Angie Miner

A couple of men in my community approached me with the interest of making a tree nursery for reforestation.  I thought it was a great idea and was excited there were people interested in doing it so I immediately began organizing people and resources to make the idea come to life.

I found an older community member who had a lot of experience making tree nurseries and he was interested in helping us out.  I knew of an organization that I could write to that could provide the seeds and tree bags.  I also talked to the local water-board whose actual job it was to make tree nurseries every year to reforest the watershed areas that provide us with clean water.  I even had a contact in the city that was a professional and said he would love to come out and help make the project a success.  Everything seemed great, and we were feeling optimistic and excited to start.

However, it was as true here as with many other challenges in the world, the project was easier said than done.  Even though its apart of their required yearly tasks, the water-board never actually made tree nurseries in the past but everyone agreed that the project must be done through them because they were the organized committee whose job it was to do it.  I also agreed because we could teach them to make a tree nursery this year and then the committee could repeat the work every year, thus creating sustainability.  However, the water-board had to go through re-election first before I could start to work with them.  That set me back a month.  Once I met with the new board of director’s they told me they were very interested in doing the project but had to wait for general community approval at the next community meeting.  All and all I had to wait much longer than I’d hoped to get the approval and people resources I needed to start the work but at least they assigned me a coordinator to help coordinate the people.

By the time I was ready to start, I was told by the organization I had hoped would provide me with seeds that it would be a better and faster option to just ask the municipality if they had seeds they could provide me.  I did that and was able to get some seeds that were good for planting in watershed areas.  The community wasn’t being as forthcoming in the area of voluntary manual labor as I had hoped so I went to the school and managed to get the involvement of the 9th grade class, whose students actually needed to put in several hours of community service in order to graduate.  Through my wonderful city contact I was able to take them all on a field trip to see a professional tree nursery and learn about the construction and importance of it.  We were excited and ready to start working.

There were 30 students in the 9th grade class so, instead of working with all of them at once, I decided it was best to form groups of about 6 students who would switch off every day for work.  This maximized their individual work and learning potential and also helped so that no one student would lose too many hours of regular class-time.  The first day we began working, my coordinator didn’t show up and continued to be MIA for the rest of the week (I later found out she was sick).  The adult community members who were part of the water-board work group also were no-shows for most of the week (even though I only asked for 2 or 3 people a day).  The 9th graders, however, were awesome and it was by their motivations and labors that we were able to construct the tree nursery.

Without the help of my coordinator I was left in charge of organizing everything, under the loose guidance of my experienced community member who was older but definitely put in more than his share of labor as he tried to make up for the lack of community participation.  We leveled the ground where the trees would go, dug up dark soil, pounded the soil to break up the clumps and sifted it, then pounded the remaining clumps and sifted it again to get smooth soil.  We gathered cow dung and gave it the same treatment as the soil and mixed it in as a natural fertilizer so we wouldn’t need chemicals.  Then we filled the bags with the dirt and built a shade structure out of wood and leaves to protect the young seedling from the sun.  We set up a tube from the river to pipe in water for watering the trees and lastly we planted the seeds.

There was a lot of hard work but the students said they enjoyed it more than class time and found it more interesting.  As we worked we told jokes and stories and I often rewarded them with candy after a good days work.  In the end we had about 1500 bags filled with dirt and planted over 3000 seeds (2-3 seeds per bag).

And after 2 weeks of watering only about 300 of the 3000+ seeds sprouted…

The seeds I had gotten from the municipality were apparently a little expired or not stored properly and so they didn’t germinate.  We ended up transplanting another 300 seedlings from the forest growing in places they would not survive to our nursery to give us about 600 plants.  The rest of the bags we decided we would later plant with another seed that we would gather from local trees.  Those plants would not be ready to transplant this year but would have to remain in the nursery until the following rainy season.  All in all the nursery was still a success.  The students and many community members learned about making tree nurseries and the importance of reforestation and though it wasn’t as much as we had hoped we were still able to plant many trees in the local watershed areas.

