Things have been going pretty well lately. It's pretty much stopped raining. We had an entire week of rain, but now it hasn't rained in two weeks. My host dad says that "summer", or the dry season has come already, and that it probably won't rain any more this year. I won't be sad to put away my rain boots, but I have to say that I liked not having to water my garden at all! It's starting to look pretty dry...
With the beginning of the dry season has come the end of the school year. Last week we harvested our garden in the elementary school in Pino Dulce. Although the carrots and Swiss chard were a little bit stunted (I think from all the rain), we still had a decent crop, and the kids were enthusiastic. The teacher at the school has also been very supportive, and I'm excited about working with the kids again when school starts in January. (I didn't start working in this school until April or May this year). So anyways, we picked all the vegetables and weeded the garden, leaving it nice and clean for next year. I thanked the kids for all their hard work, encouraged the kids to work on compost piles at their houses, and said I was excited for next year. One of the kids told me that he was going to start a compost pile, but that he wouldn't be back next year. Why not? "Well I'm graduating from sixth grade, and I'm not going to keep studying next year". He's one of my favorites, and I honestly didn't realize that he was in sixth grade- he's so tiny! He can't be older than 10 or 11. How sad.
I also harvested a bumper crop of Swiss chard and onions with my middle school class in Pino Dulce a few weeks ago.
This Wednesday I went to a produce exchange with women from my groups in Soledad Grande and Pino Dulce. I brought carrots, beets and lettuce from my garden, and my host mom cut a bunch of mint for me to bring along and exchange. Doesn't my host sister look thrilled? (To her credit, she looks pretty good for just having woken up.) I came back with oranges, sweet potatoes, coffee, string beans, and some fruits that I don't know the name of in English...
Here are some of my favorite girls from Pino Dulce with their produce. It was a really good time- I think there were about seven groups in all that came to the exchange. Since we were the only ones from the mountain, we were the only ones who brought cold weather crops (broccoli, cabbage, radishes, Swiss chard, cilantro, etc.), which definitely worked to our advantage! In no time at all my ladies were out of vegetables!
This afternoon I went to visit a neighboring community that I'm hoping to start working in, but shortly before I was going to leave, our neighbor came over to ask my host mom if the cow who'd just calved belonged to her husband. Although my host dad and his father keep their cows about an hour's walk down the mountain, they have a big pasture behind our house where they keep heifers and dry cows. Usually Nando (my host dad) brings the cows and heifers back to his dad's house right before their going to calve, but this one caught him off guard. So anyways, Sole (my host mom) and I went to check it out. The cow had picked a nice secluded spot to have her calf, and Sole was worried that the neighborhood dogs were going to try and eat the calf (apparently this has happened before). Being a Jersey, the calf wasn't too heavy, so I could carry it back to the house. But the cow wasn't too smart, and wouldn't follow me and the calf. Sole had to chase behind it, and it took the help of two little boys to get the cow headed in the right direction. I'm sure we made quite a site- the gringa carrying a calf, a Guatemalan lady caring a screaming three-year old (she's terrified of cows), and two little boys chasing a cow up and down a hill. But it all ended well, and we've got a nice looking chivito in pasture by the house now.
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