PROGRESS, HOORAY!

Modest Beginnings....But if you can't see the dream, you're crazy....

Finally! Today I had free reign! I had SUCH an awesome morning, though ZERO of my 6 volunteers showed up....figures. They will probably show up NEXT Wednesday, as is customary here (I don't know if you knew this, but Latin America has its own time zone too...and it moves at its own pace).

In any case, I spent about 3 hours this morning, tilling and removing rocks (as well as being stared and laughed at by the men who "clean" the soil regularly...meaning they rip ALL PLANTS and ANYTHING GREEN and throw it into the garbage...not really my idea of help) from the garden before planting a solid two rows of rhubarb chard, collards and marigold. Tomorrow I'll plant a few more rows of veggies, not sure which kind yet. I'm so happy I finally get to work outside and in the sun again, the methodical way in which you work in a garden is so good for the mind. I was both thinking of nothing and thinking a million thoughts on other project possiblities (see the rocks located on the right side of the picture above...I want to make them a "Banco de Suenos" (Bench of Dreams) in which the kids will paint and create art on the rocks and can sit and enjoy the green goodness of the garden....when it comes up).

I'm also really excited to begin the construction of the informational signs for the plants...I don't know what materials to use yet, but I know some kids I'm going to ask for help to draw them (nothing like kid art). I'm also planning to make a nice, winding path through the whole lot (this is one third of it) and not sure what I should use for the path...keep it packed dirt, put rocks down, mulch, corn cascaras, bamboo....no idea on that yet.

I also started collecting the compost of the local restaurants I had asked to keep it for me...boy, was there a lot more SHIT than I expected! I'm going to have to dump some of it somewhere else, cause my little garden spot would be WRITHING with insects if I dumped it there. I've started a tiny, tiny bin for self compost...but it won't be ready for awhile. For now, am only adding bits of used coffee grinds, for nitrogen.

Sustainable Farming Techniques Among Tzutujil

Just a quick walk through the village I live in provides plenty of examples of how indigenous farmers have held on to some traditional methods, including ones that the international community now pushes as "sustainable agriculture." Among the techniques practiced here that I also learned about in a classroom setting (B-O-RING) are agro-forestal systems, polycropping, and rotating of crops while letting that piece of land go fallow for a season or two.

The picture at right is taken from a rooftop of a building on the eastern side of town, of the base of the volcano San Pedro. You can see agroforestry examples throughout this photo. Interspersed between the milpa is banana, coffee and avocado trees, all of which fruit and bloom at different times, providing the landholder with numerous benefits year round. None of the plants or trees in this picture need nor use chemicals or machinery to maintain their productivity. Granted the pace is much slower than the pace of farmers in the industrialized system, but they’ve survived thus far…

The addition of trees to the growing of crops stimulates a setting much closer to nature and tends to nourish itself with the nutrients, sun, water, wind and other natural elements it needs. It also reduces waste materials--leaves fall to the ground to provide the soil underneath with mulch to prevent moisture evaporation and also organic material which eventually adds to the structure of the soil—this is taken into consideration and even appreciated rather than in the US, where people actually rake their yards and put the leaves in plastic bags to be collected by garbage men to throw into precious landfill space—WHERE IS THE LOGIC IN THIS!!).

While in the states, a piece of land like this would be growing at most two things (i.e. in the Midwest CORN and CORN, the south-east Christmas trees or southern California vineyards, etc.), this piece of land is growing a NUMBER of products--some of which are hard to tell and I only know from walking--including bananas, avocados, corn, beans, cabbage, onions, pine for firewood, coffee and probably a few more things I don't know about. The fact that there are a number of things growing allow income to be flowing into the landholder all year round and/or offer some extra security if one crop has an infection or doesn't do well during a particular season.

What I hope to do with the school garden project is reinforce local campesinos that ARE practicing sustainable methods, to let them know that the rest of the world is quickly learning how smart their systems are and how unsustainable the developed world's agricultural structure is. I realize that living here and preaching sustainable, organic agriculture is very different than living in the US. There is a much faster learning curve with a nearly year round growing season, there is a proficient water source (the lake) very near to the site and the industrialization of agriculture hasn’t already dominated the landscape as it has there.

