Prepping for 1st Formal Volunteer Event

Starting Saturday December 6th, we're going to have weekly volunteer events for anyone who wants to come and help speed up the project. The students come back in mid-January and I would really like to have put all the hard work into the project before that happens. The plan is to have the majority of plants reach maturity as the classes are working in the project and also to have some of their first lessons be about seed saving and maintenance...which obviously cannot be done if we don't get started now. Its the beginning of the dry season and to be planting right now is actually against permaculture theory, but I figure since all the extra energy being expended is MINE then its all good. I think with a good mulch and daily attention it should work out fine.

We don't have a lot of funds but I'm thinking that the first couple events will be pretty short and simple. I need some help bringing organic matter to the garden, mix it with topsoil, build raised terraces and take out all the rocks as it is PAINFUL to do this stuff alone! I really feel for full-time farm laborers.

I had two people who were studying agricultural science in Germany (two friends of my roomate and living with us...yes, its been a full house since moving in) come to the project last week to brainstorm on how to more quickly and efficiently improve the soil structure. They confirmed my belief that one way or another I'll have to get manure in the garden...so I literally took my hand shovel and ran around town scooping horse poo from the 'roads'(there are more horses than cars in my town) and am bringing it in next week.

I am not sure how to post the English language flyer for volunteers, but of course if you are reading and in the area, email me and I'll send it to you personally!

Plans for Expansion

I applied for a wonderful grant yesterday, so EVERYBODY PRAY! Goddess knows, I/we need it. I don't know why, but I always just expect if something is the right thing to do then it will work out...however, that has not been the case and everyday is a struggle: financially, culturally (i.e. the time and date on your watch or computer mean absolutely nothing here) and sometimes ecologically. And...all these problems combined sometimes lead to periodic breakdowns on my part.

So, anyway, the garden has been undergone a severe overhaul in the last couple days (why I'm slow at writing blogs). I've started to bring in compost from my own house and from local restaurants because the plants aren't growing nearly as fast as they should be. The soil here is rich and volanic but after years of maltreatment, it has turned pretty dusty. So, I brought in the compost to build structure in it, allow it to hold more water and am also digging up all the rocks, putting the plants that did push on through into containers for the meantime, so that I can reform the soil before putting them back in the ground.

Another problem with the way the garden has developed is that the school administration doesn't want to give me the key so I have to call from an internet cafe or phone booth for the director, arrange a time and wait. And wait and wait and wait. Sometimes she doesn't show up at all and the plants lose a day of water, all the while the dry seasons hateful sun bakes those poor little guys. The system has really got me down and I'm about to get into a further discussion with the director so that I may have a key. The project will progress alot faster and with a lot more success if that happens.

Anyway, the real reason I'm writing is to inform interested parties of the upcoming plans for expansion (if we get the grant). The following programs will be part of Huertos Escolares:

1.) Students participation in the garden and its maintenance, starting in January and ending in October 2009. All 350 students in the Humberto C. Guzman School will be participating in one way or another of the garden project, as well as all 25 teachers. They'll be learning how to seed and plant the plants, how to conserve soil through composting and mulching, water conservation and constructing a drip irrigation system (thank god I will have the professors help in this!), and most importantly the history, cultural importance, uses and the scientific reasons these native plants exist in this ecosystem.

2) Art, mostly recycled art/structures/mosaics to emphasize how COOL it is to reduce, reuse and recycle!!! But we're also gonna make informative signs on each plant as well as a mural on the wall facing the garden (it is currently the most boring place on earth). I think art is an excellent way to get the kids vested in the garden project.

3) Media: The bi-monthly newsletter will be in Tzutujil, Spanish and English. We plan on printing enough to distribute all around the lake, so that people on all sides can get an idea of what community food production is all about, why it exists and why its important in conservation and for the future of the people who live here. The newsletter will focus on sustainable practices in the community regards to agriculture, tourism, consumption, culture, etc as well as profiles on local people and businesses, perhaps a volunteer or two, some history and progress on the garden at the school. Also featuring contact information and ideas on how to take this project to your home, to your business, etc. Interview on conservation oriented Guatemalan organizations will also be included and articles will be accepted by students or local youth on what they think about sustainable development.

4) Tourism and Volunteer Outreach and Participation: About once a month, we'll do a big event where tourists come and work with the students on the gardens maintenance and start-up projects, learning all about it and hopefully taking a piece of the local wisdom with them. Also, sharing previous experience with me/us.

