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Published: December 7th 2009
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Natural Medicine Taller (Workshop)
Daniel and Fernando are straining what will become ¨Jarabe para la tos¨ (cough syrup) So it feels like ages since I have written… and in fact it has been months. I have received many messages from you all wondering if perhaps you were doing something wrong because you have not been able to get blog updates… well rest assured it is me not you.
I have been in Nicaragua for almost 4 months now. It is very crazy to think so many months have passed by and yet in many ways I still feel like I am adjusting to our new lives here in Nicaragua. There have been numerous changes since September though. For one I have more or less a set job…although it is in no way defined or consistent. As I had originally hoped, I joined the Rural team here with Cantera in the beginning of October and have spent the last two months doing a variety of tasks with many different projects…mostly trying to get firsthand experience in their projects while gradually learning the structure and confines of each one.
The project I have worked most closely with is a family vegetable garden project (outlined in detailed in the next entry). I have also had many other unique experiences. One
Aparato A
A unique tool to help plant crops in curved lines to help prevent soil erosion on uneven or inclined land...and much more complex than it seems! of my favorite things is attending the workshops Cantera offers. All the community members who are part of our projects or Cooperatives have the opportunity to attend workshops…most of them given on Canteras farm (another place I go to work). So far I have attended a 2-day Marketing workshop with the Honey Cooperative, a 5-day Cooperatism workshop with those wanting to join one of Canteras Cooperatives, a 1.5 day workshop on making encurtidos (similar to canning vegetables with vinegar) and mermalades, a 1.5 day workshop on Natural Medicine, and a 2-day workshop on the Environment and Organic Agriculture with Canteras promoters.
These workshops not only allow me to learn something new, but they are also a great bonding opportunity with the community members. The workshops go all day long and the attendees sleepover on the farm. Since I live in Managua, the other Cantera folks and I generally go back and forth from Managua each day of the workshops. I opted to stay over on the last night of the last workshop however and loved it! It was great to be able to hang out with them outside of the classroom and it was a great learning opportunity! We
La competencia
They insisted Dominga and I have a dance contest... got very little sleep though…partly because we stayed up until 11:30 dancing…but partly because the ladies are insane! Lol Im joking of course…but you could imagine my surprise when 3 hours after laying down, alarms starting going off and all the women got up! I knew we had to be up, showered, and ready by 5am for the homework we were left to do the following morning…by it wasn’t even 3am! I quickly found out the women had gotten up to shower. Granted there were a lot of us for one shower…but it still seemed a little bizarre. Then surprisingly, everyone was asleep again by about 3:30…all showered, dressed, and hair done. I was impressed until the next round of alarms started going off at 4am. I decided I might as well get up with the next group as there was no way I could sleep anyways. Just after 5am half of us who were assigned a task from the day before, joined the showered men and trek out to the field where we had to dig a 8m trench…part of a technique we had learned the previous day to prevent erosion when planting on hillsides (which is where the
5am...
yup..after a 3am wake up shower call... here we are digging trenches for the curved line we made to prevent erosion. I will say though digging at 5am was much nicer than digging the high beds at 7:30am! Hot Nica Sun! majority of the communities members do their planting).
In addition to workshops, I have also been unofficially inducted into working with the honey cooperative - Dulce Miel. There are many new women (the cooperative although having a few male members, promotes the role of women in apiculture, and therefore is predominantly women) joining the Cooperative and have just received their first two ¨colmenas¨ (beehives). Before the complicated process of bringing them their hives, we had to visit each house and see where the women planned on putting their apiary (location where the hives are kept). This involved a long day of driving down roads in the mountains that were in horrible conditions. Many times I felt sure our truck would tip over. Upon getting to each house, the women would generally take us down a steep mountain side to a spot in the woods she had cleared to put her hives. The spots were generally good locations due to their distance from people, balance of sun/shade, wind protection from trees, open enough for the bees to take off, and sufficient flowers for them to produce honey. The difficult part was first how they were going to lift the heavy
First time!
My first time entering the apiary! hives down the steep hill at night to get them there. Secondly, once there, how would they be able to extract the honey during the harvest…it would be a difficult task of bringing the heavy honey filled boxes uphill to the extractor…or lowering the heavy extractor down closer to them. Needless to say… it was a very long but yet very interesting day! Next week we are starting the first harvest…I am excited!
My many other interesting experiences will have to wait as this entry is getting lengthy. I do wish to mention though that this past Friday I had the experience of watching them transport cattle from the farm to a new location with more food (long story…but a dry rainy season has left all our crops and livestock here in trouble for the dry season we are just entering). It was quite frightening towards the end when the truck got stuck on a hill and all the cattle fell over. This might not seem like a problem…but in tight quarters, their big bodies are not able to get up…now imagine being the poor cows at the bottom of that pile. It was scary… we thought we almost
Scary part...
This part broke my heart... the poor cows couldn´t/wouldn´t get up after having about 13 other cows fall ontop of them. ;( lost 3 due to the fall. After a long struggle, they ending up being ok in the end… just very shaken.
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Lisa Francavilla
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Wow! All that work you're doing is amazing! Take care and we miss you here in the States :)