BUT! There are many, many people who produce successfully AND organically in ALL of the States—through passive solar systems, through compost sharing programs, through farm to city networks (after all, you don’t have to be your own farmer—just KNOWING who your food producer is and what he is doing would change the world!) Organic farming is not to be looked at as going “backwards” in time or progress or it is taking into consideration the millions of mistakes we have made as a western culture in allowing one of our most basic rights (FOOD) to be monopolized by a few companies. While conventional crops now need more and more chemical or nonrenewable resources (this means fuel for large machinery, energy used in transport, laboratories, research, etc etc etc!) as inputs, organic farming increases yields each year as the soil metabolizes to the organic system (and as an organic farmer, you are paying attention to what the soil is lacking, what it is exceeding in, what it needs to improve). Organic farms typically need more educated labor but that is not a bad thing! Again, I have to cite Cuba which now has leading organic agricultural scientists figuring out exactly which microbial organisms assist the soil and which plants benefit each other when grown together, which plants will attract or distract insects that are pests to the desired crops and many, many other naturally occurring natural ways to deal with problems.

Permaculture Design

I had wanted to keep this blog updated daily and have been SEARCHING for a new topic the past few days. I wanted to have one day be a blog update on the garden project, the next day an informative blog on sustainable agriculture, Guatemala or any food security related topic. But I didn't do much this week other than planting to test all the seeds I have to make sure they will all grow (some I have been carrying around for a year!). I DID however, buy 4 shovels and gather up a crew of volunteers (THANKS, ANDREW BERG, FOR THE SHOVELS--WE WILL SOON BE BUYING GLOVES..AND YOU ALSO HELPED WITH PRINTING FLYERS!! and THANKS TO SANDRA, YAYELLE AND NINA FOR GIVING ME YOUR TIME!)

Anyway, yesterday at the school board meeting when I was trying to explain the design of the garden, I found my topic for today. I was saying that I would like to model the garden after permaculture theory and every single one of them looked at me with questioning but shy eyes, "Que es permacultura?" Well! I wanted to say, permaculture is the way of the future! As its founder, Bill Mollison says, "It's REVOLUTION disguised as gardening!" But...I thought, really... how do I explain permaculture to people who have used permaculture methods WAY before the word permaculture was coined in the 1970s.

Permaculture at its very core is a word mixture of permanence and culture In practice includes holistic techniques in agriculture, building and civil engineering, waste management and all aspects of our daily life. Permaculture attempts to create sustainability from the smallest, most local systems and build outwards, rather than a top to bottom or big to little application of development. Sustainability (as I've had to say ten thousand times during studying for my degree in Sustainable Development) is primarily defined as the ability to meet the needs of people today without compromising that of the needs of the future. Our current system of nearly everything is NOT sustainable-depletion and selling of raw materials like timber causing deforestation, monocultured lands which deplete biodiversity and important links in our ecosystem which we may not recognize immediately but has irreparable damage, oil-reliant (for transport and petrochemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides) agriculture that contaminates water and depletes carbon sinks, forceful evacuation of people when their culture and land doesn't conform to global supply/demand economics.

I'm using Mollison's guide to Permaculture to design the school garden because, well, it just makes sense. The idea is to use the LEAST amount of energy possible and that applies to the energy your body exerts to grow and to harvest, the electric energy used to pump water from the lake, the energy that it takes to produce the feed that the animals who will produce the manure for fertilization. All of it is one big interconnected web of flowing energy and the goal is to keep it balanced and giving, to keep the soil fertile and producing through natural mechanisms that don't require alot of work (my fave permaculture quote is that "hard work" is really just a sign of a poorly designed system). Using native species, like the squash, corn, beans, tomatoes, and chipilin helps alot: these plants don't require hardly any work since they are accustomed to this climate, the seasons, and the soil.

The idea, economically, is to minimize the amount of materials the school has to purchase from the outside/global market and also that it can possibly sell remaining vegetables and fodder to the community (which live very close-cause if you can't grow your own food, you can at least know who does and where, under what conditions). The school currently buys food from small local tiendas, most of it LOADED with sugar (sugar replaces corn down here as a food processing component). Kids lose their teeth at age 10 because there is so much sugar in the cheapest foods, not to mention lack of dairy because dairy producing animals are too expensive for them . Its not fair and they deserve better.


So...to attack the global economic system through gardening really is revolutionary (hence why I named my project, "A CALL TO FARMS" instead of A Call to Arms...get it?!). If you read Micheal Pollan's letter to the incoming President last week in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) calling for a Farmer-in Chief, new agriculture policy and for the White House lawn to be a giant garden...you understand the enormous implications of a simple act such as gardening. Reducing your consumption does and says ALOT, despite what the lazy pessimists say!

New Information!