5) Expansion program to install native species gardens in students homes, other public schools and public spaces. The underlying goal of the project is to help families in this region reach as near subsistence level as they can, reducing their costs and the pollution, obesity, and energy that comes with imported foods.
This will begin with students taking what they’ve learned home, with knowledgeable assistance as well.

So, these are the primary component of the expansion plan! There are a couple more smaller things, but I've got to get to work now!

Thanks for reading!



Above is a picture of the center of the school, where I hope to put container gardens in...to make it look less like a prison. The main containers I have in mind (and okay, quite a few have gathered in my front yard...just like back home in Southern Illinois, haha) for this project are tires and raised beds made from fallen wood or bamboo.










Above and below you have the difference in the soil I've been adding compost to and the the soil at the school. Nothing short of a miracle is needed. Luckily, miracles are my specialty :)

Week-End Blotes Summary :)

Here we have Corn and Beans (they came up HUGE in only 3 days!), Rhubarb Chard and Cabbage sprouts!

Still Trying

I would really like to include art in the school garden project, both the mural proposed by one of the teachers and also artistic and textual signs for the garden, regarding information about the species of plants used, their importance in Tzutujil culture, and instructions on maintenence, as well as whatever constructs we can make from garbage/recycled materials.

If anyone can recommend an organization, a business or an individual that gives small grants for art or donates art materials, please let me know as I would really like for this to happen by January. I'm gonna start crafting some emails to stores in the US, if they have foundations set up for this kind of thing, expired materials they will throw out, etc...if you have any ideas/connections to art stores or anything related, please let me know! It would be nearly impossible to send them to Guatemala (well, you can pay to do it...but they will end up in the hands of Guatemalan postal workers!) but I have family and friends coming to visit all the time and many have volunteered to bring me things from there.

I'm planning on leaving here in May 2009 and would like to see the project running successfully and in the good hands of people committed to keeping it going, which means that the students in the school have to be interested in it...and art is always a great way to get students involved. I realized how few pictures I had been putting on, so I'm posting a few random school-garden-art/ nature-mixes-with-art pictures off the internet These are not mine! Oops, don't tell--although a friend of mine did design the woman that has vines growing up her legs in spring (Dessa Kirk's sculpture in South Grant Park, Chicago)!!! And the last one, of the mural, was done by one of my best friends, Joel Bergner (www.joelsmurals.com). Click on the images to view larger pics!

Gimme Gimme Gimme More Permaculture!!

Here's what do to if you are trying to grow healthy vegetables and your soil is bad, as is the soil on the school property. The plants are growing very slowly and during this season of much wind, the topsoil is blowing away due to not having any roots or organic material living inside of it for a long time.

Firstly, how to decide if the soil is bad. I, personally, think you can tell before you ever even start planting, just by reaching down and grabbing a handful of topsoil or by looking a tiny bit deeper and seeing if any insects exist in there. In the case of the school: the topsoil is dust and there are next to no bugs, though one girl found a scrawny worm on the first day. I was quick to start the project and thought we could fix it with a little love, water, sunshine....in retrospect, I wish I had started composting and treating the soil with manure before planting...would leave me in a better situation right now, but its never too late to start and thats the game plan for today (and my entire life, actually)!

So, fertility and texture and all that jazz. Fertility is just access to nutrients that occur in healthy soil, nitrogen, phosophorus and potassium. Nitrogen is primarily known for its leaf and stem encouragement, sometimes (as with bell peppers and tomatoes) too much nitrogen will make your plants have too many leaves and not enough fruit! Some good, naturally occuring sources of nitrogen are used coffeegrinds, planting beans interspersed with certain things, and of course animal manure.

Phosphorous and Potassium are also easy to fix, naturally. Phosphorous is important for root growth and can be found in soil containing bone meal (the deep forest). Potassium, like nitrogen, leaves the soil quickly--especially in the rainy season and needs to be replenished. Potassium helps them to continuing growing at a stable pace as well as building up immunity.

But besides these nutrients, there are several other important things that have to exist for soil to grow healthy food. The process of decomposition and its resulting humus, for example, is a concoction of so many things dependent on the ecosystem that lives and dies on that location. The countless creatures that make up humus work to eventually produce those three nutrients mentioned above, as well as tons of other nutrients and helpful bacteria.