There were many challenges during this project but I will always remember one particularly frustrating day I had where I was running back and forth through the community and nothing seemed to be going right.  The little school kids, the young generation who would benefit the most in the future from the trees we would plant, had just learned a new English word in class and were all excited to practice it on the only English-speaking person in the community, me.  Everywhere I walked that day as I struggled to maintain the work with missing people and resources I heard little kids shout behind me, “Thank you!”

It was a hot summer day with little to do.  In our shared fondness for animals, my host mom and I have a variety of pets and this day the kids and I noticed that there were many different kinds of baby animals about.  We began to wonder, through our random conversations, in the case of a flood which ones would need to be saved first.  We have an open water cistern which is used to store water for cleaning purposes and decided to do a little experiment.  We gathered up one of each baby animal and individually put them in the water to test their natural swimming skills.  A puppy, duckling, chick, parakeet, piglet, guatusa (spanish), turtle, frog, and a rabbit all had their chance to test their flood survival skills for a few seconds in the water.  Almost all did surprisingly, or obviously, well for their first time in the water.  Only the parakeet had real difficulties and was declared to be the first that needed to be saved in the time of a flood.

One morning as I was selecting the day’s clothes I discovered a bat cozying up in one of my t-shirts.  His tiny nails clung to the fabric and his little face was buried in to hide from the light.  I took him outside and hung him in a tree where he stayed for a minute before fluttering off to find a more suitable sleeping place.  There are bats that live in my ceiling and though they usually don’t fly around the room they can often be seeing hanging down from the walls.

There are geckos that live in my house.  With their clicking voices they call across the rooms to one another and hunt the fireflies and other insects that dare to land on the walls.  Quick as a serpent they are nearly impossible to catch as they dart about always just out of reach.

One evening as I was about to retire to my bedroom I discovered a very large tarantula on the wall outside my bedroom door.  Fascinated, I studied its hairy legs and spidery face.  My host mom was not nearly so fascinated by the creature and declared it poisonous and quickly swept it away with a broom and dispose of it with a rock.

Toads are a common creature often found snacking on insects beneath the porch lights.  Some grow to large sizes and cause dogs to become sick and foam at the mouth if they try to dine on them.  My host mom once found a large toad nestled amongst some cotton balls in her room.  How it managed to hop all the way in there without being seen I do not know but she named it poisonous and threw out all the cotton balls.

As I went to wash my face one morning, I turned my washcloth over to wet it and discovered a scorpion clinging to its cool dampness.  I dropped that washcloth so quickly and leaped back that I hit the wall.  Scorpions here aren’t deadly poisonous but if they bite you it sure does hurt for a while.  I’ve been obsessively checking my washcloth for scorpions every morning since.

I was sitting in the living room in the evening hour when I heard a commotion outside.  I went to investigate and I found a group of young guys surrounding a tree, hooting and shouting.  Up in the branches there was a furry animal with a large tail.  I don’t know exactly what it was but here they may have called it Gatomiko and it was kind of mix between a squirrel and a monkey, at least from what I could tell in the evening light.  The adults told me that it eats their chickens so they have to kill it.  I protested for the life of the animal but by then they had already begun throwing rocks and sticks at the terrified trapped animal.  It cried out when they hit it with the stones and clung for dear life to the branches but dear life could not withstand the attack.  With one final blow it fell to the ground and the boys finished it off.  Upon closer inspection it was declared that it was not one of the chicken-eating animals they thought it was but was just a similar species.  The guys took turns scaring each other or the girls with the dead animal and I tried to tell them how they shouldn’t kill so many forest animals because that’s why we are seeing fewer animals today than there were before and how the loss of one type of animal effects the populations of others that eat or are eaten by them.  The boys shrugged their shoulders and one of them picked up the lifeless corpse, threw it over his shoulder, and took it home for dinner.