Here is a list of plants that will be a part of the first round of transplants here at the School-Garden Project (Huertos Escolares). Tomorrow is the big day! Pictures coming soon: this picture is the BEFORE, taken two days ago, it is about 1/4 of the total donated land!

Nepeta cataria (catnip): One of 250 species of flowering plant in family Lamieceae. Perennial. Not a native plant but is now commonly found in the Americas (originally from Asia, Africa and Europe). Used primarily as a stimulant for cats. Can be used as a local economic incentive, as has been recently sold on global fair trade market as cat toys. Oil derived from catnip is also used as a repellent against mosquitoes, cockroaches and termites. Found to be 10 times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET and. Catnip can be used in substitute for lemon balm as well (similar color, properties and smell).

Lycopersicon esculentum (Chadwick Cherry, Three Sisters, Yellow Perfection, Yellow Pear Cherry, Wisconsin 55 Tomatoes): Originated in the Andes mountains, though believed to first be cultivated as a food in southern Mexico and Guatemala. In fact, the word Tomato is derived from a Nahuatl word, Tomatl. They reached Europe around the year 1523 but were largely regarded as a toxic plant, with an unsatisfying taste. Italians under Spanish rule are believed to be the first Europeans to show enthusiasm over the tomato in the late 16^th century, followed by the rest of the world shortly after.

Cucurbita Pepo (Pumpkin, Sweet Dumpling Squash, Golden Scallopini Bush Squash):

· Pumpkin: Evidence has shown that pumpkin has the ability to regenerate damaged pancreatic cells, improving or protecting from diabetes (sometimes reducing or eliminating the need for insulin in patients who already have diabetes). Good source of zinc, protein and many other vitamins, also said to lower cholesterol. Also contains minerals that strengthen the immune system. Other nutrient information available at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

· Squashes: Summer and Winter Squashes. Summer squash is picked immaturely and have soft skin, winter squashes are thick and hardy. Native to the Americas, estimated to be first cultivated 8,000 to 10,000 years ago—one of the “Three Sisters” of native Americans- maize, beans and squash.

Capsicum anuum (Cal Wonderball Sweet Peppers, Jalopeno Chiles): Also native to Mexico and Guatemala. Does best in warm and dry climates.

· Jalopeno: Growing period is about 70-80 days. Plant reaches about 2.5-3 ft tall, typically produces about 25 pods. Peppers turn red to signal the end of the growing season. Studies suggest Jalopeno peppers assist in the shrinking or warding off of prostate tumors.

Lagenaria Siceraria (Birds Next/Bottle Gourd): Climbling plant or ground cover, known to be one of the first cultivated plants in the world. These types of gourds are indigenous to Africa but are said to arrivie in the Americas 10,000 years ago. All parts of the plant can be eaten, as well as used for various medicinal purposes (headache and toothache relief, a purgative, an antibiotic, fever reducer). If harvested late, they can be used as bowls, containers or musical instruments.

Lactuca Sativa (Rouge D’hiver Lettuce, Reine des Gloces Lettuce, Bronze Mignonette Lettuce, Red Oak Leaf Lettuce, Four Seasons Lettuce): Lettuce originated in Egypt and was introduced to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in the 16^th century. Valuable source of folic acid and Vitamin A. The darker the lettuce is the more nutrients it contains.

Raphanus Sativus (Parat Sperling Radish): Limited information about the origins of the radish. Used as a facial cosmetic and also has antibacterial properties. Besides being rich in almost all vitamins and nutrients, radishes also help with constipation and intestinal parasites.

Monarda Punctata (Dotted Mint): For use in tea, strong flavour calms stomach and cures diarrhea. Also, can be added to water for a cooling face wash. Attracts bees and butterflies. The essential oil can be used to relax muscles (use in a rub), aids in digestion and eases pain from menstrual cramps.

Eruca Sativa (Arugula): Native to the Mediterranean region. Annual, needs replanting for a number of years (the seeds are contained in the pod and are also edible). Adds a peppery flavour to salads and pastas and is treasured for its richness in Vitamin C and Potassium. Considered an aphrodisiac in Rome, also is commonly drank as an after-supper liquor in Italy (called rucolino).

Beta Vulgaris Cicla (Rhubarb Chard): Excellent subtitute for broccoli or spinach, rich in . Nearly whole plant is edible. Used as a laxative/anti-contipation, lowers blood pressure, Mineral source of boron, which is considered a booster shot to sex organs. Used as a dye for fabric and artwork.