Be sure to steer clear of what writer Michael Pollan (and the ancient English agronomist, Sir Albert Howard, in “An Agricultural Testament”) calls in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, ‘the NPK mentality’ (that stands for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium). When agricultural scientists found out the importance of these three nutrients they focused only on them, they began separating them, manipulating them and their relationship to the soil in order to come up with agri-chemicals that would make the land produce more and faster—they didn’t and still do not, however, take into consideration the other variables to growing plants and healthy soil…the other life forms it supports and their reason for being there and the interconnectedness of the whole system. They do not, as Howard suggests, take “the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal and man as one great subject.”

One can no longer say that agriculture can be divided up and that the land is just a sum of its parts…From what people know now (and other people have long suspected intuitively) of agriculture’s impact on climate change, its impact on people’s livelihoods, nations’ poverty and the health of the air, water, and food to the loss of biodiversity to the inability of the land to produce after the leaching of the soils fertility through chemicals…we have to acknowledge that agriculture and the land is the system we live in, not outside of-and address it holistically. We cannot think that we are able to manipulate variables within the system and only affect that which we have on our nice charted graphs…agriculture is nature and nature is not a constant. It can be chaotic, it can evolve, it cannot be looked at as separate pieces of a larger puzzle that makes up our lives. It simply IS our lives.

Politically, one can look at a single item of food and feel slightly wronged in the matter: it is nearly always packaged in uniformity and wearing a barcode or a number, just like a prison inmate. Many vegetarians claim that the reason for the dis-health of the American population is not simply that it eats too much meat, but that the meat that we eat was factory farmed and killed in such a way to cause terror and misery during its entire life…and that energy goes into your body when you eat it. I personally feel a lot happier eating chicken that can cross the street when it feels like it, but in line (or since we’re talking holism—perhaps I should say, “in circle…”) with my beliefs on everything—my happiness probably comes from a number of interrelated things.

So, in short, making your soil healthy makes your body healthy which makes your mind healthy which influences other minds and bodies to get healthy…and slowly but surely, we can repair and reclaim our most basic necessities in this world: food, air, and water. (I may be getting way ahead of myself, but in turn these things also affect our land-usage, our land-ownership and thus our political system and economy….just through soil maintenance! Yes, THIS I BELIEVE….)

Reintroducing Sustainable Agriculture is Hard, Understandably...

I've had a really positive week, gotten lots of planting done, though have been primarily working alone this week and liking the solitude. This week is registration for classes that begin in January so many of the school's teachers are there, signing students up. Most have been absolutely wonderful. Yesterday a lady bought me a lunch out of her own pocket and many others have come over to talk and learn about the garden project, thanking me for putting so much effort into it without getting paid. I explain that I'm doing it because I like to do it and that I couldn't imagine a healthier way to progress through my pregnancy, digging in soil and breathing the fresh air.

Today, however, a couple of the teachers came over and specifically the woman teacher, were very biting and mean, laughing at me in their native Tzutujil. There are only about 16, so I am recognizing all of their faces and the subjects they teach. For reasons I am not sure of, the female teacher acted very hateful towards me while I was explaining what I was doing, and told jokes to all the younger men hanging around her. I remember her from the first school board meeting, where she caused problems and eyerolling from nearly all of the other teachers and principal.

There is a very interesting dynamic here that I'm learning about quickly. Its like this in the US, too, just a little less obvious. The women, before their childbearing, are very competitive and mean towards other women in the village. They put one another down and laugh and demean each other for the benefit of the younger men. I suppose one could argue that its nature taking course, but I don't believe it. The women who opt out of this cruel self-tormenting system maintain great friendships, I belong to a couple of groups of them, myself--despite being several years older than them.

In any case, I am beginning to understand all of those International Development courses on the difficulties of being an "aid" or development worker....some people despise you because they see, more than you/me as "aid." I understand their anger and am at a loss at how to redirect it (obviously...I am and have been my entire life, broke and struggling...have never tried to live by taking advantage of someone else...I am not the rich people they are thinking of when they think of the USA...in fact, I only know a few of them!) I am not rich, I am not trying to steal any men from their community, I am only working to build food security in the village in a sustainable manner. To emphasize the importance of protecting the environment, to emphasize the ways in which they farmed a thousand years ago was actually the right way, to do away with the Green Revolution mentality and dominant development paradigms that have been applied top down (commercialism, right wing politicians always whiter than the natives teeth, and free trade zones that produce sweat shops and boast of being the only employment available), for the last 50 years. I understand it is hard to trust foreigners at this point...

