just posted a bunch of entries....i've been busy as a bee the past month and half, but i finally took some much needed time off to post pix, comments and a short blog of the month of july so please read, look and comment.
my love for you guys orbits the universe twice...besos hasta las estrellas.
--caro
miércoles, 12 de agosto de 2009
harvest time!!!!
radishes, swiss chards, lettuce and cilantro are ready for the picking…mmm, my yummy organics!! this is one of the happiest days of my life :)
el aguaje más fuerte del año
inundó el estero de los manglares y nos trajo un ejército de malditos mosquitos.
who said dogs can't ride the bus??
recognize the beautiful blond?? yep, that's zeus and my counterpart, luis fernando.
let me introduce you to my new friends...
this is zeta...a shroom beauty.
and messi...en honor a nuestro gran jugador, me siguió this messy b...
synopsis of the month of july
the month started off in sitio nuevo, where the micro-financing community bank invited me to help-out with the give-away of the new loans to the 30 members…I prepared guarantees, i.o.u.s, payment stubs and other forms…I had no clue what I was doing, it was truly a fun learning experience…while the adults collected their checks I decided to mingle with the children outside…I captured through photographs the wonderful innocence of debt-free lives, when all that matters in the day is playing with friends, street dogs and simply having laughs…do they realize
On u.s. independence day, I decided to begin the organic culinary gardens of the “cabañeras” (trans. beach hut restaurateurs)…I sowed swiss chard, parsely, cilantro, raddish, carrots, lettuce, bell pepper, chamomile, and few sunflower seeds (my signature flower)…we’re all excited to see what will come of this and when…I can’t wait ‘til it’s harvest-time!!
On argentina’s independence day, I gather about 20 students from the high school to film a short video-petition to send to president correa asking for the completion of building a wall around the school for protection reasons…protection from locos wandering into the school, neighbors taking the few resources the schools has such as old rusty garden tools and bamboo sticks, and finally to protect the trees and future veggies will plan to sow someday from the vagabond animals that meander throughout our campus…I’m still working on getting the professor who lend me his camera to give me the tape, I’m still working on getting the video edited, I’m still working on this…hopefully august brings some closure with this mini-project…
3 days before france’s independence day, I take on a new project on Saturdays…I committed to do some consulting work on an 80 hectares ranch in olón, called “el retiro” (trans. the retirement or the retreat both definitions apply)…the owner, an international engineer superstar, has a vast amount of cash, but needs some help with vermi-composting and setting up a greenhouse…this ranch serves also as a lodge with yummy, very posh food, day gateway for horse-back riding, and it’s provides some outdoors educational information –think girl/boy scouts trails, caged-up wild and unusual animals…so, I know the peace corps isn’t about helping those who have the means to progress, but I can’t discriminate help…help is help, and even though the engineer can pay someone to do this work, he asked me for help…I can’t say no, that practically goes against my nature…plus, it’s really nice to be able to work on a project without any human and economic resource obstacles…thus, I consider this to be my “peace crops t.v. reality show” type work, it doesn’t feel real, the people and problems in surrounding areas don’t truly existed beyond “el retiro’s” golden gate.
Later that night, my cell phone went for a swim in my fish soup…bummer, had to cough-up 56 bucks to get a new…water can evaporate from the phone, but not soup…soup’s consistency just makes the phone smelly and sticky and non-operational…just fyi.
le indépendance d’ France, brings my mind back to the much needed attention of my elementary school where i’m also trying to set-up an organic edible garden for the kids…I organized the senior ag high school students, first graders and others, a couple of parents and some good friends to help built a platform and a conduit of pvc pipes in order to bring h2o to the organic huerta…no h2o, no food, no life, simply…so this is really a critical step…it took awhile to complete this step, but I’m happy with the final turnout, plus the amount of high energy, good vibes and everyone’s effort is an important layer for pachamama to ready the home of the new seeds and plants before they arrive.
A few days before the 3:35 a.m. 5.6 earthquake we had here, I introduce myself to the last institution in the village, upse (universidad pública de santa elena, the provincial university annex)… the departments at this university are only agriculture and tourism…an ag student asked if I could give a short talk about the importance of organic farming and its components, so I agreed and went, but before I could find him and his class, I found the director of the u…he immediately gave a schedule to teach freshmen and juniors on Fridays and Saturdays, “but…but…but…”, I kept on saying, “I’m not a professor”…I need to learn and practice, not teach…I can share information but not teach it…I need to prove my knowledge through experimentation before it can become a fact in my mind…I am the students’ peer not their governess…ufa!! How am I’m going to get out of this one?? I know!! I will stall…that is what i’m doing until I see how my gardens grow, mature and develop (maybe 3 to 5 months) and once I have some real hands-on experience of the area I will stand in front of the class and become a sharer of my facts.
