This week I was going to go to La Argentina to live with a family and help build a sustainable garden. This garden would make vegetables more affordable for the family so they could eat healthier, and also save money on food expenses. EARTH invented different types of gardens that were made out of common materials from any hardware store. These different types of gardens all had one thing in common; they were all raised in some way off the grown. This was because of the rainy season and to make it easier to manage the plants. This would make it possible for anyone in these small towns to build their very own urban garden to help their family live healthier.
At 8am I was picked up by Alex Pacheco, the director of Perri Urbana (The Urban Garden Project). I found out that and another pasante or intern named Rina from Boston would be coming. We would work together to build these different types of gardens and then on Thursday, Alex and the community gardening group would come and help plant the all of the vegetables. This gardening group was created by EARTH and formed to help the community come together to make their lives better. By doing this, EARTH has sent students to stay with a family for a week to construct these gardens that the family wants. The family can choose from the demo gardens that EARTH made and see what types will work best at their house. Then after the students construct the garden, the group of other families in the group, come and help so they will get the same in return when it’s their turn for their garden.
We drove for about 30min having to drive on dirt roads that gradually got steeper until we reached our destination. The house was on a Plato overlooking the towns, EARTH, and out into the distance. It was quite and except from the moos of cows that were across the road in a field. It was a lot cooler up in the mountain and it was refreshing to not be so hot. When we got out of the car, we met the couple who we were going to stay with. They were an older couple whose son lived next door to them and worked as a driver at EARTH. Their names were Chepita, and Carlos. They were very welcoming and showed us to our rooms to put down our luggage. Alex talked to them about what we were going to do and get the payment for the plants they wanted to grow. Once they were done with all of the business, Chepita shows us where she wanted the garden to be. The first thought that came to my mind when I saw what we were going work with wasn’t positive at first. The piece of land was covered with garbage that had build up over the years and weeds and tree stumps and everything someone wouldn’t want for a garden. What I was seeing was defiantly not what Alex was seeing through his eyes. When he saw the lot, his eyes lit up and the light bulb turned on right away in his head. He started walking and pointing to where these different gardens would go, he saw right through all of the garbage and saw the finished project in his mind. Once he was done with all of his ideas and plans, Rina and I were motivated and ready to go. Alex told us "Buena’s suerte and see ya on Thursday." Right after he left, Rina and I went straight to work. We looked for tools around the yard that could help us with the task of cleaning all of this garbage. We found a small rake that didn’t work that well and a half broken shovel. While Carlos and his neighbor were cleaning other stuff around the lot, we worked on making different piles with sticks and leafs we could use in the gardens, and trash. After a while, Reina started digging holes for the first garden. I couldn’t believe that she would start doing that because we weren’t even half done with cleaning the lot. I was so impressed when she told me her reason. She told me that she learned in training that if you jump ahead a couple steps and makes it look like the project is coming along really well, it motivates the family and helps them stay on task and work hard. So I decided to help her. We started digging but ran into problems right away. Not only was their trash on the surface of this lot, there was trash burred underneath also. To make matters worse, there were rocks burred everywhere too. This made digging the holes very challenging and slow. Once we finished our holes, we decided to go in for lunch. Chepita had made a typical dish and it was very tasty. We talked to her some more and learned more about the family. After lunch we got right back to work. Our goal for the first day was to finish digging all of the holes to put the post in for the different raised gardens. Before we could put the post in, we needed a neighbor named Fernando to come and cut them to size with his chainsaw. Reina had build gardens at his house so he was more than happy to help us with our project. After finishing our task, we set up the tires for one of the gardens also just to get ahead of schedule.
Later that night, I helped Carlos pick beans of the plants that he had just harvested. We picked until it got too dart to see what we were doing and then we went in for dinner. After dinner, Rina and I were tired and we decided to call it a day.
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