I was sitting inside my host-family’s house one day when a girl outside shouted “Snake!”and began to scream.  My host mom shouted, “Snake?  ANGIE! Come here!”  Why she called my name I don’t know because I’m the only one who would actually be opposed to the death of the innocent creature whereas she was looking for someone to help kill it.  Nevertheless, I came running.

The snake was a pretty big one and had been caught in the act of eating lunch in the grass outside the house…a poor luckless toad.  Several people heard the call and picked up large sticks and poles as they came running.  The hunt had begun.  The snake was quick but the people were numerous and surrounded it.  People ran forward and leaped away in fear, though the snake never actually attempted a strike.  Finally as it tried to slither between a gap in the ring of people someone brought a heavy wooden stick down on its head.  From there it was all over.  Rocks were thrown and more blows were dealt to the still moving body but the snake was no more.  The species wasn’t poisonous but was large enough to maybe eat young chickens.  I picked up the still moving dead body to the horror and disgust of my host family.  I showed the fascinated kids the teeth and tongue and then watched as the toad-who-was-almost-lunch hopped away.  I guess he’s a lot more lucky than I first thought.

I was working in the office of the local youth center one day and the director of the center came in surrounded by a few children and with a small girl in her arms.  The girl was not one that I recognized and she had big brown eyes and wore a simple blue dress.  The director sat the girl on my lap and told me, “She’s yours.”

I replied by giving the girl a big hug and saying that she was beautiful.  She was very cute but she felt very light for her size and showed signs of being malnourished, which is unfortunately not uncommon in these poor communities.  She appeared to be about 2 years old and sat very calmly in my lap though I was a stranger to her as were most of the other people in the room.

The director said, “No really, she’s yours.  Take her, her family doesn’t want her anymore.”

“How could her family not want her anymore?” I questioned with concern.

She then explained to me how the girl was just brought to the center that very day by a 12 year old girl who said she was a friend of the family.  The girl was brought down from a house up in the mountains and the older girl told how the family no longer wanted the girl and didn’t lover her.  She said the little girl had other siblings and the father would often give the other siblings soda and chips or other foods but would neglect this girl.  The family was very poor and she was just an extra burden to them.  An uncle had even suggested to just get rid of the girl or even kill her if they had to, which led them to send her down to the youth center.  It sounded like a case of infidelity where the father knew or suspected that the child was not his and therefore has caused her to become an unwanted outcast in the family.  The girl was completely innocent yet suffering for the sins of her parents.

I was appalled and alarmed for the girl’s safety.  I asked, “Does this happen often where families try to give up their children?”

“No, this is the first time we have seen it and I don’t know what to do with the child because I already have two young children and cannot take her, but you could adopt her and take her back with you!” She replied with enthusiasm.  “Look, she can stand and walk and everything.”  She then took the girl from my lap and stood her on the floor as proof.  “She can even talk too!  Say some thing child!  Tell me your name!”

The girl stood calmly yet shyly with her eyes wide and fingers in her mouth but did not reply.  The other children of all ages crowded at the door and peered curiously at the girl and at me to see what I would do.

I was shocked.  I knew I couldn’t adopt her like they wanted but thought that there had to be other options.  “How old is she?”  I asked.

“Four years old they say, but look how my two year old is bigger than she is.”  And it was true, the director’s 2 year old daughter was bigger than this 4 year old and I found it hard to believe the girl could really be so old. “It’s because she is malnourished,” she told me, “they don’t feed her very much, they don’t take care of her, they don’t love her.”

My motherly instinct kicked in at that moment and I wanted to pick the girl up and take care of her in a way her family never did or could have.  “But isn’t there another local family that could adopt her so she doesn’t have to be taken from her homeland?”

