october the first!

time flies! i am out here writing notes in the ciber and i thought i would share some more photos because today we started building the first kaanche. now the most time consuming part of the project is finding and cutting the wood. after thats done, its not too much work. we now just have to do the walls, line the inside with juano and mine, mix and fill the dirt... and of course PLANT ON THE FULL MOON! tomorrow we finish it up and then i go to merida to speak with Dr. Jimenez and work with Don Alfonso finishing up the second kaanche modificado and aparently he has started building an oven, so we'll be working on that as well. heres some DOCUMENTATION

Farming

The people here are so kind. I FINALLY got to get my hands dirty today :) They´ve been too clean for too long. I spent the morning working with William the owner of one of the farms that I´ll be working on for the next few weeks. One of the main projects there is setting up hyrdropontic lettuce, but today we started out picking tomatoes and eating really delicious oranges. I had a really great time with him and thankfully understood almost everything he said.
We visited the other farm that I´ll be working on yesterday and they are also a really sweet family. Francisco the owner is growing a lot of lettuce and celery, as well as lots and lots of coffee, but the lettuce has developed a blight that is destroying it and the celery is showing signs of a blight as well. My job is to find a cure - hopefully organic, but Francisco just wants to be able to sell his product and feed his family.
A week here has passed so fast. I love learning about the people. I´m really glad that the farmers are happy to work with me and teach me. I have chosen to do ´trabajo de hombres´ (men´s work) as my homestay mother calls it, but I suppose that the people here have become accustomed to the Gringas.
Some important vocab words - Americans are Gringos. Costa Ricans are Ticos. Ojo de Gallo is the fungus that is destroying coffee in Coopabuena. Costa Rica is where the best coffee in the world is grown. Coopabuena is where the best coffee in Costa Rica is grown. Mai is dude. Catholic is the only true religion.

So I learn...

Family - originally posted in the wrong spot... oops

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

"I need someone to wash my clothes, to cook for me, to take care of me. I need my mother." When my 32 year-old, male co-worker said these words I could not help but think: pathetic and wash your own clothes. The great difference between himself and me was our culture; he is Brazilian and I am very American.
Here in the small village of Coopabuena in Costa Rica this characteristic of a family-centered culture is even further enforced. My mother is so kind to... everyone. Since I arrived yesterday she has been so attentive to any hunger pain that I might experience, as well as those of every person that enters the house from her son´s friends to the man who came to take pictures in order for them to consolidate their loans. She already alerted me to the fact that she will wash any dirty laundry that I have. Her fulfillment is in caring for those around her.
The concept of family and responsibility is so broad in this world. In America the idea of being constrained to such a role for many women is frightening. For most here it is natural and a dream to have a family to care for. Children will remain in their parents houses until they marry and start a family of their own, if this hasn´t happened before they are thirty, forty, etc. this is not a problem. One culture that puts great emphasis on individuality and personal achievement and another whose most important accomplishment is family.

Chili Picante

2 Immodium and 2 Peptobismols. Is it okay that I take them simultaneously? Too late, down the hatch. You expected this but... but why me, why now; better now than later I suppose. Just like chicken pox. Hey you!... ya you! Either you are another CAN intern or I gave you this link in confidence that under NO circumstances will you tell my mother about my late night discussions with the toilet. Unless it is your inention to give a lady in her mid fifties a heart attack. With that said I will now try and explore the origns of my ailment.

I believe it all began with a very very spicy chili. It was my first night with my host family. William and Guiselle have three children: Adreína is the oldest and is in her last year of highschool which they call colegio. Justin is the middle child and is 11 years old and Maria is the youngest with six years. At dinner William pulled out a bottle of chili which is basically white vinager that has soaked in a bottle of whole chili´s for some time. The chili juice was hot but I could handle the temperature with ease. It was not until William offered me a whole chili that I began to sweat marbles. The fact that the chili was small and red should have been my first warning sign but I proceeded to cut off a small piece about the size of a black bean while William chuckled softly to himself. I should have stopped their after discovering that the chili was packed densly with seeds but I proceeded to consume the chili with a spoon full of rice. Chew, taste, swallow and within moments the heat I experienced from the chili juice was magnified tenfold. Sweat began trickling from every pore of my body as the heat slowly dropped to my belly. Laughing and crying histarically at my misfortune with the rest of the family I managed to ask for a cup of milk. Lets just say that after that night, which was 2 days ago, my poops have not been the same. But does a piece chili the size of a black bean have the ability to disrupt my gastro system for that long? According to the interwebs "Capsaicin" is a a substance that is present in some peppers and can trigger diarrhea. Since this has been happening for the past 2 days makes me think that it is not capsaicin but possibly a bacteria of sorts. Aside from the stomach issues I have been learning a lot about the coffee cooperative and would like to let you know what I know so far.

