Save the Date!

Mark your calendars!

On Sunday September 29 Stefan will be sharing at the 

Doylestown Mennonite Church

590 North Broad Street

Doylestown, PA 18901

The service begins at 9:30 am

Come one, Come all!

Stefan is back from scaling the mountains of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala!

Come hear about his experience on:

Sunday, September 22, 2013

At:

Living Light Mennonite Church

2625 Safe Harbor Road

Washington Boro, PA 17582

The service starts at 10:30 am

Stay tuned for future speaking dates in Doylestown, PA

Digo Adios

This past week I have been saying "goodbye" to Bezaleel.  The pastors included me in their Wednesday night service so I could officially say goodbye to the students.  I showed a picture slideshow of the work we have done in the gardens these past 8 months.  As I looked back through time in the faces of the students I have worked with each day, I realized how much they mean to me, how much I care for their lives.  Even the ones who loafed around most of the time, oh how I wish they would challenge themselves!  Many of the students were sad to see me go - even some of the complainers who repeatedly told me throughout the year that they could not wait for me to leave so that they would not have to work in the gardens!  At the end of the Wednesday night service, Wilson stood up and publicly apologized for their misbehavior this past year.

"I think we have all failed to give you the respect that you deserve." he said.  "We have spoken bad words and called you bad names when we should not have done so.  Please raise your hand if you wish to ask Stefan's 

forgiveness."  

The students were laughing (I was as well) and practically everyone raised at least one hand!  

"How touching," I thought, "but how easy to say now that we will not be working together any longer!"

The next day, Julio arranged a special farewell lunch for me with the school staff.  I was impressed by his hard work to decorate the house for the meal and help with the preparations.  Also, Ana, one of the school's cooks, stayed at the school over her day off and with her daughter, cooked the caldo for my meal.  That was special.

The party!

Julio and Stefan

The cooks: Evelyn and Ana

I finished 2 projects at the school that I really wanted to accomplish before leaving.  With the gardens full and nothing really to do besides pull weeds (I think everyone - the students and me too - were ready for a break from weeding) I decided to make clotheslines for the students.  At least I can leave one improvement that will last longer than 2 months.  I enjoy dabbling in carpentry and welding, so this gave me the opportunity to put those skills into practice.  It was a bit of a challenge explain to the students what I was making, since I have never seen a actual "clothesline" here and do not even know what to call one!  Here, clothes are strung on whatever is available: barbed wire fences, bushes, grass and sticks poked into the ground with one string extending from post to post.  The washing areas are surrounded by mazes of these posts and strings. Anyway, after seeing the finished clotheslines, students and staff alike were impressed and a few students told me that they would make some for their mothers once they return home.

The guys from Tercero Basico did more goofing- off than working.

As a result, the poles were not set well, so I pulled them out and started over.

Isaias and Hector from Quinto did much better.

Marcos is a good worker as well, but is just a little photo shy!
These 3 planted the poles nicely.

Before my clothesline

After my clothesline
This was for the girls, so I had to do one for the guys as well.

The second project was leveling a courtyard area in-between various school buildings on the campus.  This area looked like a relief map of Alta Verapaz: mountains and valleys with trash and burnt remnants of trash strewn about.  Basically, it looked pathetic.  Since I have a large supply of student labor, I decided to clean up the place and level it out nicely.  What better way to celebrate my last 2 days of work with the students than to wear them out doing some landscaping?  They can remember me from the blisters on their hands long after I have left the school!  We almost got it done the way I would like it to be.  I am hoping the staff will catch the same vision and take some pride in their institution, planning, organizing and working to make it better.

The area before my crew attacked it (this picture does not do the place justice, I neglected to get a really accurate picture of the mess).

Give it 2 months for the grass to grow and it should be very presentable.  "Hey this would be a good place to play volleyball."  one student observed.  Sounds like a great idea to me.

Tercero Basico actually put in a decent amount of effort.

Cuarto and Quinto did a good job as well.