That afternoon I talked to several people about the situation of the little girl.  Mother’s are very compassionate towards children and many of them seriously considered adopting her but were hesitant at the extra financial burden it would cause to their already poor families.  I finally talked to one woman who without a second thought immediately told me she would gladly adopt the girl.  I was surprised by her lack of hesitation.  She told me that she is unable to have children of her own and already has an adopted daughter that’s all grown up now and she misses having children in the house.  My host family was close friends with the woman and agreed that she would be a good mother for the girl.  She told me her only conditions were that the adoption was made legal, with signed papers and all, and that the family was not allowed to come see her because she didn’t want trouble and if they were going to treat the girl like such an animal then they just didn’t deserve her.  She also wanted that the girl be given vitamins and anti-parasite pills to rid her of any common internal parasite she may have.  I thought her conditions were more than fair and I was pleased to have found an adoptive family so quickly that very evening.

The next day was Saturday so I had to wait until Monday to walk back to the youth center and inform the director about the woman willing to adopt the girl.  However, the director told me that the family had changed their mind and were now unwilling to give up the girl even though they neglected her so.  Unfortunately that left us little options because if the family was unwilling to give her up then there was little that we could do.

I negotiated with the director and we decided that the girl could be given free access and sponsorship by the youth center and could come and receive meals whenever she wanted, which is usually available to any school-aged child in the community when the families pay a yearly fee to the center.  The center also regularly gives out free school uniforms, clothes, shoes, school supplies and access to activities, sports, after school homework help and other things to help support the underprivileged children in these poor communities.  It wasn’t as much help as the girl needed or deserved but it was all we could offer.  In this way she wouldn’t be as great of a burden to the family because she would be given food and clothing and the staff workers could continue to monitor and support her as needed.

I once went to my community counterpart’s house to visit and they offered me a bowl of soup.  I asked what kind of soup it was and they told me it had pork meat in it.  They served me a bowl and my counterpart laughed and said, “No actually its armadillo.”

My counterpart loves to joke around so I replied, “No its not, you already told me its pork, it’s too late to try and fool me now!”

“No really, its armadillo!”  He said laughing.  I told him I didn’t believe him and I ate the soup.

Later when I went back to my host family’s house my host mother asked me,

“Did you eat anything while at his house?”

“Yea they offered me soup.” I replied.

“What kind of soup?”  She asked with a glint in her eye.

Suspicious by the question I replied, “They told me it was pork.”

She burst out laughing and told me that I had eaten armadillo.  Apparently there’s no such thing as putting pork in soup here.  Though rare, my counterpart’s son had apparently just caught and killed an armadillo and so it became lunch.  When I didn’t believe my counterpart about the meat one of the nearby kids thought it was hilarious and ran off to tell my host-mom about it.  Nothing happens to me around here without the entire community being made aware of it.  Haha I guess Ill just have to add that to my list of strange food items I’ve eaten including bull testicles, chicken feet, and iguana.

A couple of men in my community approached me with the interest of making a tree nursery for reforestation.  I thought it was a great idea and was excited there were people interested in doing it so I immediately began organizing people and resources to make the idea come to life.
I found an older community member who had a lot of experience making tree nurseries and he was interested in helping us out.  I knew of an organization that I could write to that could provide the seeds and tree bags.  I also talked to the local water-board whose actual job it was to make tree nurseries every year to reforest the watershed areas that provide us with clean water.  I even had a contact in the city that was a professional and said he would love to come out and help make the project a success.  Everything seemed great, and we were feeling optimistic and excited to start.

However, it was as true here as with many other challenges in the world, the project was easier said than done.  Even though its apart of their required yearly tasks, the water-board never actually made tree nurseries in the past but everyone agreed that the project must be done through them because they were the organized committee whose job it was to do it.  I also agreed because we could teach them to make a tree nursery this year and then the committee could repeat the work every year, thus creating sustainability.  However, the water-board had to go through re-election first before I could start to work with them.  That set me back a month.  Once I met with the new board of director’s they told me they were very interested in doing the project but had to wait for general community approval at the next community meeting.  All and all I had to wait much longer than I’d hoped to get the approval and people resources I needed to start the work but at least they assigned me a coordinator to help coordinate the people.

