Gettin' Dirty

The hottest, sweatiest, dirtiest day of my trip was also one of the best.  I love getting out of the city into the rural villages, and this project didn't disappoint. 

The Project: Square Foot Gardening.  Not going to go into detail on what it is and why we do it, because you can find out more on HELP's website.  I'll just tell you what we did with lots of pics to make it a little more fun to read.  The day I went was the first demonstration in that community and a good time of learning and teamwork was had by all.  Whether you are or are not familiar with this method of gardening, you will see that it is a bit different in the thrid world than it is here.  You cannot just go to the hard ware store to get your perfect boxes and then to the gardening store to pick up vermiculite and peat moss.  You have to adapt.  So here's the step by step . . .

Clear the ground (you dont want weeds growing in it already).

Gather rocks from the river.

Build a square box.

Place newspaper in the bottom and wet it down.

Get the richest dirt you can find (until you can use your compost), which in this case also comes from the river.  And yes, the local women could carry much more than even some of our male volunteers.

Fill the box with dirt.  The women clapped each time dirt was dumped in - they were all very excited.

Prepare the rest of the mix.  In this case, dried leaves and ash.

Add the mix to the dirt and that was it for this day.  Of course, we also talked to them about the purpose of it, how to take care of it, the nutritional benefits it can provide, etc.

So one woman in the group was lucky enough to be the recipient of this first model garden.  The others were challenged to go home and build their own.  If they would prepare the "box", with whatever materials they could find, and the soil, then in two weeks when volunteers returned, we would provide them with seeds and chicken wire.   A deal for them, because it did not require them to spend any money and being generally more resourceful than we were, they could probably do this much more efficiently and effectively than we could.

Chicken wire is required to protect the garden from the many animals that tend to be randomly wondering around their homes (and no doubt soon to be part of some meal).

All in all, a great day - successful training on a project that I love and I got to get out a see a different side of El Salvador.  Here's some other pics from the day:

The house where we built the garden.

The latrine (this is actually a pretty nice one).

I think it's always like this.

Salvadoran baby swing.

Riding the back of a truck, again, fun for like the first 10 min, but gets old after two+ hours.  Ignore the fact that I look completely bald, after the huge rat's nest I had the day before, I was not risking having to cut out any more knots in my hair.