July 10-16, 2006
Bahia and the hills which surround it look drier and browner by the week. However there are streaks of green that appear throughout the landscape… seedlings we are maintaining in El Toro, Bosque Encantado and our other sites are growing strong! Some are nearly overhead now! We continue to water and tend to these sites twice a week.
We have begun collecting seeds from our source trees for the next planting season. These seeds will begin to sprout in a few months, once the December rains arrive. With further construction in the greenhouse of more storage area, and with the addition of compost and new soil into the seed beds, it appears as though we are shaping up for next season. This week we visited two new sites, one above the police station in Astillero and another in the hills behind La Cruz. The owners approached me and both look like good sites. We are going to wait a week or two before we sign an agreement to plant, hoping to sort out whether it will be possible to water in these more remote (and highly eroded) sites.
Orlando confirmed the delivery of our gifted seedlings from the town of Jama and they should arrive by the end of July. As mentioned there is now space in the greenhouse and we have agreed to help grow a number of seedlings for him which he will use in the Bahia community of Bellavista in the coming months.
Our house grew this week with Catherine returning from three weeks of travels in Colombia. Welcome home! Local volunteers Cheo and Jaime continue to work with us on a weekly basis. Jaime is the first local volunteer to accept a three month volunteer position with us, part of our new local work experience program. Hope to hear from all you potential international volunteers in the coming weeks… always looking for more smiling faces!
Hasta pronto,
Pat
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