By the time I was ready to start, I was told by the organization I had hoped would provide me with seeds that it would be a better and faster option to just ask the municipality if they had seeds they could provide me.  I did that and was able to get some seeds that were good for planting in watershed areas.  The community wasn’t being as forthcoming in the area of voluntary manual labor as I had hoped so I went to the school and managed to get the involvement of the 9th grade class, whose students actually needed to put in several hours of community service in order to graduate.  Through my wonderful city contact I was able to take them all on a field trip to see a professional tree nursery and learn about the construction and importance of it.  We were excited and ready to start working.

There were 30 students in the 9th grade class so, instead of working with all of them at once, I decided it was best to form groups of about 6 students who would switch off every day for work.  This maximized their individual work and learning potential and also helped so that no one student would lose too many hours of regular class-time.  The first day we began working, my coordinator didn’t show up and continued to be MIA for the rest of the week (I later found out she was sick).  The adult community members who were part of the water-board work group also were no-shows for most of the week (even though I only asked for 2 or 3 people a day).  The 9th graders, however, were awesome and it was by their motivations and labors that we were able to construct the tree nursery.
Without the help of my coordinator I was left in charge of organizing everything, under the loose guidance of my experienced community member who was older but definitely put in more than his share of labor as he tried to make up for the lack of community participation.  We leveled the ground where the trees would go, dug up dark soil, pounded the soil to break up the clumps and sifted it, then pounded the remaining clumps and sifted it again to get smooth soil.  We gathered cow dung and gave it the same treatment as the soil and mixed it in as a natural fertilizer so we wouldn’t need chemicals.  Then we filled the bags with the dirt and built a shade structure out of wood and leaves to protect the young seedling from the sun.  We set up a tube from the river to pipe in water for watering the trees and lastly we planted the seeds.
There was a lot of hard work but the students said they enjoyed it more than class time and found it more interesting.  As we worked we told jokes and stories and I often rewarded them with candy after a good days work.  In the end we had about 1500 bags filled with dirt and planted over 3000 seeds (2-3 seeds per bag).
And after 2 weeks of watering only about 300 of the 3000+ seeds sprouted…

The seeds I had gotten from the municipality were apparently a little expired or not stored properly and so they didn’t germinate.  We ended up transplanting another 300 seedlings from the forest growing in places they would not survive to our nursery to give us about 600 plants.  The rest of the bags we decided we would later plant with another seed that we would gather from local trees.  Those plants would not be ready to transplant this year but would have to remain in the nursery until the following rainy season.  All in all the nursery was still a success.  The students and many community members learned about making tree nurseries and the importance of reforestation and though it wasn’t as much as we had hoped we were still able to plant many trees in the local watershed areas.
There were many challenges during this project but I will always remember one particularly frustrating day I had where I was running back and forth through the community and nothing seemed to be going right.  The little school kids, the young generation who would benefit the most in the future from the trees we would plant, had just learned a new English word in class and were all excited to practice it on the only English-speaking person in the community, me.  Everywhere I walked that day as I struggled to maintain the work with missing people and resources I heard little kids shout behind me, “Thank you!”