My last hurrah with the Tercero Basico, unfortunately Natanael and Dany are missing

Primero Basico is probably my favorite group.  Most have not been corrupted by the system, yet...

Going Bananas!

One of Julio's goals has been to plant an acre of bananas to be cultivated intensively (fertilized and pruned regularly).  Traditionally, bananas are left to grow as they please.  Yields are small because of this.  I did some research on growing bananas and we started digging.

Some of the newly planted bananas.

Part of that research involved visiting a commercial banana plantation.  I was hoping to visit a banana plantation during my year in Guatemala.  I was able to do that two weeks ago along with John Cahill.  We toured banana fields near Quirigua, which features some impressive Maya ruins smack in the middle of a 20,000 acre Del Monte banana plantation.  The road to the Maya preserve allowed us to get to see fields that would likely have been closed to public otherwise.  We snuck through the jungle of bananas, noting how they were pruned and the cable system used to transport bananas from the field to the processing center.  We passed time with some of the field workers, learning what it is like to be a laborer in a banana plantation and gleaning as much information out of the agronomist as possible.

Bananas as far as the eye can see...

Though I have problems with farming as a monoculture, believe the labor practices used are unjust and dislike the Cavendish cultivar, I do find the regular pruning schedule interesting.  I am hoping banana pruning is implemented at Bezaleel in the future.

Banano de oro!

Ripe Plantains!

La manzanita!
 I do not think I will ever want to eat a Cavendish again!

On the farm: 

Andres, Jose and Minor from Cuarto P. C. planting cabbages.

The vegetable gardens have expanded. We have made many new raised beds all over the farm and have seeded cilantro, carrots, beets, chard and radishes wholesale.

Back (left to right): Ronald, Isaias, Marcos and Antonio. Front: Cristobal and Hector.

All seeded and ready to grow!

Nonetheless, I am learning how difficult it is to raise vegetables at Bezaleel.  Due to years of slash, burn and corn, the soil is so degraded that nothing grows well, except for crabgrass, a sign of biologically and nutritionally deficient soil.

Yet, even when I get past the hurdle of producing a crop, it has a slim chance of reaching the students' stomachs.  These past few months I have carried carrots, cabbage, broccoli, onions, chili, radishes and red beets into the kitchen.  Then in about 3 weeks, I carry the shriveled remains of those vegetables back out to feed to the pigs.  The onions and chili are used and eaten, but the rest that actually makes it into the pot, mainly cabbage and broccoli, is often not eaten by the students.  Broccoli is prepared as a soup - overly cooked mushy broccoli in a weak broth that all the students detest.  As a result, most is thrown out.  All the students I questioned want to eat broccoli with scrambled eggs and tomato sauce, a dish that I would agree is much more palatable.  Oscar the janitor joked with me, "You can tell all those at home that you grew nice vegetable salads for the pigs!"

Gathering radishes with Julio and Cristobal from Quinto.

Washing them up.

With Lemon juice and salt, it was really quite tasty.

Julio was not pleased with the food waste and brought the matter up at the most recent "directive meeting".  As a result, vegetable use has stepped up a tad.  Carrots were added to the potato soup and chicken caldo this past month.  Unfortunately, the radish salad that I worked with the students to prepare practically all went to the pigs.  I probably made way too much salad for one day.  Also, the students have only 1 dish, a bowl.  So adding radish salad to your soup is not a particularly attractive combination.  Yet, rather than refrigerating the salad so it would keep for the next day, it was left out in the hot kitchen to turn into a pungent mushy brew.  The pigs ate it with gusto however.

I tried to prepare another salad, but Julio and the pastors reasoned,  "The students did not eat them the last time, so it is better we sell them."  As anywhere else, introducing a new concept takes time for it to be adopted.  Eating vegetables is not common in the traditional culture here, so it will take time to introduce a new idea.  I believe a school needs to be a step ahead of traditional cultural practices, upholding those traditions that are beneficial, but tactfully challenging ones that are not by introducing new innovative ideas.  However, if a school has not learned those lessons yet, how can it teach?

View of the gardens from on high.