The CoopePueblos Coffee Cooperative is composed of over 50 different farmers. They sell their coffee to the cooperative but usually do not recieve the full amount for their coffee becuase some of the beans are infected with Broca, a tiny black insect that eats the bean. The way that the cooperative is able to test for Broca in the bean is by taking a 250ml sample of all the beans and placing them in a bucket of water. The beans that float have either been infected or have simply dried out (dried out beans are also consisered inferior for making coffee). The beans that float are placed back into the 250ml graduated cylander and measured. The fraction of beans that float to beans that sink is created into a percentage. For example if 10ml of beans float that is 10ml/250ml which is 4%. In this case the farmer will only recieve money for 96% of his total crop. The cooperative measures coffee in units of "cajuelas." A calquela is a box with the length, width, and height of about 1 ft. Twenty cajuelas will fill another much larger rectangular box called a "fanega." 20 caljuelas or 1 fanega is worth roughly 55,000 colons to a farmer. The current exchange rate is 582 colones to one US dollar so 55,000 colons is about $95. If this farmer lost 4% of his crop he would be loosing 2,200 colons or $4. But over the whole coffee season (September - December) when a farmer would fill 100 fanegas a total lost of 4% would equate to 200,000 colons or $344.

The other day I went to a farm just up the road from my house with my coordinator Merlin and another student, Kerry. The farmer, Francisco, and his sons showed us around the farm and what they were growing. Coupled with his passion for farming and the speed at which he spoke it was difficult to keep up with what Francisco was saying. Though his emotion made it clear that he was upset about something. Everything on his farm is grown organically and he incorporates a lot of worm compost to the system. He seemed to be having problems growing his lettuce without the use of pesticides. All of his lettuce has aquired these brown cirlces with smaller and darker brown cirlces in the middle, giving them a very unappealling look for anyone buying them at market. It is the job of the other student, Kerry, to find a solution to this pest. I know that the desciption about the pest is vague but if anyone has any information about how to grow lettuce free or with minor infections let me know so I can relay the information. Currently Francisco is monocropping the lettuce, in which may lie the problem. Besides the lettuce Francisco has a few qualms with how the cooperative accepts its coffee. He says that the cooperative needs to better inspect coffee rather than considering all floating coffee bad. Remember the two types of floating coffee are the ones infected with Broca and the dry beans. Dry beans are not ask good as fesh but are still usable. The problem is that the coopertive believes that here lies a difference in opinion. The cooperative name needs to represent quality coffee and if they are accepting inferior dry coffee it makes the cooperative as a whole look bad. But by doing this they are neglecting to reach an agreement with their farmers which could lead to unforseen consequences down the road.

That is all for now but I will write again soon.

Con mucho amor!

Mike D

foto foto foto

and even more foto!

tzucacab YUCATAN

Dr. Devon y Don Alfonso con el K'aanchè

hello faithful readers, much like the

radio this blog world is full of faith and mystery...

quien sabe whose actually still reading these

ramblings from CAN clowns all over the world. well, as

long as my mom reads them,

i will keep writing them! so here is a little update:

i have been working in the SPICY town of tzucacab yucatan... the town is of 12thousand folk, mostly working in campo or in the tourist-construction-service beach zones. everyday i wake up at six in the morning to be at the junior high school by seven. it is the smaller and poorer of the two junior highs in the area, and it is called the technica because it has courses in information technology and agriculture.

i am making steady progress on my project which is called project teach the kids about k'aanchès. so what is a k'aanche you may ask yourself. well in maya k'aan means sky, and chè means wood or tree... therefore SKYTREES! they are raised beds filled with soil for the planting of small plants and herbs in the family garden. BUT WHY RAISE THE PLANTS?, you wonder. well there are a variety of reasons, could be to protect them from animals such as sheep or chicken. could be that the soil is too rocky to plant right outside your home. all we know is two generations ago every home had its own kaanche for the planting of radishes, cilantro, tomatos, hierbabuena, and chiles. now hardly any have kept the practice.

SO my mission (and i am contractually bound to accept it) is to go in with 180 kids aged 11-15 and get them to learn about stuff their grandparents used to do. no small task. luckily i have what Alfonso called the jesucristo charisma and the support of the director and all the teachers.

up until now i have been doing what is called a diagnostico de conocimiento, a diagnostic to see who knows what about the traditional system, specifically, what type of wood is good to use, what is planted in the bed, how is it maintained, built, etc. i have also been spending time with the kids so they get used to me and dont think i am bin laden or jesus christ. yesterday i presented the project to the parents of the families and it went really well. tomorrow we will clean the area where the posts are going to be dug in and next week we build the first one. our goal is to build six, one for each class.

as far as daily life, my energy is pretty much sucked out by the youngings and nonstop spanish maya speaking. between work at the school everyday and other investigations, intervciews, writing notes and reading, im pretty much in my hammock by 9 oclock. up and down with the sun.

i am here with Carlos, a guatemaltecan student that has been living in merida for eight years now. he is finishing his degree in biology. he is working with the coal producers in a neighboring town called ek'balam (star tiger!) later i may have another visitor, ivan, who is working on a species of tree called jaabin. also, david arrived safe and sound in merida from his adventures in oaxaca, bringing all the positive energy and love vibrations that we know and love. even though i just spent one day with him, his words and his attitude reminded me of our larger works and filled me with good feeling to carry through with the project, which can at times be taxing, to be honest. all said and done, i am in good spirit and good health, im stearing clear of mondongo and chichara, and all is well! tomorrow we will go to the monte alto to learn more about the trees and to explore the campo some more. thats all for now, much work and little time UNTIL THE NEXT INSTALLMENT, stay safe and eat coconuts!

signed,

tomas de jesus de santa cruz de la guadalupe