My Green Thumb

It is officially over! The rains have come and the drought has met it’s fate and is over. It is such a great feeling, I never thought I would miss water as much as I did. I can now go outside turn on the llave and I have water. I am still being ultra-conservative with it, but it puts one’s mind at ease to know it is at least regularly available. With the rain there is a new sense of optimism in the air. My town very much a farming community and with that the seasons and weather are that much more important. Financial decisions are made around the weather that ultimately affect their standard of living. At first we were all worried that the rains had come to early and that it was a sign of a dry winter. There are still speculations that these rains won’t last, but it is pretty hard to refute when it has been on and off raining for the last week. Everyone seems to have at least a small parcel of land and the town has been a buzz with people buying seeds or chemicals to plant. I am even getting into the swing of things and have started not only my school gardens, but my personal garden.

This last week has been dominated by gardening. In each of my schools I have been busy gathering seeds, giving a quick plant charla, and rushing out to build our gardens. I have a couple pictures of each school and I am so proud of all my students. Each school has a different type of garden based on their resources. In some of my schools I used tires, in others we built rock gardens, and in one we were able to do a traditional raised bed garden. In each of my schools we planted cucumber, tomato, pepper, onion, carrot, squash, melon, watermelon, radish, eggplant, and in some we even did pumpkin. Hopefully something does decide to come up and grow. Last month I did tree nurseries in my schools with mixed results. I have to get back to them and replant the bags that didn’t grow, but it is just hard because now we have our mind set on gardens.

The first school to get a garden was Piedras Largas. I work with two multi-grade classrooms at this school: a 3^rd- 4^th grade and a 5^th - 6^th grade. I brought them both out at the same time and I had the younger kids clearing all the weeds while the older kids were responsible for building the seed beds. One problem was the ground was so hard that it was taking them forever. In my normal fashion my plans were way too ambitious so we cut the garden down to four rows. All the kids were laughing and having fun and it was great to see them all working together. Here is a picture of the garden:

My next school was Jicaro II. It is funny because each school is so different. In Jicaro the parents are so supportive and the week before I had 14 parents come and help out my 5^th - 6^th grade classroom. It was great to see all the parents willing to help out and they seemed to be having more fun than the kids. The mothers were fooling around laughing, and I think I had to discipline them more than I did any of the students. We were doing a tire garden and the parents were hard at work cutting the tires in half and building stands for them. Here is a shot of the families and the students:

The following week we were going to plant in all the tires and build two eras for some of the other plants. The problem was that the rains had finally started and my teacher was adamant about still working. I would classify it as a disaster. I really do like this teacher, but like all of my other teachers he thinks I am only here to serve him. I brought my seeds, but I think he imagined a large garden that would rival commercial farms. I had to perilously guard my seeds but even still I managed to lose all my pumpkins and have the rest get destroyed in the rain. The whole day left a bad taste in my mouth, but I think I just need to lighten up a little bit more. We were able to build a beautiful garden and the kids regardless of the rain worked so hard. I am always impressed by how much the students know and how handy they are with all the tools. A machete here can do anything from cutting steel barrels, tires, cutting down trees, wedding, or even digging.

The next day I was off the El Cobano to do one of my last school gardens. I figured this school would be the easiest because they already had an area built from a previous NGO. This is one of my smaller schools and it struggles with the community it is supposed to serve. The parents aren’t as supportive and their supplies are often stolen by the neighboring families. Just the night before someone went to the school and literally stole the schools fence. I don’t know how they ripped off a chain link fence from concrete posts, but my hat is off to them. Back to the garden, the school already had a spiral rock garden built form the year before. Currently it was being used as a weed garden and already forgotten about. It makes you wonder if all my work is destined for the same fate once I leave. But I digress, the ground was a super sticky mud from all the rain, but that didn’t discourage my kids from running out and getting their chance to swing a machete or a pick axe. Remember, my kids are all between 8 and 12 years old and I am letting them use machetes or more realistically very sharp swords. I would never be able to get away with this in the States, but hey, when in Nicaragua. I had the kids bring in dry cow manure and extra dirt to fertilize the rock garden for our plants. Everyone was eager to participate and it was great to see every kid just wanting to get their hands in on the action. I had them doing such tasks as go fetch rocks or go over there and pick weeds. They ate it up, they were helping the goofy gringo.

Finally, I have taken on a new task while I am at the schools. I wouldn’t say I was a bad volunteer, but usually I would show up do my science lessons, play a few dinamicas, and then resign myself to a seat in the back of the classroom and read a book. I wasn’t being lazy and I would go around the class occasionally, but it was just so boring. This month I promised myself I would be more active and now I have started taking over the math classes. With all my teachers I have offered to take a small group that has the most difficulty. I try to give the students more personal attention and give them the positive reinforcement they so desperately need. These are the 14 and 15 year old boys who are still in 3^rd grade and are often ridiculed by the teacher or their younger peers. I don’t know how to convince the teachers that by yelling at a student or making fun of him will not magically make them be able to solve a problem faster. Even in my two weeks of helping I have noticed a huge difference and they seem to have more confidence with me at least. I tell them it is perfectly ok to use your fingers, pebbles, or draw pictures to solve problems. I just want them to get comfortable with the procedure first and then by repetition they will eventually remember that 5x6=30 and not have to count it out in groups every time.