Kirsten's blog - Sustainable Harvest

March 14, 2008


Today is the first day of Lent and all is well. In Panama, this is the beging of the week known as Semana Santa and it is very important, The majority of the people here are catholic. The celebration really starts Thrusday - Sunday of this week. Luis cut our weekday short today in order to feed us fish, rice, and beans.

Today I assisted Diomedes and Jesus, we constructed another energey conserving stove. We make our own bricks here. The bricks are made with a combination of terrior and merida. Yesterday after working in the feilds all day, I was able to come home and help cut bricks into various shapes. This job is extreamly time consuming, hot, and dirty. Merida is cow dung. So by the time we were done cutting 30 bricks with an electric saw, we were inhaling and wearing a huge amount of cow dung. The bricks are thick and hold up under extreme heat.

Today we created a stove with some the ****bricks, dirt, a few shovels, cinder blocks, a hand saw, and a metal coil. The finished product will not only feed this man..s family, but also will cut down on the amount of wood used, smoke produced, and they are beautiful in a rugged functional kind of way. These stoves are changing the way these people live. The man we worked for today had several fruit trees and he gave me a fresh glass of soursop juice that he had just made. He also had cornish hens, chickens, and doves. Eventually he asked me to follow him to a shed in which he had rabbits and even more baby rabbits. He sells these rabbits to the U.S. for reasons he would not explain. He let me hold a bunny baby that was only a week old. I wanted to stick this baby in my pocket and take him home with me.

Yesterday, I met with the families of two of the other volunteers. They were very kind and we checked the progress of their farms. MaryBel..s mom showed us the traditional shrimp traps and how they worked. The traps are weaved with palm frawns and smelled of the sea. After a deep treck through the jungle, crossing a large river, and then an upmountain hike, MaryBel..s mother showed us the process of her cilantro farm. We were taught the importants of Merigolds and how they keep insects away.

Last night we arrived home around 4:00 Pm. We ate dinner, showered, and then went down to Cornova Beach for a cookout. Ceviche was served as was Abuelo Rum and Seco. Daysbeth and Malena taught me several latin dances and we made sure to get home early so that we would wake up at 6:30AM and begin the next days work.

Tomorrow will be my first day off this week. I plan on camping down on the beach with one of the other volunteers, Joli. We are meeting some friends and we are going to take advantage of the big swell that..s comming in. We have been working hard, so it is time for us to play hard..... This weekend will be chill. Monday is the start of another work week, however the people we are helping are soo glad to see us that it doesn..t feel like work... It feels like a blessing......

Also, I appoligize for my poor spelling and grammer. I am working on a spanish computer and there is no english spell check... Also, yesterday was my mom..s birthday... My mom rocks... Happy 50..s mama

Another week has passed and more amazing things have taken place. I spent the weekend in Santa Catolina. I drove up with some friends and spent the weekend surfing and camping.
Monday was another work day. Joli, Luis, and I dove up into the hills to build rice patties. First the 20 meter x 20 meter patties had to be cleaned of all roots and debris. Two men assitsted us with shovels, picks, and rakes. Then the cleaned area had to be handplucked of any debris that may interupt the small fragile seedlings growth. When the area was FULLY cleaned we measured out perfect rows with sticks and rope and planted rice in the mud. The finished product was beautiful. We ate a lunch consiting of chicken, rice, and fried plantans and drank lemon chicha. After we were done with lunch we jumped in a fresh water river and cleaned our selves with bars of soap. After every one was dry we hiked the two miles back up the mountain. Along the way we were able to see our work. It was very satisfying. We spent the rest of the evening watching novellas on TV.

Today was a very short and important day. We dove up into Bella Florida and lead a seminar for SHI. SHI has begun a micoloan bank. I am still learning about the exact deal, translating has made the issue very complicated, but it seems to be a wonderful plan. Apartently SHI matches funds that the community contributes. There was no talk of interest rates and considering SHI is a non-profit orgainization, I imagine that the payback plan is design to develop disipline more than to make a profit. There was a good showing, 23 people showed up and we were expecting 25. All the people greated us graciously and listened well and asked many questions. We needed at least 10 people to commit to the program in order to eligible and 15 people signed up. This program will loan money to farmers and people intereted in starting a small business. They will have the assistence of SHI staff members and will be encouraged to run all ideas past SHI prior to going ahead with their ideas. For many, the idea of an extra $1000 for farming is life changing...