But I am still angry at the female teacher's attitude: obviously, she doesn't have any children herself and doesn't care what is best for them. I feel like she would ruin the garden when I'm not around just to spite me and that....would make me cry. Stuck in between a rock and a hard place, literally (see pictures of site...)

Anyway, as of today, we can see tiny sprouts of cabbage, 3 types of lettuce, 2 types of flowers, corn, beans, watermelon, sweet peppers, chamomile, mint, perejil and amaranth! Think I may ask for some help tomorrow...Would like to get whole terrain planted by end of next week.
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I love Mondays

Pardon this unusually sentimental blog: today I worked alone, having not been in the garden for the weekend, there was a lot to do (sort of-it DID rain on Sunday) and I desperately needed some time for reflection. Upon waking up, I was a bit crabby. I just moved into a new home where the spiders have ruled for the past couple months and I'm trying to show them I'm boss, not by killing them, but by listening to NPR Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on full volume. Anyway, I don't sleep well as I'm sure they are all just waiting for my eyes to close and the silence to ensue in order to begin their own Thanksgiving feast on my body.

So, this morning I lumbered over to the site, not feeling particularly inspirted, energetic or excited about working through the morning. I thought about how I should have worn different shoes. I got angry that the drunk men still hit on me when I am clearly 7 months pregnant. I got irritated at the sun and the heat and the mosquitos and the indigestion of granola with unrefrigerated milk that has nearly no vitamins or nutrients in it. But immediately after I plunged the small handheld shovel into the ground and began sifting through the soil, picking out rocks for the terracing and pieces of plastic, I sank into that methodical meditation that happens each time I break ground. The symbolism of gardening is so strong for me: when done right, thoughtfully-- planting and nourishing that life is so fulfilling, as corny as it sounds. And to eat one's own effort and thought and care that was put into it...life doesn't get any better.

I began thinking of the things I need to do for the day: print a brochure for the school board so they can promote the program to other schools and also so they are more informed about what is going on in their schoolyard. I also need to finish up on that newsletter for November (getting behind on only the second edition, yikes!), I need to start applying for jobs for when I return to the USA next summer, I need to do yoga to stretch my back after squatting on the ground.

Then I started broadly thinking of the evolution of human consciousness that seems to be occuring in my home country and in the entire world right now and I felt all of a sudden, absolutely invigorated that I get to live in these exciting times. Things change slowly for sure, things are always changing without us noticing. But it seems this particular moment in time, for those of us who think with our hearts and believe in the good despite all the evidence, those of us who work not for money but for cause and for those who believe in living right not because religion or the law tells us to, but because we respect nature and all that lives in it, this change is monumental. Well, it COULD be.

I recently had an argument with a friend, who was taught by his family (being poor growing up) that money is the ticket to success in all cases, and in every situation if you have money your problems are solved..you can buy not only food and materials but also friends, sex, laughter, security, etc...but he's now older, lonely and irritated with himself without knowing why. I think this kind of disconnect from self and from nature is the cause of most of the upheaval in our society. But that is very difficult to address or even mention with people who have been conditioned to live and think in terms of numbers, structures, and the organization of people only (as opposed to the organizaiton of all life and natural resources).

I hope that the misery that people force themselves into (which is not at all to say a regular job with a regular company-just when that job that has no deeper meaning or nourishment to your body and soul and you are only working it for the money, for the acquaintences that may share in the desparity of it) will end soon. I hope that jobs become available for people who truly want to succeed and do well at serving, not just for those who know how to play the game or have friends. I loved Obama's opening statement that upon us is a time of sacrifice and responsibility...I'm ready! I hope that once again small businesses thrive, that people are seen as people again and not just as a potential profit, that passion is not feared but revered. The election of Barack Obama by such a huge margin, says alot. It says that people want change and even if they don't know why they are so unhappy (they can blame it on the surface things such as the economy, bad healthcare, poor world image--these things are all stemming from the deeper problem that we have built our society on false things and are brainwashed into thinking that we need/want ridiculous things to show who we are). The main point is that people want things to be different in their lives. I hope I get the chance to show how good life is when you know how to nourish it (I don't mean just gardening here!).

When I first looked up around noon, I realized I had planted three beautiful rows of herbs already...Parsely, Mint and Chamomile. Plus, I learned new words, "brote" means sprouts when they've come above ground...These "brotes" are Cabbage!

