Preparing for La Siembra

The nightly rains of Jiguina's winter are starting and apparently it is beetle season...they have made my home a landing zone at night.  In brief, I am getting ready to garden with at least one young woman (we hope to plant broccoli!) and I am beginning the tedious process of a USAID grant proposal for a community mill project.  Many families in the community are constructing new homes or additions to their homes, presumably with monies from the coffee harvest.  Everyone is waiting for the first planting season of the year; soon the hillsides will be showing rows of corn or red beans.  Today, Don Chepe was walking up a hill to make sure people had permission to chop down the trees they were chopping.  Todo va bastante normal.

My colleague Simon is rather successfully preparing to plant a plot of 5,000 strawberry plants with a group in his community.  This project is inspirational!  It has potential to really affect the incomes of the participants and I observed that it is teaching the group how to work together and organize a work plan, work schedule, etc.  Best wishes to them.

I am learning the ins and outs of community develop each day.  I try to stay positive, I try to educate, I try to fight off the feeling that I am being taken advantage of.