A WALK THROUGH THE GARDENS

Many of you know that 2014 was my first full year living in Guatemala. One of the main opportunities that this has presented me is the development and expansion of our garden program. In a country that rates third in the world for malnutrition this goal has immediate importance. Please join me for a tour of our work and the changes we have seen. (Photo of Gaspar's garden in Sotzil)

Let's begin with a walk to my garden in Xesalli. Years earlier the village had build me a small room to call my own alongside one of the homes. It seemed like a good place to look for a temporary spot to garden and build a home/office. It is a short 20 minute walk up the hill from Chel and offers a little privacy and beauty. The road has a couple of rough spots in it so it is cheaper to bring most things in by mule. Here Mateo leads their family's mule to my site with a load of blankets and mandarins oranges for the village. We have made countless trips up and down this road carrying everything from chickens to fruit trees.

Home sweet home! (This photo was taken in November 2014)

It is good to take a little look back to see what has been accomplished. We began work on the site in January. These kids have come to the end of a work day helping me build a simple hoop green house. The blue tarp behind them is the spot we would build a small adobe house for me.

Fast forward to November and we can see the changes in this site.

Here back in January again some of the men of the community help expose the soil for the first planting. I was excited to see nice black soil but when we tested it there was no measurable nitrogen and almost no phosphorus. ( Take note of the position of the man in the green shirt. A few weeks after this photo we piped a water faucet in front of his location.)

Today the site looks like this. You can see the water faucet in front of the women who have come for an instructional class and are ready to head back to their villages. Each one of them have a few plants starts to take home and work with. Besides all the growth we have seen on the site we have been able to gift thousands of plant starts.

Here below the house we have almost 2,000 peach tree starts growing. This is our root stock that we will later invite garden leaders to come and learn how to graft different varieties onto. In 2014 we have handed out over 2,000 fruit trees. They have ranged from tomato trees to oranges to apples. Placing these trees and training in the hands of the village farmers is going to help us establish a new level of food security. Remember this is just our first year. I dream of seeing the surrounding 20 villages being a bread basket. This is not a vision to export food to foreign markets but so that they can feed themselves.

I plan to always stay a grass root type of guy. That is who I am. Here I am enjoying carrying a few plant starts to a meeting in a neighboring village. It is a low tech kind of work that cost almost nothing but yields good return.

The plant starts delivered here will be divided between 30 gardeners. Pictured here are hibiscus starts, chaya plants and yucca trees. In 2015 TRE is looking to purchase a five acre parcel of land where we can expand this type of garden nursery. Included in this plan is a training center from which to teach village technology, herbal medicines, animal and plant husbandry.

The adobe blocks for my house arrived in mid- June. They were transported up the hill by pick-up. I chose adobe because out of the material choices available it had the lowest impact on the environment and provided local people with much needed work.

Hiring three of my nieghbors I was surprised to find out none of them had ever built with adobe. Life seems to be full of lessons and we used this opportunity to learn together. It was a fun four days.

After years of construction in the US I enjoy a more relaxed approach to building. I enjoy the freedom to put higher value on relationship building than the building itself. The fact that it only cost me seven dollars a day for labor and the entire house project was under a thousand dollars has helped me maintain that perspective.

Here two neighbors entering the garden gate bringing me poles for the roof. To bring the ploes down the mountain they have dragged them for half and hour.

Let's leave my garden behind and go visit some of the villager sites. This site belongs to Elena and is producing well.

Here she showed me a trick I have never tried. She has placed an upside down black pot here to show the cabbage plants what size of heads she is wanting. I don't know if there has be any scientific studies done on her method but I do see other gardeners doing the same thing!

Many of our new sites require a ton of soil improvement. This site was so compacted that it was hard to break the soil with a pick. Maria is collecting the small rocks to be discarded. Behind her is a bed with better soil that her husband has carried down from the mountains. Two months later I was amazed to pass by this garden and find a healthy crop of swiss chard growing.

Because of the great demand for garden wire we have started requiring new gardeners to prove their interest by first tending a garden plot with whatever fence materials they can find. This site and 40 others in her village have fulfilled that requirement and are now fenced with wire.

Sites like these are popping up all over.

The beauty of these gardens is seeing the food that is available without cost to these families.

With over 300 gardens the regional representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture have told me that when they tour these villages they are amazed. There are gardens everywhere! We have started sharing information, resources, and tools with the Ministry of Agriculture and Xacbal, the national dam in this area. Last week we planted 100 fast growing trees in the village of Sotzil to help stabilize hillsides that were putting home at risk for landslide. The trees were provided by Xacbal.

In 2015 I hope to photograph more gardens and less swollen belles. Please visit our web site and help us make that change. To donate for a year end tax credit, to see one more garden built, for the children are all good reasons. We are a 501-c non profit and 100% of your donations go directly to these projects.

Harvest time is near.

A site this size cost $60 to fence and plant.

I love this photo. The shy smile on the girl, the beans drying that have been harvested from the fields and the vegetables that are peaking over the metal fencing of the garden. There is potenial here. Potential for tomorrow let's patner together to see that it is achieved. Malnutrition, especially for the young is a lifetime problem. Brain, physical growth, and organ develop are all stunted. Now is the time to protect the future. Join us in 2015 and let's seed the mountains!