$500 is the maximam amount that SHI is willing to donate at this time. Everyone that is involved will also contribute some of their personal income. As the projects become sucessful, the amount of money donated will be increased. This is an opportunity for people to work together for their common good and to get a chance to move ahead. We are not throwing money at a problem, we are designing an infrastructer. We handed out cups of coke and cookies at the end of the seminar and loaded a bus back home. Many of the people had several miles of mountains to hike back to.

This proved to me that the community if aware of what SHI is offering and wants to take advantage of the opportunites. They had to make an effort to get out to the meeting and they will have to make another effort of saving and working together. This is not a wellfare program. These people are working hard and SHI is giving them a break. I love this program and what it is doing for the envirornment, ecomony, and the social issues that these people face.

We have a few more seminars set up around Panama. I just hope that the turnout and response was as wonderful as it was today. Tomorrow is a free day, I plan on going back to the beach...

The rainy season is begining.... Today huge black clouds rolled across the sky and fat drops of water spewed forth, for about 10 minutes... and then everything was still and hot again. The rainy season in Panama is dangerous... Flash floods, diease, bugs, etc.. I watched on TV, that 10 people of died of Dengue in Brazille. The Dengue virus or :breakbone feaver: is a nasty diease carried by mosquitoes. As is Malaria and yellow fevor.. The rainy season gives these insects watery birthing centers... and they breed, multiple, and kill. That being said, I booked my flight home for May 3.

I spent that last week up in the mountains planting coffee. There are over 10,000 coffee babies which we placed into little bags for later transplant. I stayed with a family of 7, in a two bedroom house. It was cozy to say the least and we experience frequent blackouts of electricity. On Tuesday, I took a bus to the top of the mountain, north of Penanome, where I met my foster family. I shared the bus with a couple of people and also a severed cow head. The head sat in the back of the bus in a seat across from me. Its tongue was slightly out and its eyes glazed over. I couldnt stop staring at it and its lack of hygiene.. At the stop before mine, a man grabbed the head along with some questionable buckets and raced off the bus. one third of the bus raced off with him. They sat by the side of the road while the man handed out dead fish and pieces of stripped cow meat.. I waited for the bus driver to reload and I swore never to eat meat again.

For the days I was there, I assisted the Peace Corp. My group, SHI, works very closely with the Peace Corp. I worked with a young man, who had worked in Paraguay for the last 4 years. After talking with him for a short while, we discovered that we shared mutiutal friends from the University of Florida... El mundo es muy pequena... He shared his philosophy with me..

He explained the need to :save the world: was a univeral truth. That Americans talked about it alot, but very few did much about it. That even the most very poor rural countries understood the need for a cleaner environment and wanted to do something about it. However, he explained, it was hard to ask a starving farmer with 10 kids, not to participate in slash and burn agriculture, when that farmer knew it worked and that he could make a living from it.

what SHI and the Peace Corp are doing, is giving the conservation of rainforest an economic advantage. Giving farmers hearty seeds, shovels, and assitence in exchange for saving some trees and using sustainable practices, makes them happy. They feel the economic impact imediately, then we show them love, we educate them, we educate their children, and eventually change the entire cultures feelings toward the earth. It is easier here, where you can see the beauty of nature first hand, everyday. The temptation of money, greed, and overconsumption is not that high... these people have never really had that much... nor have their neighbors.. The coffee production promises to feed their families, not buy everybody a new hummer.

I was happy to arrive home today. I have no plans for the weekend. I will probably hitch a ride down to the local beach... Next weekend I will help construct a house... Until then,,, hasta luego..

I am back in the states! Thanks everyone for all of your support. I have written to all of my friends in Panama, and keep an open line of communication with them. If you would like any information on doing volunteer work around the world, please email me and I will do everything in my power to help you out. This was an amazing opportunity and again I thank you!!!!
Kirsten