Phaseolus Vulgaris (Kentucky Wondersnap Pole Bean): Common plant, one of the “Three Sisters” of early Mesoamerican history, along with squash and corn. A nitrogen fixing plant, its the natural way to fertilize soil without using chemicals, so providing nutrients to the consumer and the ground at the same time.

Cucurbia Moschata (Butternut Squash)

Agastache Foeniculum (Licorice Mint)

Brassica Rapa (Purple Top White Globe Turnip)

Brassica Oleracea (Green Glaze Collards, Dinosaur Kale)

Cucumis Sativas (Smart Pickling Cucumbers, Straight Eight Cucumbers)

Tagetes Erecta (Marigold): Native to Mexico and Central America, called Flor de Muerte (Flower of Death). Aztecs used it for ceremonial, medicinal and decorative purposes. Medicinal uses included treatment of stomache aches, parasites, diarrhea, indigestion and toothaches. Scientific studies show that the naturally occurring phytochemical thiophenes kills bacteria.

Solamum Melongena (Japanese Pickling Eggplant): Originating in India, mass produced in 7 countries, China being first. Stops formation of cancer causing free radicals, lower cholesterol and is a valuable source of folic acid and potassium.

Brassica Juncea (Rosette Green Tatsoi):

Ocimum Basilicum (Genovese Sweet Basil)

Beta Vulgaris (Golden Chard)

Borago officinalis (Borage): A unique flower which can be used in teas and soups for its subtle flavour but immense nutritional value. Can also be used as an emollient and diuretic.

Cucurbita Maxima (Buttercup Squash)

Citrullus Lanatus (Bsh Snakeskin Watermelon)

Matricaria Recutita (Chamomile)

Petroselinium Crispum (Forest Green Parsley)

Tanacetum Parthenium (Feverfew)

Phaseolus Vulgaris (Italian Pole Bean)

Zea Mays (Stowell’s Sweet Corn)

Pisum Saltivium (Sugar Snap Peas)

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The Cuba Equation: Can an Island be an Island in Today's Economy?

Every urban agriculture enthusiast has derived a bit of that optimism from Cuba. Granted, the government leaves much to be desired, but what has happened in regards to food production is nothing short of amazing. Pre-1980s/90s, Cuba had some of the finest agricultural machinery available in the world, right in line with communist theory- that agricultural equipment was what saved the peasants from hard day labor and allowed them to do more academic and socialist activities that would put everyone at more or less the same class level. But then in the early 1990s when Cuba had no support left from the fallen Eastern bloc nations and the US enacted a rigid embargo on goods from Cuba, Cuba practically drowned in its isolation. As Bill McKibben writes in the Cuba Diet, Cuba became a real island..."not just surrounded by water, but something much more rare: an island outside the international economic system," in which everyone waited for its collapse. Which, in some ways, it did. Without oil, infrastructure collapsed. Without tools, entire industries and markets collapsed. Without food, the elder and weak collapsed. And that seems to be around teh point in time (mid 1990s), that innovation began taking place. People began to produce food on whatever land they could. They consulted the hungry elders on how to grow things and produced food on top of buildings, inside apartment buildings, and effectively staved off mass starvation and death. Today, over 115,000 people are employed by the metropolitian farming system.

While most Cubans still feel unfairly treated and cut-off from the world, their food system seems to be the most ecologically undisruptive in the world. When free trade hits Cuba, no one knows if it will keep its roots or turn the way of the world in industrialization (all over again...what lessons would be learned?!) of food. Maybe, in the face of oil shortages and environmental/social/economic damage done and attributed to malpractice in agribusiness in the developed world we could learn a little something from Cuba.

Insight into Industrial/ Export Agriculture and CAFTA

--Poor Farmers Starve, Rich Landowners Who Don't Even Farm Get $1.3 BILLION in Subsidies--

Between 2001 and 2006, the US government handed out nearly $100 BILLION in crop subsidies to farmers, more than $17 billion annually (US Department of Agriculture, 2007), required by the Farm Bill, which has evolved in a questionable manner since its inception in FDR's New Deal. Sounds like a wonderful plan and a lot of money going towards farmers, huh? Funny that just the opposite has occured (perfect example of how the Bush administration can disillusion the public: similar example: make a law allowing even more pollution to enter the atmosphere and name it the "Clean Air Act"). When this law requiring the federal government to subsidize agriculture was passed by the New Deal in the 1930s, there were several million small farms in the US and the majority of the population lived and worked on those farms that produced food for the nation and an income. Today, the small farm has all but gone extinct and the 150,000 farms that exist account for nearly 3/4 of farm sales, only 2% of the USA population still living on farms (US Census, 2005). In 75 years, the USDA has been bought out by completely by corporate food producers: large corporate farms get the largest portion of subsidy money, despite their already financial robustness and their reluctance to pay fair wages to immigrant laborers and their increasing reliance on mechanical labor. Small farmers get next to nothing, have an actual relationship with the land and how to farm, and have a hard time paying their property taxes and are eventually bought out by the agribusinesses that have monopolized the entire countryside.