More later, thanks for reading. Hope you had an awesome Monday, as I did!

Finally, I am proud to be an American!

I would really like to focus today's blog on Obama and the USA.....WOO HOO!!!! We did it! We elected (by a LANDSLIDE) a minority and progressive President to the United States of America! I was getting so tired of snobby Europeans having so much material to laugh at the citizens of the USA, no matter how many times I say, "Hey! We didn't really elect him!" When has any country in the world elected a minority (racial, population) and PROGRESSIVE president! Once again, and this is our first chance at doing it JUSTLY, we have a chance to be a good role model to nations who idolize the West.

Now, while I am obviously as ecstatic as the next girl (and thousands on down the line, around the world!) it is OUR DUTY in a democratic society to continue to push and demand from our leaders the change we want. The Obama administration can't be charged with fixing the massive damage done over the last...well, hundreds of years, really. I personally like something I read down here the other day, in a local magazine...It's like Obama just stumbled upon a mess of honey and oil and was handed a roll of toilet paper to clean it up...

But while we can't expect him to do it alone, we can remind him of the promises his campaign made to us. In alignment with his economic reform goals aimed specifically at helping the middle class citizen (by this point in time, an endangered species), Obama has outlined several actions needed, all of which are desperately needed. Its our job not to let these problems get bypassed because of the vague language that is used by politicos.

The first of which is to limit subsidy payments to farms grossing over $250,000 and to bust up the monopolies that have been established by mega-agribusinesses that set up several different names and accounts for their total landholdings, in order to scoot through the loopholes set out to protect the bastards. Subsidies should go to smaller farms or farms trying to diversify their crops, not millionares who don't understand the land, don't know how to farm, and work in an office in downtown Chicago, sewing only unfair profit. He also promised in his Iowa campaign speech that he would strengthen anti-monopoly laws in the meatpacking industry, which is so huge and powerful that small-time producers have no power in the market and most are forced to produce in an hyper industrialized manner: CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are terrible for people working in them (i.e. not much different today than in Upton Sinclair's version of the industry, The Jungle), and who live around them due to chemical contamination and absolutely devaluement of animals lives (California voters voted to ban CAFOs in this election--but BOO on the Prop 8 decision!).

My personal favorite promise: Country of Origin Labelling! Seriously, if Americans can care more about their caloric intake than the injustice they do when they consume goods...then we truly are hopeless. With country of origin awareness, we have the oppurtunity to make the world smaller and globalized in a positive way. We can say no to slave wages and child labor abroad (Mars M&M Corp in Ivory Coast, Disney in Haiti, and a million other examples) as well as deforestation and climate change from cattle and plantations (McDonalds in Nicaragua, Sugar and Corn for Biofuels in Brazil, and once again millions of more examples exist) and we can ensure that what goods we CAN produce at home, we DO produce at home, eventually allowing subsistence farming to take root again in places its been ripped from the ground (i.e. HERE, Lago Atitlan, Guatemala)...which will help us to create a more sustainable method of development (please, everyone, don't forget that pres. debate promise of creating GREEN COLLAR JOBS!)

Two of the most obscure promises made by the campaign, with regards to the food movement is to "encourage organic and local agriculture" and also to "encourage young people to farm." These are EXCELLENT moves, now how are they gonna do that? For one, they have to help move the organic labelling to smaller farmers--organic agriculture is sometimes just as bad as conventionally grown foods, with respects to the monocultured way it is planted, the miles it has to travel and the socio-economic prejudice it holds. Organic agriculture CAN feed the masses, especially if you use permaculture methods of growing many things in the same area, and it should be only for people who can afford to go to Whole Foods. Healthy food belongs to everyone. And in regards to encouraging young people to farm...why is this just listed on the rural America agenda? Urban settings are ideal for learning agricultural techniques and more importantly, its where the young people are, and where there going--its where more schools are, more immigrants with farming knowledge and the desire to be included, more unused lots and its where more green space is needed ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7714950.stm ). Make them a part of the solution! Do not allow urban America to continue to (mostly, unknowingly) drain the nations resources without giving back!

Interesting sites to read about if your interested in learning more about the above mentioned topics:

www.cdc.gov/cafos/
www.epa.gov/region7/water/cafo/index.htm
www.sweatshopwatch.org
www.cityfarmers.org
www.urbangreenspaces.org


Thanks for reading!