A Little Relief

A young girl in Chel with new warm clothing sent from the states

We have all been there. Those hard days that we wonder "why is life being so hard?" but then in comes the Calvary to the rescue. Many times it is a relatively small thing that breaks the spell of discontent. Recently I returned to Xesalli under one of those "life is hard spells" , the fire wouldn't start, I was dirty, hungry and tired when a neighbor girl came over with some chicken soup her family had sent me. As I ate and a spirit of thankfulness came over me I mentally retraced the steps that were taken to bring me this gift. The sacrifice of the family chicken, the time to cook it over the fire and the idea, the idea to share with Michael. They did not understand the timeliness of the gift when they sent their daughter to my house. They just knew it felt right to share. November the calvary arrived for Chajul and people in seven villages have been blessed. It is appropriate to use the word calvary for many, many people and three organizations were involved in collecting, loading and sending by boat a shipping container of aid. "Miracles in Action and Vamos Adelante" generously shared this aid with us and the result was a blessing beyond words. When life is rough, and it is a hard time for the Ixil people, and it improves just a little our attitude changes from despair to hope. A special thanks to all, from the women who have knitted and sewed to the Bob the donor who sponsored the shipping. You have made ripples of hope people are in a constant struggle for the basics of life. To all our readers: Enjoy this photo journal and know that you can make the world better. Sharing is a very good thing to do.

TRE's work started in sorting and bagging over thirty gunny sacks of aid

Which were then loaded onto the famous chicken busses of Guatemala to begin this part of the journey to Chajul

We completely filled the top of the bus with aid

To complete this Thanksgiving/ Christmas Aid we made two trips to the market in San Fransico El Alto and bought 225 blankets and 144 sweaters and jackets. November through the end of January are the cold months and this aid's timing is perfect. To distribute all this aid we called our garden leaders and asked them to bring the names of three of the neediest families in their sector. Here is Maria, one of the 20 leaders in Chel, carrying a bag of sweaters as she guides us to her choices. As TRE grows and learns how to better help promote sustainable development it has become central to our point of view that the Ixil people must not only be included but must be central components in all parts of our work. To train and use women like Maria strengthens the very fabricate of the community itself. Entering a home where two women and three kids live.

Guatemala is ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world and has the third highest rate of malnutrition. Chajul is among the poorer regions in Guatemala. With a background like that it is easy to find needs. Maria thanked us for remembering her and stated that even though she works hard she can never support the needs of her children.

After entering each home we would spread the aid on a tarp. Maria and her mother can select clothing for each member of her family. This roving Good Will provided each family with new sweaters, a blanket and many excellent pieces of used clothing. What is the cost of a pair of shoes. It is better to think in terms of time spent earning the money for an item than in the actual dollar value. A pair of shoes like this would cost Maria three days of work and she only averages three days of paid work per week. Buying shoes is a luxury whereas buying corn and beans the necessity. This perspective of Maria's finaces makes it easy to see what a special blessing has come to her home. Thankgiving morning the tempature was fifty degrees and with no heat in the homes the cold quickly seeps in during the night. The new blankets offered a little extra comfort. Txoo Xi is the Ixil word for blanket. Sometimes ignorance is bliss but once I learned that word I can not no longer ignore it. Especially when i hear the kids cry out in the early morning hours "txoo xi, txoo xi" as they snuggle with other family members trying to keep warm under one blanket. House by house by house we brought smiles to the oppressed. We held a drawing to see who would be the new owner of this hand made quilt. We distributed over 100 baby blankets. They came in all styles and colors. Some were hand knitted, others warm felted wraps and others handmade quilts. . This young mother receives a knit hat and baby cloths. The sense of satisfaction a mother has when she can dress her child in good clothes is tangible. Beside warmth new clothes bring a sense of pride. It is a great joy to see kids inspecting each others new clothes. It is almost as if a new piece of clothing lifts the personal self image of the child out of poverty. This young boy spied a pair of rubber boots and Started crying. He ran accross the room crying "Boots, Boots, Boots". When they proved to be a perfect fit he danced and stomped around the house. This young women is one of my neigbors in Xesalli. She is an abandoned mother with three kids. I went to visit her earlier this month and ask if she would invite me to dinner. She did not know that I had a bag of groceries to give her and replied "There is no dinner" becuase ther was no food in the house. Here I am holding her new born child in the kitchen side of her home. The father of the child quickly left the vilage when we learned she had became pregnant. The only food in the photo is some corn and a few peppers in a cup. When food is scarce 5 to 10 tortillas and some chilli sauce is considered a meal. This lack of nutrition will negativly affect the devolopment of this child and her future. This is why TRE is in the fight against poverty. The answer that there is no dinner is not acceptable, it needs to change. Relief food aid is good and some goverment aid has made it into the region but our garden program takes a longrange view of the problem. We hope to replace the lack of food with abundance. Over 1,200 fruit trees were planted in 2014 and we have 2,000 starts growing for 2015. I have grown tired of seeing kids with swollen bellies. Kid's without shoes and only a few ragged clothes. I vote for change in this world. We saw the evidence of that change as we walked from house to house. Here a TRE garden sets in front of new home being build. We now are helping in well over 300 garden sights. I vote for sharring. Becuase sometines the colors and the sizes and the timing are just perfect. Thank you to everyone who helped send this aid. The act of love that was send forth from afar arrived and made its mark. It brough the power to turns a "life is hard spell" into a thank-you God bless you day. From the hundreds of Ixil people who have benifited I send you all a "ta'n tiux Tiuxh la b’en se’"-- Thank -you God bless.