June 25-29, 2007
Announcement: Our volunteer numbers are still strong, there are currently eleven, but for many, their stay here is coming to a close in the near future. And soon we will be understaffed, so if you’re thinking about volunteering, now’s a great time to get in touch. planetdrumecuador@yahoo.com
This week we took care of a lot of site upkeep by installing a few more bamboo tubes at overlooked trees, did some trail maintenance, and of course, lots of watering. The bi-lingual Argentinean volunteers have been on the prowl for stories to put into the soon to be released green-city newsletter, entitled Econoticias (Econews). And we even squeezed in a field trip to the local permaculture practicing, organic farm Rio Muchacho.
On Monday some of us visited the greenhouse, dropping off compost, weeding, and watering. On the way home, there was a stop at the Don Pepe and Maria Dolores revegetation sites to water the trees. Others stayed home to take care of some house cleaning. Another group walked over to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to do some watering, and clear trails through the inner-city park. Despite having hand-rails stolen from some of the stair cases built there, it’s still a beautiful park, with over seventy new native trees planted this past rainy season. And although a little off the beaten path, it still makes for a good green attraction in Bahia.
Tuesday Ana, Maria and Flaca went on an Econoticias excursion, visiting the environmental division of the local city government to get the scoop on their latest projects. They took a trip through El Astillero barrio to check out the recycling program there and then out to the site of the city garbage disposal, with the temporarily paralyzed organic separation program. The rest of the Planet Drum crew went on a watering marathon, taking care of the El Toro, Bosque Encantado and La Cruz sites in one day. Thanks to Ricardito to shuttling the crew around in his truck with the enthusiasm he always has for our work.
Wednesday some of us watered Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas and the greenhouse again. The rest continued work on Econoticias.
With watering under control, and some of the more exposed sites receiving water twice per week, we did a bit of ecological cultural exchange on Thursday with a Planet Drum outing to Rio Muchacho. All eleven took a bus north of Canoa to the entrance of the Rio Muchacho community. From there, we hiked the six or so kilometers into the organic farm. Although only slightly north of Bahia, the climate is much wetter and still overwhelmingly green, despite being in the dry season. It was beautiful and lush. There was a complimentary tour of the grounds, including their organic pigs, composting, solar seed drier, biogas collector, rotating chicken coup, grey water filtration system, and enormous garden with an incredible variety of tasty and nutritional fruits and vegetables. On the way there was an enormous strangler fig tree. Many thanks are due to kind host Nicola who showed us around and offered the invitation in the first place. It was a wonderful day. It was great to see all the hard work they are doing there and to spend time in a nearby but quite different ecosystem.
On Friday Ramon and a small group of his regular school students (apart from the Bioregional Education class) who were interested in doing some volunteer work joined us. Although perhaps motivated by getting out of school for the day, they really helped out and it was fun getting to explain and show some of the restoration work Planet Drum is doing. We headed to Bosque Encantado and in one large group took care of the watering there. The kids didn’t even seem to mind the arduous hike into the site while carrying jugs of water. They had a great time. From there they went to the greenhouse to water and learned how we grow our trees. It was fun spending time with some young volunteers who are interested in nature.
Life at Planet Drum keeps on rolling…
Hasta la proxima vez…
Clay
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