The penultimate week, the lunar eclipse announces that schools’ are out on mini-vacations…the last day before the break, the high schoolers ask me to teach them sex ed, the professors and principal ask the same of me…no one’s been hired for that position yet, and the girls in 9th grades with their first boyfriends are getting hitched and ditching school…the request was not only important, it was also truly urgent, so weighing the pros and cons, the can I and can’t I, came into play and the result was, straightforwardly, i have to do it…so, I take that mini-vacation to prep the classes for the second trimester, 12 weeks… I start with the seniors (3 classes, totaling 60 students) who will be leaving early to finish the school year with internships, then I’ll continue with the other higher grades and work my way down for the rest of the year…I completely submerged myself the entire week reading up on sex, looking up sex ed pix, preparing presentations and games…and, of course, I deliberately worked on relaxation techniques to calm my nerves and high strung anxiety…I felt ready.
Monday bloody Monday starts the week with a small accident…I take the senior ag students to the ranch where I do consulting on Saturdays and where they will do part of their internships…as we ride standing on the bed of a pick-up truck we head-up to the main area of the ranch when all of a sudden, the sharp turn and slippery floor has me grabbing onto a piece of metal thing from the truck and trying to support my 7 students falling on me from falling off of the truck…my strength wasn’t good enough though, 3 kids fly off the truck onto the ground, no major damage, some scratches, and aches, and a crooked finger…as I scream to the driver thinking the worst has happened, we stop, and I run over to the kids and for about 2 minutes without taking a breathe I see them laying on the ground laughing and making jokes… at that moment, I knew my kids were ok, I take my first breathe and let the adrenaline that was fueling my body simmer down…everyone was ok, my finger however is another story for it is still crooked from the incident, and I starting to think it might actually be broken…the x-ray will tell…how exciting my first ever possible broken bone!! Yey for peace corps scars!!
that same Monday was also the first day of my sex ed classes…I start with the history of the conceptions of sexuality throughout time and societies….the kids are so not digging this, but they ask for more once the hour is up…that’s a good sign, right?? I promised them more entertaining lectures in the coming weeks…as of today, august 12th, I’m on my 3rd week of classes and the kids love it!! We talk, laugh and question everything together…respect is the only rule I have in the classroom, all are well behaved except for the ag kids for they’ve known me the longest so they see me as a peer, respect only urges them to make knotty jokes more vocal…I just hope something gets through their head…we’ll see, only time will tell.
On u.s. independence day, I decided to begin the organic culinary gardens of the “cabañeras” (trans. beach hut restaurateurs)…I sowed swiss chard, parsely, cilantro, raddish, carrots, lettuce, bell pepper, chamomile, and few sunflower seeds (my signature flower)…we’re all excited to see what will come of this and when…I can’t wait ‘til it’s harvest-time!!
On argentina’s independence day, I gather about 20 students from the high school to film a short video-petition to send to president correa asking for the completion of building a wall around the school for protection reasons…protection from locos wandering into the school, neighbors taking the few resources the schools has such as old rusty garden tools and bamboo sticks, and finally to protect the trees and future veggies will plan to sow someday from the vagabond animals that meander throughout our campus…I’m still working on getting the professor who lend me his camera to give me the tape, I’m still working on getting the video edited, I’m still working on this…hopefully august brings some closure with this mini-project…
3 days before france’s independence day, I take on a new project on Saturdays…I committed to do some consulting work on an 80 hectares ranch in olón, called “el retiro” (trans. the retirement or the retreat both definitions apply)…the owner, an international engineer superstar, has a vast amount of cash, but needs some help with vermi-composting and setting up a greenhouse…this ranch serves also as a lodge with yummy, very posh food, day gateway for horse-back riding, and it’s provides some outdoors educational information –think girl/boy scouts trails, caged-up wild and unusual animals…so, I know the peace corps isn’t about helping those who have the means to progress, but I can’t discriminate help…help is help, and even though the engineer can pay someone to do this work, he asked me for help…I can’t say no, that practically goes against my nature…plus, it’s really nice to be able to work on a project without any human and economic resource obstacles…thus, I consider this to be my “peace crops t.v. reality show” type work, it doesn’t feel real, the people and problems in surrounding areas don’t truly existed beyond “el retiro’s” golden gate.