 So if you have ever wondered what happens to your old school buses once the district decides they are in need of replacing, let me just say that they dont necessarily go into retirement.  Most old buses are sent to other countries to be restored for reuse.  Many still have the name of the county or school district that they are from painted on the side.  I am still looking to find one from my county havent found one yet.  Many buses I have been on have had holes in the floor and you can see the road below (watch where u put your feet!).  They break down frequently but people have ways of getting every last breath out of them.  Once I was on the bus going up the mountian to my community in the late afternoon.  It was rainy out and the bus was pretty packed.  We were going up a hill and the engine was having problems and sounded horrible.  It started to smoke.  They stopped the bus and told everyone to get off.  As I passed the front of the bus I saw flames shooting out of the engine.  Uh oh that doesnt look good!  The driver and assistant dowsed the flames with water, checked a few parts and told everyone to get back on.  Hmmm.  So we boarded the bus and continued on.  We came to a river and halfway across it started smoking again.  Crossed the river and they told us to again get off and this time to just start walking (It would take a couple hours to walk to the community from where we were).  The bus workers went to the river to refill their canisters and dowse the flames again with water.  We walked for a bit and then heard the bus behind us once again struggling up the hill.  It picked us up as we passed by, seemingly determined to just take us as far as it could possibly be pushed to go.  Smoke filled the cabin so we all covered our mouths with rags or bury our heads in our arms to breathe and keep the smoke from our eyes.  The driver had an especially hard time being near the engine because there was more smoke there but he needed to keep him eyes open to see.  (Dont worry, this was a rural dirt road with little chance of encountering other vehicles on the road.)  Every now and they they stopped to dowse the flames.  We got off once more but remember that it is raining out so in the end we pretty much decided to just stay on board.  I actually walked for quite a distance with another lady because we were sick of the smoke and already thoroughly soaked. The bus was moving so slow that it would pass us, stop, and we would pass it, then it passed us again etc for a while.  Eventually got back on the bus and it finally pulled up that last hill and arrived at the parking lot entrance of the community.  The engine gave its final huff and promptly died and we rolled to a stop.  Yays and cheering!  We made it!  Im pretty sure that engine was done for.  The bus was eventually fixed and continues to be one of the two that serves our community.  They are privately owned by locals who live here so they must be maintained because when one breaks down the other cannot cover both shifts and therefore routes can get unexpectadly cut out (meaning you could be left wherever you are waiting for a bus that wont come or will be a couple hours late.

The rainy season here generally last for 6 months but only during the last couple of months is when the rain can get really intense.  It can go on raining for days at a time without stopping but usually it lets up in the mornings and rains in the afternoons and at night.  We wash our clothes by hand here (its a good work out) and then line dry them.  On a sunny day they dry in a day or less, but during the rainy season it can get complicated.  Every moment of dryness must be taken advantage of.  If it stops raining- hurry and put the clothes out!  Then 20 minutes later it starts raining again-quickly bring them back in before they get all wet again!  Sometimes it can take a couple days to dry and if it takes too long the clothes can start to mold or mildew, and thats no good! 

Creeks and rivers can rise rapidly too during these times.  In leaving my house to get to the road I have to cross a creek.  Its completly dry in the dry season, and is usually just a good hop to get over in the rainy season but sometimes after a lot of rain it gets pretty high.  I have had to help carry small children across it before.  And thats just the small creek outside my house.  Theres many other rivers around that I often have to negotiate as well.  Usually people have placed rocks in the river to step on and cross it but when the rivers rise the rocks are often beneath the water or washed away.  Its best not to wear socks and shoes during these times as they can be a hassle to take off and put back on or to get wet    Sandals work best.  In living on a mountain  floodings not too big of an issue but the rivers can run fast because they are going downhill and  occasionally there are mudslides.

There are no bridges on the road to my rural communities so the several times that the  bus has to cross a river on the road to get there (i think it crosses at least 7 times through big and small rivers) it must to go straight through it.  If its a big river they have usually placed concrete on the bottom where the ‘road’ is and have widened out the river at that point so its not so deep.  But when the rivers rise it can still be dangerous to cross.  During the rainy season transportation can be sketchy.  The bus leaves 4 times a day from the city to my site with the last time being mid-afternoon.  During the rainy season Ive always been told to catch the earlier buses whenever possible because rain usually starts around midday and if the rivers rise too much the buses may not cross.  In that case they will sit beside the river and wait for it to lower again to the point where they feel its safe to cross.  This can sometimes mean the bus sits there all night long so cuddle up and make friends with the 2 people crammed in next to you on the school bus seat because you may be there for a while.  Luckily I have never been in this situation because our last rainy season was dryer than usual.  However, they say in normal years it sometimes gets bad enough that the community (with only 1 road leading out) can get cut off for a couple days because the rivers are unsafe to cross.