Now, this should but rarely does make the domestic farmer pissed off and up in arms with agricultural policy (for Goddess knows what reason---but I think we can probably blame the right wing press that fattens rural America with its news and then turns around and feeds rural America to corporate America...Sigh...Let it Come to An End, Please!) But it DEFINATELY makes the international farm community angry!

Here in Central America, after DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic and Central Amerian Free Trade Agreement) was passed, farmers started to realize what a bad idea it was to open their markets to international consumers: they're prices and crops are simultaneously devalued and over produced. Subsidies within rich countries like the USA have made producing certain crops more expensive than not producing anything at all (quite different from the situation in the STates, where even people who live on fallow farms get paid half a million dollars/decade--for not doing ANYTHING...read the Washington Post series on AG subsidies, Sundays, July 2-December 28, 2006). Farmers in the US, on average, recieve around $21,000/yearly to produce crops such as corn, soy, wheat and rice. Farmers in poor countries who were sold on the idea of CAFTA because they believed they would have more consumers for their product, recieve little or no subsidy money and couldn't even sell it at cost. Mexican peasants have formed the EZLN and have brought international attention to the injustice of NAFTA. The situation in Africa is even worse.

Despite the prices not having anything to do with supply and demand, farmers are compelled both in the global south and in the US to continue to produce as much as possible, using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and soil-compacting heavy machinery, all of which have had a huge impact on the environment--again, globally and in the US.

I hope this sheds a little light onto the darkness that is industrialization and corporatization of our most basic need as humans: food. I hope this also gives the reader some idea of why A Call to Farms was started and what its future mission is: to continue implementing community food projects in the name of cultural and food sovereignty, strengthening local economies rather than greedy multinational companies, and to have a good time playing in the dirt while we begin to understand how much work it takes to feed ourselves sustainably, in fairness to our own health as well as the earth.

Thanks for reading! Any suggestions or confusion, please say so! I know I get carried away in my debate and have no problem providing source information or clarifying what I mean!

Absolutely Perfect Next Step!

After haggling for the mayor and municipalities support (in order to apply for certain grants) for two weeks, daily and with nonstop optimism...being told to come back tomorrow a hundred times...I finally found someone to help me bypass them!

Let me backtrack: the municipality (here we just call it "la muni") promised a piece of land to me about two weeks ago, when I presented the project to them. They were 12 men, sitting in a half circle around me, laughing at me and talking in Tzutujil (the indigenous language) the entire time, but did I care? F-No! I got land! They can laugh all they want....And they did...when I returned the following day and the following day and the following day when they told me "manana, manana, manana"....Each day when I shut the door to their office after being told "tomorrow" again, I heard them laughing and it boiled my blood. Not good for the little egg inside :) I was feeling super defeated and my small room has turned into a greenhouse with plants going nowhere....

But! Today I did a second round on all the people/businesses/schools I had given a printed proposal to about a week ago and found that the director (a woman! YAY!) of the largest public school in town (a bit out of town, actually) was really excited and upset that I had left no contact information (no cell phone yet) on the flyer. She immediately agreed to the plan and gave me free reign over a large tract of land--even during the next two months when the kids aren't in school (they have two months "vacation," which is actually when they go to work with their parents). So not only do I have land, I have land on which to work unsupervised for the next two months! I have still to work on the design of the lot, consult with the permaculture institute nearby and start up the informative newsletter that will accompany the project!!

As far as design goes, so far I have a definate plan (and seeds) for only two beds. The first is a native species which includes medicinals such as cataria and mint and aloe as well as edibles such as chipilin and hierba buena. The internship with the permaculture institute helped me to learn alot about native species-their uses and significance both environmentally and socially. For example, because they are native to the region, they have survived on their own, they are low-maintenance plants. They're integral to the landscape and serve a purpose to the native environment (are either a vital link in the native food chain or serve as habitat for something else that is) plus they don't need any inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides or water.