Later that night, my cell phone went for a swim in my fish soup…bummer, had to cough-up 56 bucks to get a new…water can evaporate from the phone, but not soup…soup’s consistency just makes the phone smelly and sticky and non-operational…just fyi.
le indépendance d’ France, brings my mind back to the much needed attention of my elementary school where i’m also trying to set-up an organic edible garden for the kids…I organized the senior ag high school students, first graders and others, a couple of parents and some good friends to help built a platform and a conduit of pvc pipes in order to bring h2o to the organic huerta…no h2o, no food, no life, simply…so this is really a critical step…it took awhile to complete this step, but I’m happy with the final turnout, plus the amount of high energy, good vibes and everyone’s effort is an important layer for pachamama to ready the home of the new seeds and plants before they arrive.
A few days before the 3:35 a.m. 5.6 earthquake we had here, I introduce myself to the last institution in the village, upse (universidad pública de santa elena, the provincial university annex)… the departments at this university are only agriculture and tourism…an ag student asked if I could give a short talk about the importance of organic farming and its components, so I agreed and went, but before I could find him and his class, I found the director of the u…he immediately gave a schedule to teach freshmen and juniors on Fridays and Saturdays, “but…but…but…”, I kept on saying, “I’m not a professor”…I need to learn and practice, not teach…I can share information but not teach it…I need to prove my knowledge through experimentation before it can become a fact in my mind…I am the students’ peer not their governess…ufa!! How am I’m going to get out of this one?? I know!! I will stall…that is what i’m doing until I see how my gardens grow, mature and develop (maybe 3 to 5 months) and once I have some real hands-on experience of the area I will stand in front of the class and become a sharer of my facts.
The penultimate week, the lunar eclipse announces that schools’ are out on mini-vacations…the last day before the break, the high schoolers ask me to teach them sex ed, the professors and principal ask the same of me…no one’s been hired for that position yet, and the girls in 9th grades with their first boyfriends are getting hitched and ditching school…the request was not only important, it was also truly urgent, so weighing the pros and cons, the can I and can’t I, came into play and the result was, straightforwardly, i have to do it…so, I take that mini-vacation to prep the classes for the second trimester, 12 weeks… I start with the seniors (3 classes, totaling 60 students) who will be leaving early to finish the school year with internships, then I’ll continue with the other higher grades and work my way down for the rest of the year…I completely submerged myself the entire week reading up on sex, looking up sex ed pix, preparing presentations and games…and, of course, I deliberately worked on relaxation techniques to calm my nerves and high strung anxiety…I felt ready.
Monday bloody Monday starts the week with a small accident…I take the senior ag students to the ranch where I do consulting on Saturdays and where they will do part of their internships…as we ride standing on the bed of a pick-up truck we head-up to the main area of the ranch when all of a sudden, the sharp turn and slippery floor has me grabbing onto a piece of metal thing from the truck and trying to support my 7 students falling on me from falling off of the truck…my strength wasn’t good enough though, 3 kids fly off the truck onto the ground, no major damage, some scratches, and aches, and a crooked finger…as I scream to the driver thinking the worst has happened, we stop, and I run over to the kids and for about 2 minutes without taking a breathe I see them laying on the ground laughing and making jokes… at that moment, I knew my kids were ok, I take my first breathe and let the adrenaline that was fueling my body simmer down…everyone was ok, my finger however is another story for it is still crooked from the incident, and I starting to think it might actually be broken…the x-ray will tell…how exciting my first ever possible broken bone!! Yey for peace corps scars!!
that same Monday was also the first day of my sex ed classes…I start with the history of the conceptions of sexuality throughout time and societies….the kids are so not digging this, but they ask for more once the hour is up…that’s a good sign, right?? I promised them more entertaining lectures in the coming weeks…as of today, august 12th, I’m on my 3rd week of classes and the kids love it!! We talk, laugh and question everything together…respect is the only rule I have in the classroom, all are well behaved except for the ag kids for they’ve known me the longest so they see me as a peer, respect only urges them to make knotty jokes more vocal…I just hope something gets through their head…we’ll see, only time will tell.
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