
a vent system that goes all the way down to the coldest part of the floor so
basically the wood stove heats the pipe the air in the pipe heats up which
causes it to rise which sucks the coldest air into the pipe which creates
a mini convection current so the coldest air is constantly being drawn up and
heated. This is my roll around table bench chair, the cutting board, but it's
also the wood storage box. Never burn chemically treated pallets look for HT
or KD on the stamp on the side. Never burn pallets that say MD, methylbromide. This is
the kitchen area. I have running water. The hot water is heated by waste engine
heat. There's a water filter. This is a ceramic water filter with a carbon core.
When you're done with it you just smash it apart, throw it in nature, make
sure there's only one plastic cap that's trash. Got an electric pump for the sink
but I also have a foot pump. It's much easier to conserve water with the foot
pump. There's a kick pedal here which is basically just an old headlight switch
from the floor of, actually it was from the floor of this bus, and that turns on
the water pump right there so I can kick it on and off whenever I want. I have
just a regular two burner camp stove that comes out right here.
Everything is salvaged so everything has a story and then like you know I've got
my mirror here inside of my like, this is kind of my bathroom stuff, you can take
that off. I can hang it for shaving or you know put it here. It's nice to have
things that come off like that. Everything is storage. This is my pantry.
When the beds down you can also access it from the front here got my 12-volt
power my 110 power. This is coming up my inverter that essentially doubles the
counter space. I like to do a lot of fermenting and canning so this just adds
a lot of space for kitchen work. This kind of is access to the rear tool area
and of course all this is storage as well clothes and gear. I have these
little fold down latches here. It allows you to have a latch on the inside. On the
outside this is my cold storage so this is on top of the water tank so using the
thermal mass of the water tank to kind of help regulate temperature keep things
a little cooler. The bed is held up by these supports while driving and stuff.
There's also the support in the middle here slides out so basically you let out
the bed and rotate the supports out of the way now the bed is just hanging on
these strings. One of each string controls one side of the bed
and voila bed is down so this is an extra-long twin you can throw in a
couple extra supports and it does slide out to a king size all the way up to the
sink. The other great thing about this bed is that if you're parked on a slant
on an angle which most streets are you can simply raise one end tie it off and
then you have a level bed. This is 700-pound P cord parachute cord and
that's plenty of weight to hold up two people yeah. It's all double backed on
the pulleys so it's not super heavy just do one side at a time.
So the way this is designed is it's designed to pull out the wood box that
rolls over here and you stick a cushion on it and it's really easy. It's
just a little bit higher than this so you can sit at it cross-legged very kind
of erect because the seat is a little higher I can fit my computer. All of
these are like slide-out drawers with desk type stuff in them. It's also
adjustable based on what level the bus is sitting at. This is the first thing
people see when they come to the tea bus. This is a really special place because in
our society we've been trained that we always need to have one-for-one
interactions. I have to give you something if I'm gonna get something or
vice versa and that money is the most valuable thing in the world. People offer
me money all the time. I don't accept monetary tips and donations while
serving tea because I want to create a completely non-monetary experience. I
found that that's the best way to create the most genuine interactions. Because
people always trying to give me money I created the gift and take area. The gift
and take. The idea's anyone can put in and anyone can take out. It's not a
one-for-one interaction. You don't have to put in in order to take out or vice
versa. Tou can do both, you could do neither. It's a series of drawers. This
one is the money drawer. People trip out on this because you can come to the free
tea bus and you can get free tea and if you want you can get free money. The idea
is to put people in the position of taking personal responsibility for
themselves in relation to the whole. The really interesting part is that in 9
years of having a gift and take with money and tens of thousands of people
interacting with it, only one time was it ever emptied and that one time was
someone who was in need and so it's just kind of fun to rethink human nature.
When you share with someone you're saying to them, "hey I want to build a
relationship with you" or "I want to see you succeed."
Whenever sharing occurs it strengthens and reinforces a bond. For me it's all
about building bonds and relationships because those are super valuable. When
multiple bonds are created and bonds are strengthened and the response between
people that's the foundation of resilience in the community. That's the
foundation of having your needs met without having to focus on pieces of
paper. Oftentimes change in our lives doesn't happen all at once. One of the
most valuable things that I feel like I can say to someone who is seeking
something different is to take steps, don't get caught up in doing everything
at once. There's this idea in permaculture of
transitional epochs it's like: This is where we are. This is where we want to be.
And there are steps to get here. You can't just jump from point A to point B. My
main goal is to create a more sharing world. The way that I do that is by
sharing. Once our basic needs are met humans are not innately self-interested.
We're actually very community oriented beings. I hope you enjoyed this week's
episode. If you did be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe. I'm currently in
Joshua Tree which is a desert and amazing ecosystem. I'm sure you like the
outdoors as much as I do and that's why you're gonna love Ecosia.
Ecosia is a search engine for all of your searching needs and for every 40
searches they plant a tree. That's a cacti. I'm in the desert and so I like to
casually plant trees you know no big deal. If you'd like to casually plant
trees you can download Ecosia. Download Ecosia today and plant a tree
for every 40 searches or so. I bet that you can plant 10 trees. If you would like
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ecosystem use Ecosia and feel relief knowing that you're helping make a
better tomorrow. Big Love. Have a great day. Got a spine
in my finger, went through the gloves.