A number of native species have all but disappear from the table and homes of the Tzutujil people through the industrialization and globalization of food and fodder, which is a sad occurence. Perfect example is amarynth, an important flowering grass that has thrived here for..ever, was burned in large quantities when the Spanish conquistadors arrived to what is now Guatemala in the mid 1500s. They called it a weed and the people who ate it, filthy savages. In reality, the plant contains vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin B6, vitamin C, riboflavin, and folate, and dietary minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese and the Maya of this region were very smart to have been using it to make their tortillas from. The plant is used around the world for a grain, a vegetable, a dying component and as an ornamental...I'm guessing that the Spanish knew its potency and also figured that by debasing the food, they could debase the culture and own the people...

For some reason, multinational companies such as Wal-Mart and Procter and Gamble have been just as convincing these past few decades that there product is better than the one in the backyard and many people have run to the store, while their land is taken and developed into producing mass quantities of other things for that same greedy global market. The goal of the native garden is to re-emphasize the importance and utilization of the very plants that have sustained this lifestyle and culture for millinia.

The other bed I have already aquired seeds for will be planted with foods used in the school lunchs--common foods eaten here such as types of squash, root vegetables, corn and beans (of course!) The idea here is to offset the costs of the school having to purchase the foods and also for the kids to understand how to grow the foods themselves and possibly begin home gardens (especially when we go into our container gardening segment!)

Thanks for reading this quick update!
Emiy

Paypal Account Info

In order to donate money, you need to do the following:

Go to Paypal.com, Click on add Funds
The key to adding to my account is my email, which is
emily.zielke@gmail.com

Thanks alot and let me know if you have any questions!

I HAVE PAYPAL! Okay, people, I have done the hard part of asking for donations...please help and donate!

Here are three options:
1. Sponsor one student at $17. I'll keep track of this student's progress/lot in the garden and send you pictures, quotes, random tidbits monthly.
2. Purchase a newsletter subscription! At $25 for three months I will provide you with a pretty newsletter with all the stuff you need to know about good food and bad agribusiness and all things related to revolutions!
3. At $100, me love you long time. At this level of funding, I will send you a newsletter or two, photos of the garden project and updates as often as I make them. If you're giving this much, you're allowing this project to continue operating--I've found volunteer translaters, but still looking to give some money to the local tour guides who can teach about native plants and how to seed them, etc. Also, the internet and printing costs will be covered with your money.


Thanks so much! LEt me know who is interested in donating and at what level!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR READING!!

Great New Update!

After a very unsuccessful attempt at getting cooperation from the school (the director is not too happy to deal with a woman unless he's in completely charge), I marched straight to the Mayor's office. And I waited for the mayor! I finally got to speak with him, explain the entire project and reasoning behind Huertos Escolares (School Gardens) and he is donating a piece of land (albeit small and far) for the project! Granted, I got the meeting because I'm a cute gringa...but I'll take it while I can (which...at 5.5 months pregnant won't be long)!

This brings so much more freedom to the farm to school program and the class can take FIELD TRIPS to the farm! I'm so excited to start transplanting what I've already started growing, which is two types of Squash, two types of tomatoes, amaranth, pole beans, some local strands of cabbage and sunflowers! YES! I've never started a garden from nothing before...any tips are welcomed! I will be consulting the permaculture institute nearby before doing anything!

I cannot put into words how happy I am about this small victory. Screw it, LARGE victory! By the way, if you think a successful meeting with the mayor of a town of less than 20,000 people is not a big deal--look who's running for VP of the United States! Ha!

Proyecto Huertos Escolares/ School Garden Project: Lago Atitlan, Guatemala

In this first entry, I'll be brief as possible and introduce myself and my current project.

Me first: My name is Emily Zielke. I'm a recent graduate of a double MA program at American University (Natural Resource Management/ Sustainability and International Development) and in studying for those two masters degrees, I learned alot about my own personal strengths....which are, to say the least, not inside a classroom. I prefer and excel at working at the grassroots level, where I am constantly learning and facing challenges.

Learning and facing challenges has long been my favorite thing in life, in fact if there are no challenges ahead of me, I tend to create them! Out of this bad habit came lots of trials (yes, even the court-kind) and tribulations, but over time, I've learned to pick my battles more inteligently and those that may come with solutions. Some of my most inspirational and important experiences have been volunteering and working with "at risk" innercity kids in Chicago, working with sustainable and natural building professionals, an internship at a permaculture institute and spending time amoung the Maya of Guatemala.


