Student Project Time - Again

As students finish their course work, it is time for them to do a small community project. This week is a bustle of activity as each student is assigned a task. With over seventy students finishing a grade, that is a lot of bustle. Fortunately, many of them are studying in other communities so that relieves some of the happy confusion.

Today we have about twenty primary students reading stories for the first time in their lives. As you can see from the pictures, these little children dressed up to come to the school. Tooooo cute. Right now, they are busy taking turns reading aloud. Each computer has three to four students sharing a story. What is neat about this digital library, is that each computer can be 'tuned' to the same page and the same story so that larger groups can participate. The size of the font is adjusted so that all those who need glasses can read without problems. There is not a lot of running around - everyone is glued to the stories.

Dressed Up To Read A Story

Reading A Story - First Time

Drawing A Picture Of The Story

Other projects include, as always, planting more trees, grasses and ground cover. A group of four boys harvested a bag of Arachis pintoi for ground cover. They got very enthusiastic and the bag was about the size of Santa's. We needed about 200 plants - we got 2,000 ... or more. Fortunately, I have places for all of them and by this evening, they should all be taking root somewhere. In June we planted some Vetiver grass. As we separated slips from the clumps we tossed some 'dead' roots and pieces aside. A month later, Santiago and I noticed these 'garbage' pieces were actually sprouting. We planted them and, yesterday, we harvested eighty more slips to plant.

Santa's Sack of Arachis on the Left

The last three days, three girls have been learning about hay basket (retained heat) cooking. I have wanted to try this for some time but thought I needed more things to do the insulating with. Finally I just used a pile of polypropylene gunny sacks we had and a plastic bucket. Our first try was rice. We boiled it for one minute and then popped it in the bucket surrounded by sacks. One hour later we opened it up and, presto, the rice was cooked perfectly. Yesterday we tried two things:  rice with vegetables and pork stew. The rice with vegetables only took an hour and was, again, perfect. The pork stew was boiled for fifteen minutes and then covered with towels and blankets for five hours. Perfect. We all enjoyed trying out the food. The next project is to make one or two 'hay basket' cookers that are a bit more permanent. (If you want information about hay baskets, send me an email and I will send you what I have.)

Rice and Vegetables

Pork Stew and Rice and Vegetables

Three other girls are working on a sprouting experiment. We are trying to sprout maize and three kinds of beans. We will then cook the sprouts and see what the results are. The cooler weather is not helping the sprouting process but it is not causing them to spoil either.

Yesterday I went to Ada's house to help her and Eduardo, her brother, begin laying out their yard for planting. We set up a water level and made some contour lines. They have a lot of work now to dig the lines and plant the several hundred plants that I took them. I do so hope that the plants grow. Ada has already planted some of the seeds I took her a week ago and they are sprouting so that is encouraging.

It is cold this week - down to 16' C at night. Most people are bundled up (including me). I stopped at the hot springs in Santa Rita last night to enjoy being toasty warm and to watch the steam rising into the night air.

Will stop for now, put in some pictures and post this.

Ada Recording the Different Plant Species

Making Sprouting Containers

TTYL

BB

Happy New Year - Again

A simple cooking basket from a plastic bucket - thanks to Ingelore in Germany for the photo

 

Yesterday morning I spent almost two hours in the lawyer's office trying to get more things done on our paperwork. That is such a frustrating waste of time and energy. We continually hope that things are being done, even at a snail's pace but we often wonder if anything at all is happening. Lawyers are rather notorious in Honduras for their lack of integrity and their lack of haste.

Tuesday featured another couple hours with a different lawyer going over some paperwork. We are a little more hopeful in this case. Because lawyers take so long to do things, there is often opportunity for unscrupulous people to file alternative papers and bogus claims. So, then you have to deal with those in addition to dealing with the work you are trying to get done. For the average Honduran without any education it is a total and hopeless nightmare. 

We were scheduled to have a meeting in Tegucigulpa this afternoon. After my visit to the lawyer's office and a few errands I went to a car rental agency. It was going to be impossible for us to make the meeting and return the same day without a vehicle. I was just finishing the paperwork, putting my credit card back in my wallet when Manuel phoned to say the meeting was cancelled. Phew. Any later and we would have had to pay for a day's rental. There was a $5.00 fine for taking off the stuff from the credit card but that was cheaper than the rental.

Sunday I went to visit a young girl and her brother who were orphaned last year. Their father passed away a few years ago and her mother was killed in a machete attack about 18 months ago. She is just 17 and he is 18 or 19. They were wanting to start making their yard more productive. Currently it features brownish, eroded soil. Two friends of mine had told her I might be of use. She came to see our plants at the school and seemed quite interested.

Friday morning Santiago and I had found a few more trees that needed pruning and had another big pile of cuttings. I took 30 Moringa and 30 Chaya up to Ada and Eduardo's place. We talked about how and where to plant them and Ada immediately started dig a hole to make sure she had the right idea. I was impressed. We planted one cutting of each and she said she would have the rest done by Tuesday. Sure enough, she did. Pretty cool.

Tuesday was her birthday and I was invited to her party. It turned out to be rather tame - two neighbour ladies were there. I had found 100 Leuceana seedlings at the mayor's nursery that needed moving. They gave them to me and I took them up to her place for an erosion control hedge. Will see about going their Sunday to mark out where to put them. We can plant the trees, cut them back and then plant the cuttings. About 50% of the cuttings will likely survive and so she should get another 50 trees if she is lucky.

Another graduation is coming up and so next week will feature and bunch of projects being done. I hope to have three girls make a hay basket cooker and another three do something with maize sprouts. Have never cooked them before but they may be something of use.

Last Sunday was the final Sunday of the liturgical year. This Sunday is the start of another and the start of Advent. Monday morning I had Santiago help me hang my Christmas mobile. I have tried to plant too many trees in too many places to start cutting one down for a month's use. I rather like Christmas trees but ... sigh. Instead, I have a mobile with each decoration hanging by thread. It catches every current of wind from the window it is in front of.  The last two years I have been working on my Christmas Carol book. Finally, I have the next stage done. Maricella helped scan each of the photocopies I have and I then tidied them up as much as possible. It looks much nicer. As well, I tried to find out a bit of information and any interesting anecdotes about each one and organize that. So, if any of you are needing 104 Christmas carols to sing this year, let me know and I can send you an electronic copy. I like to sing through the book each year during Advent. Had a few moments this morning to sing the first two so ... Christmas season is starting early for me. It will still take till January to finish all the songs.

Last week Julia helped me make masa. It is so fun to watch someone measure things with their hands. She has a different way of holding her hands for each type of measurement. So, in fact, it is quite accurate. But, try writing that down. We added the calcium (lime) to the maize and then cooked it. As it was cooking, we made banana bread. After the maize was cooked we ground in by hand - twice - and had a nice quantity of masa.

A fancy cooking basket - Ingelore in Germany made this one.

The next day, I made banana bread using masa instead of wheat flour. It actually turned out very well. Everyone who tasted it was impressed.

The vetiver grass cuttings that we planted a few weeks ago are beginning to sprout nicely. They should be about 60 cm by the end of December if we get enough rain. Once they are at that level they will begin to develop more plants. It never ceases to amaze me how resilient that plant is.

That is about all the news here.

TTYL

BB