Blisters on the Sun

Hello,

This last weekend was chalk full of hard, intensive labor. I dont know if any of you have swung a machet(e) before, but after 900 wacks it becomes tiring.

My project group, as I described before, is working on a project in a town called Arizona. There, our goal was to create a community orchard to sustain the population. After a long period of down time, we finally heard from our project partner 3 weeks ago. She gave us her immediate plan of action: Friday: Clear the land. Saturday: Perform a Terra Preta (bio-char fertilizer) demonstration. Sunday: Dig holes to prepare for planting in the rainy season. We were supposed to do this all with the support of the community members

In a way, we followed this outline, but without the support of the community members. Each day, only 3-4 adults from Arizona came to help. This was disheartening. The exciting part was that at least 10 children came and showed interest in the orchard and some even helped!

So Friday, we got to Arizona not knowing what to expect. Immediately, we started clearing brush and chopping down green. It was hard hard work. The sun beat down on us and our blisters accumulated fast! No one had brought glooves because we thought they would be provided. Luckily we had a few bandanas to wrap around our fists. After clearing a load of land, we started piling up brush and setting fire to it. We were going to make charcoal out of it but the fires burned to hot and we needed to clear the land. After working only half a day, we were exhausted. We took a break for lunch and since we hadnt gotten much help from the community, decided to call it a day. We were dead tired, but we had 2 more days of work.

Saturday, we got out to Arizona and proceeded to do the same thing. There were not as many machetes that morning so some of us waited around. One kid, Benjamin, ran and got us some more. For the next 3 hours, I worked beside him chopping down trees, bushes, and grass. At one point, a heavenly rain came down and cooled us off. However, when it cleared up the humidity was worse than even. Also, on this day, a friend of a project member of ours came to help. It was great having a fresh set of hands to provide work. Since it had rained, the wood didnt burn so well and we had trouble getting fires started. After lunch, we worked a little bit more, digging holes and preparing for the last day.

Sunday we went out, after utter exahaustion the previous two days and went right back to work. This day, we had to dig numerous holes! This was hard work as well. It wasnt as long lasting, but it was more energy draining: ripping up roots, pulling out rocks and even avoiding Tarantula at the bottom of the holes. Overall, this was the least amount of work we had to put in, however, it was the most tiring. After digging holes, we kept on trying to burn the piles of wood as well as collecting material to make Terra Preta. We needed alot of leaf litter and bio mass to mix in with the charcoal and bird manure that Forest, one of the leaders from our project partner, went to pick up. After lunch, we started filling in the holes with the mixture while others went to get community members to do the Terra Preta demonstration. It was great to have a fair sized turnout for that. There were about 10 people who were interested and we were able to teach them this improved way to fertilize the land. Instead of slash and burn, the common practice, we showed them how they could slow burn the green material they had collected and then use that charcoal with the other common ingrediants.

Overall, I think our aid was useful. Even though it will require a lot more input from the community to take care of the orchard than what they gave this weekend, we showed our willingness to help them. If the word spreads from the few who showed up, maybe the rest of the community will be inspired to work on maintaining it.

two days later, I am still exahausted, but excited to think I only have a week left of school/finals! We are very close to the end of this long, hard, amazing journey. This weekend, Jess and I our going to go to Tikal and go on a zip wire! It should be great fun.

There may only be one more blog after this one. I dont know if I will be able to access internet in Guatemala, El Salvador or Nicaragua on my travels in the coming weeks.

I hope you all have a great time,

best wishes,

Colin