Coffee Coffee Coffee

Hello all.  It's been a while since I've updated, but things have been definitely been picking up in site, and I've been super busy!  A really awesome coffee producer and I are working hard now to try and start a cooperative or business with many of the other people that are starting coffee farms with me.  We're still in the beginning stages, but we're getting organized and have a lot of interest in the group.  Unfortunately, the people that are starting to plant coffee won't have any production for at least 3 years, so in the meantime we're working together in juntas to get the farms up and running and correctly managed, and we're going to try and start saving money now and be completely prepared for when the coffee is ready.  That also means that I will have left by the time the business is fully functioning, but I will do all I can for as long as I can.  I recently brought this particular coffee producer to a week-long seminar, where he was taught about group management, running effective meetings, organization, leadership, and the basics of project management.  Now he's very pumped to get this new coffee group up and fully running, and is applying all the things he's learned.

A tecnico from an agency I'm working with, called MIDA, came in one day to give a little talk about seed beds and tree nurseries for coffee plants

The seeds are ready to transplant at this point, so we're carefully taking them out

We had to make a soil mixture for the tree nursery bags with plenty of organic fertilizer, cow poop, etc. because the soil here is very poor

Filling up the bags

A semi completed nursery.  Including everyone in the coffee project, we had to fill a thousands of these bags with soil and cow poop.  It was a ton of work.

At the school we've started up a garden.  Out in the field by the school the kids are helping to plant root vegetables like cassava, otoe, and yams, and  some banana and plantain trees as well.

All the planted food will be for the kids' lunch, to give them some variety besides rice and beans.  We've also made seven garden beds and have already planted cucumber and tomato, although I don't have pictures.

This kid is planting a plantain tree.

Pelusa chowing on some fish I bought earlier that day from people fishing out on the lake.

This is called bollo de guineo.  I had harvested a banana tree earlier that week, only to end up with a thousand bananas ripened all at the same time, and there are only so many bananas I can eat in one day.  So when that happens, you make bollo.   With some help, I mashed all the bananas together, added a couple pounds of rice, wrapped it up in some big leaves and string to keep it shut, and boiled it for an hour.  The final result looks purple and is not actually all that flavorful, but it has grown on me.

A close-up of the slash-and-burning they do here to plant rice.  I don't like it, but they got to eat.

The picture above is the last one I have of Pelusa.  She was healthy and strong, but unfortunately the timing was wrong.  A disease has swept through and killed about half the dogs in my village, eventually including my poor Pelusa.  I did all I could, considering a veterinarian was out of the question, trying to get antibiotics and anti-parasite medicine for her, but it hit her too strong.  But I suppose that's something you have to deal with out in the rough campo, and sadly it was probably something a simple vaccination that could have prevented it.  I only had the poor girl for a couple months, but I'm glad at least that her suffering has finally come to an end.

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On a much lighter note, some friends and I took a mini break from our campo stresses for a couple days and headed to a place out on the Caribbean Sea, called Isla Grande (Big Island), where only blue waters, white sand, and pineapple smoothies awaited us.

This is a statue of the famous Black Christ.

The cute little hotel we stayed at.  It was in the middle of the week and completely dead, so we were the only gringos on the whole island.

Kendra and Rachel, on our boat over to the island.

Us at dinner.

The owner of the only open restaurant on the island found out we were Peace Corps volunteers and freaked out and gave us free pineapple smoothies and talked incessantly about the island's aqueduct problem, as if there was something we could do about it.

After our mini vacation I headed  back to Colon, where I helped facilitate a seminar that a bunch of other fellow Colon volunteers and a couple volunteers from the Darien put on.  We talked to almost two-hundred 7th graders about AIDS/HIV awareness, goal setting, good decision making, and family planning (including the activity where you have to put a condom on a plantain..).  It turned out really great despite of all the rain we got, and I'm glad the kids got exposed to this kind of material, because it just doesn't get covered in the education system here.

This is the group preparing for our talks the night before at a volunteer's house.  I'm in the middle there sitting on the floor (notice the difference between his house and mine??) 

For the talks, we divided up the kids into groups, and they would rotate to different ranchos, like the one pictured above, to hear our presentations and do some activities.

I think they all had a good time.  It beats going to regular class, right?

Afterwards we had lunch and sports competitions with soccer and volleyball.

Some fellow Colon girls

This is the whole Peace Corps crew who ran the seminar.

And this was the amazing view of the lake from where we did our talks.  I don't know how the kids were able to pay attention with this front of them.

This is back at my house.  Remember how I randomly specialize in worm composting these days?  Well I had to make a really freakin big bin because I had too many worms multiplying way too quickly.  The section to the left is ready to use compost that my worms made.  To the right I recently put a fresh pile cow and horse poop down, after many long and stinky hours of scouting with a shovel and  saco.  I buried food in it, like my fruit and vegetable scraps and egg shells, and eventually the worms will migrate to the fresh poop side to munch on that food, and I can harvest the compost on the left side worm-free and put it in my garden.  So far I haven't gotten anyone in my town to make their own worm box yet; they think I and my worm composting are absolutely crazy, and the women are completely scared of them.  Maybe one day.

This is my little veggie garden.  I have beans, tomatoes, and bell peppers growing.  I put the leaves on top to protect them from the super strong rains we get get here.  Elsewhere, I have a little herb garden of basil, cilantro, mint, and ginger.  A year-round growing season here is super nice.

This fruit is called granadilla, a vine that's taking over my cassava plants.

It's actually not a very sweet fruit, so you have to add sugar to enjoy it.

Some corn and plantains.  I've been busy trying to get stuff growing in my yard, buy the cows and leaf-cutter ants have made that a challenge.

And as a wrap-up to this post, I have to add something scary.  Last time it was the alligator, this time it's the giant black scorpion that crawled out of my rubber work boots one day.  That's why you ALWAYS got to shake out your shoes, you never know what's waiting for you in there!