Currently, I'm working on building farm to school linkages at the public school here in San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala for many reasons. To grow food at and for the school will save the school much-needed money. By law in Guatemala, each primary school that holds kids in classes for over 5 hours must serve them some sort of snack or lunch. Unfortunately, the kids in this school get a small snack only a couple days a week, usually Kellogg's brand Corn Flakes and milk, which comes in powdered form and is mixed with store-bought water. These young kids are a major contributor of the household and plantation work done by each family to earn wages. If they aren't at school, they're working hard and have barely the amount of nutrition needed for a kid who sits in front of the television all evening, let alone one hauling wood and buckets of coffee beans or other produce for export.

This particular area is breathtakingly beautiful and rich in natural resources. Unfortunately, 50 years of civil war (backed by the CIA—and if you think this is some kind of conspiracy theory, please read any book on the subject published after the 1970s or better yet, go straight to the CIA website and read the admission-justification for supporting ethnic cleansing here in Guatemala and also in Nicaragua put those natural resources in the wrong hands. The Maya have lived in this area for thousands of years and experienced many hardships, from natural disasters and conflicts with indigenous groups , but most of the damage has been violence and oppression by foreign exploitation. When multinational financing agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund began encouraging and selling the idea that countries who lived primarily at subsistence-level should start exporting their raw materials to the US and European countries in order to lift themselves out of poverty, the exact opposite occurred. Several countries were just beginning to work in a democratic manner, electing leadership through popular vote, when these international agencies promoting global free markets saw that their primary pushers' interests were at stake and intervened…sometimes violently. In Guatemala, that happened in 1954. United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) was the largest landowner in all of Central America. Several of its acreage was not being used and the fairly elected president began pushing legislation that required that land be bought by the government and redistributed to the people who lived there previously (UFC was able to purchase it cheaply and easily as there had been no land titling system before—there was no need for one when the indigenous groups farmed it communally). The CIA backed a coup that overthrew the reformist president and implemented one that led to 40 years of murder and pillage of indigenous people, their land, their lifestyle, their culture and their food, all in the name of a free-market economy in which only the rich have benefitted. Unfortunately that same export and free market plan to reduce poverty is still in effect and areas that could be producing food for families is producing coffee and other luxury items for export although the prices are always dropping. After seeing the first hand effects, I know why the US and western right wingers are the only ones who still support it.

The two degrees which I recently obtained from American University (Natural Resource Management and International Development) focused primarily on economic and environmental policies and on the sweeping movements which have led to our current disastrous situation. I decided to start with small local movements. No one solution works everywhere and having already spent some time working here in Guatemala on an internship last year I decided to work on a few of the issues I learned about:

1. 1. The ill-advised missions to globalize the community. Increasingly you see Coca-Cola and other processed packaged foods among the younger generation. This is a lot more harmful than it sounds for a community that has rarely had to deal with non-organic garbage and does not yet have a waste disposal or treatment plan. The imported garbage, ahem…foods usually end up in Lake Atitlan…which has lost 25 feet of visibility in the last 10 years. These kinds of foods and items have been introduced through the Evangelical missionaries that have been sending missions here for decades (now including teenage missionaries that are flashy with their I-pods, fancy cars and lots of money), as well as tourism, both domestic and international. I myself do not have the ability to stop missionaries or tourism, but I do think that they can have a positive impact (at least the conventional tourists—the Evangelicals are known to proclaim that they are "saving" these backwards people). We can have a positive impact by teaching the mistakes OUR societies have learned in industrialization (farmers not valued enough, dead zone in Gulf caused by agrochemicals, monocultures that have destroyed several ecosystems and put species on the endangered and exist list, etc) and by participating in empowering events, such as my ecology project! The project's main focus is the native-species garden, which is/will be taught in part by local elders. Tzutujil elders know nearly everything there is to know about the natural world in this region and according to them, the world was (and still is, in some areas) teeming with medicine, nourishment and other fodder that should be chosen over multinational pharmaceutical and food companies.

2. 2. Subsistence farmers think they can no longer farm for their own families because they don't have land and were forced into urban areas (also, if you think ´force´ is too harsh a word, please read ANYTHING on urbanization—know that these people and the majority of the poor in urban areas today do NOT wish to be there). But that skepticism simply isn't true: Havana, Cuba has shown us that urban areas can produce food. 90% of Havana's residents eat food that they have grown themselves. Cuba's situation came about when it was cut off from the world supply of agricultural machinery, biotechnology and world markets. Now is this generations chance to make the switch to sustainable lifestyles through food BEFORE catastrophe hits. There have been very successful and far-reaching urban garden projects in Hong Kong, Moscow, LA, NYC, and Portland. Container gardens, such as this small one we are doing in the school, are a great way to start. And materials (tires, large buckets which cement powder is delivered in, any old makeshift container) come easy and save landfill space.