El tiempo todo lo cura

The second semester is completed and while the students are away on a weeklong break, I have time to think back on the past semester.

Below are some of the events that have taken place over the past four weeks:

We purchased 200 Sweet Gum seedlings and did a reforestation project on a steep Northern slope at the school.  I am hoping that the leaf-cutter ants will allow the trees to become established.

Grow little tree, grow!

The broilers only have 4 weeks left.  Julio began growing green beans wholesale for an exporter and recently used his proceeds to buy 50 broiler chicks and concentrate.  Everyone I know, except me, is anticipating fresh fried chicken.  I am hoping that these birdies get turned into caldo (i.e. soup).

Julio and his chicks.

They are getting bigger.

The pigs are staying fed and clean without any help on my part, which is fine with me.  Julio has a group of students overseeing the pig operation.  They have grown much over the past 4 months on the leftover tortillas and vegetables the students do not eat, which unfortunately is a large quantity of food.

One of the 4 happy hogs at Bezaleel.

In the garden I have been assigning terraces to each grade of students.  They must prepare the ground, plant the crop and care for those vegetables through harvest.  So far it has been going better than in the first semester.  If a terrace is weedy, I know who to blame.  Also, the students are beginning to take pride in their work.  For example, Tercero Basico feels embarrassed if their terraces are weedier than Primero's or Segundo's and this gives them the motivation to clean up theirs.

Primero's carrots.

Segundo's leeks and cilantro.

Tercero's Swiss Chard.

Cuarto's cucumbers.

Quinto's radishes and red beets.

My chili peppers are producing well in the greenhouse, except the dozen plants that were chomped on by a steer one weekend.  So far I have harvested 85 pounds and probably more than that since I cannot weigh the chilies stolen by the students when I am not around.  I am hoping to surpass my goal of 100 pounds for the entire harvest.

Roberto and Jose from Tercero helping me with the first chili picking.

During the break I have had time to make some collinear hoes for my vegetable plots.  The large, clunky hoes available here are not conducive for cultivating raised vegetable beds and while, machetes are versatile tools, they do not do a great job cultivating and my back gets tired bending over all the time.  I began with an idea in my head, angle iron, rebar and a stick welder to create my own version of a collinear hoe.  So far it works quite well.

Cultivating the beds is much easier with this beauty.

I achieved one of my goals for this year 3 weeks ago: seeing the Resplendent Quetzal (the national bird of Guatemala).  Following the advice of fellow birders here, I rose at 3am one Sunday morning and caught the Monja Blanca bus to the biotopo, 2 hours from Chamelco.  There is a small restaurant with a wildlife preserve there that the Quetzal frequents (the Quetzal comes to the wildlife preserve, not the restaurant). Sure enough, at 6am I saw the male Quetzal for the first time and watched him for over an hour.  I even was able to see the female.  I am pleased to have seen this beautiful bird before leaving Guatemala.

The picture may be blurry, but my memory of the bird is not!

It was time to renew my visa again, so last week I journeyed Northeast to Belize.  I spent the week working on Allen and Tina Reimer's farm in Spanish Lookout, one of the Mennonite communities in Belize.  The Reimers raise laying hens and broilers as well as field crops, such as corn, rice, soybeans, peas and dry beans.  I enjoyed my time with the Reimers and their neighbors working on the farm, eating the best-tasting mangos I have ever eaten in my life, and singing familiar and new hymns in four-part harmony; it was the most beautiful singing I have heard all year in Central America!

The entrance to Spanish Lookout. 

Planting rice with Rick and Jason.

"Tomi" the orphaned duckling that made her home at the Siquics has now grown into a fine young duck.  (I think she is a hen.)  She and her two comrades now inhabit a fenced in enclosure constructed by Albino, Feliza's husband.  This way, the ducks may have more freedom than being tied to a post all day with a short length of nylon twine.  The ducks seem happy enough and I try to make life better for them by donating all my banana peels to their pen.

Three ducks with the typical duck-like personalities of not having a clue what they are doing, but going about and doing it anyway!