Projects
June 20-25, 2005 Angel and Pablo from Maria Auxilidora stopped by to discuss their idea of fixing up El Bosque with bamboo handrails and steps, and making two miradores. I guess they’ve been inspired by Bella Vista. We painted and punched holes in the bamboo watering pipes, and installed them at the three km 8 sites. We did not water at Endara as there was no […]
The seeds that we collected for the seed art mainly were jaboncillo and maracuyá. They also collected some seeds that I unfortunately didn´t write down so I will try to keep better track of details next time. This week we did some review of plant zones. I taught my students some English words such as plant, trail, pollution, grow, forest, environment etc. which they loved. Since Tuesday […]
June 6-12, 2005 Aside from the usual greenhouse activities (watering, composting, clearing out dead plants, organizing), we did a lot of structural maintenance as dogs had broken in. We reinforced certain sections with wooden posts and/or chicken wire. Also continued fixing the seed beds. We put up plant label signs for the seeds that the Bioregional Education Program had sowed, and remounted the Planet Drum […]
This week we finished up our topic of the different zones of life in this bioregion (dry tropical, very dry tropical, humid tropical and mangrove) with seed art. We went and collected seeds from various trees around Bahia. We then learned from a local artisan how to perforate holes into the seeds with an ancient method of heating up a needle in a candle flame […]
May 30-June 5, 2005 Volunteer situation: Hannah and Montana arrived on Wednesday night, and Jackie on Saturday night. They will be staying through the summer, except Montana, who leaves mid-July. He is staying at the Bahia B&B. (Hannah was actually one of students in the group I led in a previous job to Costa Rica for the Experiment in International Living.) We now have 6 […]
Weekly update from Bahia. Sunday’s outing to Cabo Pasado was a smashing success. The walk was led by Cheo and was a challenge to many of the participants who aren’t used to physical exertion, but they loved the challenge none the less. We got to the beach and they were in heaven playing in the sea and in the sand. Then Cheo gave us a […]
May 23-29, 2005 This week we prepared and maintained seedbeds in the greenhouse, and kept up the regular activities of watering, transplanting, cutting bottles to make insect guards, and composting. The BEP (Bioregional Education Project) class also helped us out one afternoon, and sowed laurel, compoyo and guasmo seeds. We have an arrangement with the Dept. de Hygiene now to collect the city’s plastic bottles […]
I couldn’t be happier with the way things are turning out with the Bioregional Education class. It seems the numbers of students at different times in the class are resolving themselves and those that I am left with are really interested and dedicated. The majority are about seventeen which means they have lots of energy and enthusiasm and it is just a question of directing […]
May 16-22, 2005 I let the Civil Defense Force know that we are willing to work with them on the tree planting project, and am awaiting a response. It rained a few days this week. I spoke with Carlos Franco about fencing on the Dairy Farm and he is placing the final gate which will complete the proper fencing required (shoulder high barbed wire). Carlos […]
This week we talked about the dry tropical forest and had Marcelo take us to Cerro Seco to see first hand lichens, orchids, the mighty Ceibos and spiders hanging from their webs. We were thirty this time and it seems that slowly but surely there is a self-deciding process of those truly interested in the material and projects. For homework on Tuesday they took leaves […]