3. 3. Malnourished children. It simply isn't right to see such skinny, hard-working children eating chips and drinking pop. It is heartbreaking and no matter the politics and economics behind it, no one should stand by and watch. This is my little chance to feed people, because I love people and my family taught me that if you love someone, you put good food in their mouth…

Well..... this is the story of what I'm doing and why I am that person in your life…friend or family member…sending mass emails to everyone they know, asking for money to support their cause. I totally understand every negation, just thought I should try this one avenue (of course, I'm also applying for several grants). Everyone that I know and admire for self-started projects have also had to do this...it´s hard to ask for money from the people you know, much harder than asking for money from foundations (which I am ALSO doing and have earned one small grant already, specifically for introducing ecology courses to the school).

Please send this to anyone you think may be interested or could donate: university students studying sustainable development, international travelers or development workers, gardeners that may have ideas to share, rich people with so much money they don't know what to do with it….(I don't think anyone I know is closely tied to these people…just a thought) I need time and work donations, too!

Money is needed for the following reasons, if you feel stronger about one avenue than another, do say so and I'll make sure that your money goes to what you want it to as well as photographs and brief updates on that particular area of the project.

· Media Outreach: As I search for volunteers and materials, I spend about two hours on the internet a day and also have to print numerous documents to post around town. This has gotten to be one of my primary costs. I've also started writing a newsletter focused loosely around the project and the importance of food and native species, in general. I would like to distribute these to a wider audience and will hopefully in the future have local advertisers to help pay for printing and volunteer writer/photographer/artist/cartoonist contributions.

· Labor: I would like to give a stipend to two local people who are contributing their time and knowledge in the classroom and in the garden. I'm also looking for someone to translate documents (to Spanish AND Tzutujil) that would be useful in explaining the project to local nonprofits and organizations that may want to cooperate or sponsor the project.

· Tools: I have enough tools for myself but would like to provide the school with some additional tools (4-5 small handheld shovels, 30 pairs gardening gloves, for the students to work together when I or any other supervisor is not around. Part of the magic of gardening is discussing your own personal lessons and comparing it to what others think, know, have learned.

· Art Supplies: A side project of this one is to make the school garden fun for the kids and to intertwine the students artwork with the beauty of nature and growing life. Tzutujil art is beautiful and rare and has all but vanished from the school and homes, as they focus heavily on Western science and math. Bringing art into schools can rejuvenate excitement about learning. Examples of some projects I have in mind are painting the containers (first up, those ugly decrepit tires), dying materials with dye plants and flowers native to the area, and artful constructions to place in gardens (would really like to use only garbage to emphasize reusing/recycle ideology, so hopefully this one is costless), and anything else the kids come up with.

Thanks for reading everyone. I wish I could offer some kind of support to you, instead of just asking for a donation. If I can do anything for you or in exchange, please let me know! If you disagree with my projects and point above and would like to talk to me about anything, please do that as well. I´m open and ready to hear other sides.

Also, please consider visiting and volunteer work as a donation-vacation as well!! In mid-month December 2008, I am holding a fundraiser at a VERY popular local bar/restaurant (ask Google: Buddha Bar, San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala) and will be auctioning stuff, there will be music (2 acts-one blues and one solo acoustic guitar/singer) and for purchasing an entry ticket, a complimentary package of random herbs (some medicinal, some for cooking). It's a long way to go for a party, but totally worth it! Consider it!

Since I have no way of collecting money that may be donated to the project, please just write me back and tell me a pledge amount, preference for area to put the money towards and together, we can figure out a way to get it to me here. I have contacts in Washington and also in my family that have access to my banking account and information. Or, I have recently set up a PayPal account and can also accept donations this way.

I will continue sending updates, newsletters and achievements of the project. Please help, if you can. If you can´t, do not worry! I have faith that where there is a will there is a way. And in this case, there is a will and a necessity, so things will surely take off soon!

I welcome letters, postcards, information on similar projects but PLEASE do not send money to the following snail mail address.

Emily Zielke "Proyecto Huertos Escolares"

Lista de Correos

San Pedro la Laguna 07018

Solola Guatemala

Centroamerica