Courtney's Sustainability Reflection

                                           Courtney in Copan, three months ago.

A shared vision, a common dream, similar work, recurring values-these are all things that come to mind when someone says the word “community”. Like sustainability (and like a lot of other things), I think community is a word that’s used a lot but seldom practiced (well), at least in my experience,

Sustainability conjures an image of windmills and solar panels, of green spaces and flowers and happy farm animals-essentially all of the stock photos on the covers of our books this semester. When someone says sustainability, I think about it solely in terms of the environment and fixing our environmental degradation/energy dependency.

As someone who has Sustainable Community Development as one of their majors, I feel like I should have a better conception of what sustainable communities are or should be. I guess I understand it at a theoretical level, but I don’t think I had ever seen an example of a healthy, functioning sustainable community before this trip.

The first and most important community experience for me on this trip is the community we’ve built together. I’ve been in many different group living situations before, but none with this much thought or intentionality.

Looking back, the transformation about how I feel about community has been a pretty significant experience for me on this trip. I’ve never really felt this deeply embedded in a community, at least emotionally. I guess in the past I felt like I was pretty community-oriented:  I volunteer a lot and am involved in a lot of local politics; I know my neighbors and go to a lot of community functions. I know a lot of “important” people in the Ashland community and am involved more than the average college student – I always assumed that this was enough. I thought that by contributing to the common good and fulfilling my civic duty and giving a lot I was doing my part to build a better community. I wouldn’t say that I was entirely wrong, because I think a sense of service and engagement in community is vital, but I completely discounted the emotional side of community. I have never felt comfortable enough in a community to ask for things. I have always assumed that feelings should be dealt with in the private realm, meaning with your friends or family at home and that it was pretty undesirable to be needy or to ask for things from your community.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the way we deal with our emotions as a society is pretty shitty. Everyone has and is entitled to the broad range of emotions that comes with being human, and everyone deserves an outlet for those emotions and to be supported in expressing those emotions. It was both one of the most difficult and one of the most rewarding experiences for me to be a part of building a community in which these things are allowed and encouraged to happen. There were times that I didn’t feel comfortable expressing myself and I’m sure others felt the same way, which means I have some work to do both in terms of how I communicate to other people and how I receive communication from others.

My family is pretty open to talking about how we feel, so I don’t know where I got my reluctance/uncomfortability about talking about my feelings or expressing needs-I guess it’s one of those cultural messages that’s embedded so deeply that we don’t even notice it, but I think we’re all taught from a very young age that it’s not okay to be needy and that we should usually try to feel happy all the time. I really want to work on breaking down this myth when I get home, but I don’t know how to do so without making people uncomfortable. Activities like our check-ins, discussions, the Gifting Circle and the Joanna Macy activity really helped me to feel comfortable with everyone and allowed me to express myself in new ways, but we were all willing participants in those activities, I feel like you can’t just bring a group of people together and expect these things to work.

I guess my point is that truly sustainable communities have to recognize people as whole people and provide spaces for people to grow and develop and share and help others and be helped and communicated, otherwise they won’t really be sustainable, they’ll just be more environmentally-sound versions of what we were doing before.

I think that the community we’ve built here is sustainable, even though we’ll all be leaving each other in a matter of days. I say its sustainable because even though we’ll all be physically separated, how I feel about everyone won’t change, and I’ll still continue to rely on and grow with and share with all of the people on this trip, and to me that is the essence of community.

                                Our community on our last day in Costa Rica.

In a lot of ways, some of the most significant learning for me on this trip came from my peers, and Central America simply served as the backdrop, which I guess just goes to show that usually what you’re looking for can be found at home. However, did learn a lot of valuable things from the places we visited and the people we met.

One of the first things that comes to mind is that sustainability is hard. Not only does it take a lot of work to create and synthesize and coalesce a community to be sustainable on a human level, to be environmentally and ecologically sustainable requires a great understanding of and relationship to the natural world, it also takes a tremendous amount of physical work. Sustainability isn’t just something you come to know through your head or your heart or your gut, you also feel it in your back and shoulders and wrists; through having dirt on your palms and wind in your hair and sun in your face; through the handle of a shovel and the bristles of a paintbrush. However difficult the work may be, the rewards are endless.

Another thing I learned is that a little kindness goes a long way. All of the small things I noticed that people do here, like greet each other on the streets and stop by peoples’ houses when they pass and feeding whoever comes by and watching each other’s kids did a lot to raise my spirits and give me a sense of community wherever I went. The people here genuinely care about each other and us and they didn’t have to do anything extravagant to make that known. I want to remember this when I go home so that I can make more of an effort to show kindness to the people I encounter. Every community has its problems, but I didn’t see that stopping anyone here from caring about or helping their neighbors, and I hope that’s a value I continue to carry with me.

I was also impressed by the relationship with nature most of the people we encountered had. Most were so appreciative of the resources the natural world provides, whereas I don’t think I’ve ever felt particularly thankful when I turned on the faucet. Beyond the sense of gratitude most people had for their resources, I also saw a great sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world simply because it existed. Remembering Pablo and Mauricio’s excitement at every bird and every tree and Chico’s quiet patience and love for his land and his work makes me want to live for fully with that sense of connectedness and wonder. An individual or a community can’t function always waiting for the next extraordinary moment – you’ll  quickly become burnt out or disappointed or jaded. But if you learn to love the ordinary because there is beauty in the little things, and because each moment is different from the next and because we share these ordinary moments with nature and each other, we can build from that a better way of living.

So now when I think about “sustainability through community”, I guess I have a better idea of what it is, though it’s still hard for me to articulate. For me, sustainability through community is being in a place where people care deeply about the natural world and each other, that creates a space for people to grow and share and love, and that is a constant exchange of giving and taking with no one keeping track. I don’t know all of what it takes to build a sustainable community, but I want to try and I want to help create a feeling of community in the places I am and the places I’m going. For me, the idea of sustainability through community is reflected in the faces of Sebastian and Chico and Aaron and Pablo and all of the wonderful people we’ve met on this trip. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully communicate with anyone what I learned or how I feel about sustainability through community, but hopefully I can continue to live and learn it and show it to the places I’m going home to.

Courtney Remacle 

Asoprola Overview

Asoprola

We arrived in Altamira late at night on March 24^th after a bittersweet bus ride from Kekoldi.  During the first week, we received a tour of the grounds, including organic permaculture farms, jelly and cosmetic making facilities, and a sapling greenhouse; Latin dancing and cooking classes; and a tour of local artist’s house and studio.  We got to visit yet another refreshing river and the Pacific coast, play soccer and lots of camp games with the school kids; and we worked on filling 2,000 small bags of compost dirt in order to grow fragile baby trees, a ceramics project, a small souvenir shop, and a raised bed garden at the elementary school. 

                                      An introduction to a local farm.

Our stay was both relaxing and energizing. The relaxation came in the form of tedious tasks. I’ve felt purposeless at various points throughout the trip due to the nature of the work we were doing, but I’ve gained a greater ability to see the bigger picture than I had before this trip, so feeling like a tiny piece of an immeasurable puzzle was alright with me. I’ve come to terms with the fact that no matter how great my accomplishments turn out to be, they’ll always be pretty tiny relative to all of the accomplishments humanity has made throughout history, but because I’m working along side well-intentioned individuals, we can accomplish real feats together. For now I may be just transporting rocks to build of a wall of the new souvenir store or filling small bags of dirt, but that’s helping the limited staff of Asoprola make more of their time, and the association is part of a network of millions of organizations working interdependently and in harmony to face the greatest challenge humanity has ever seen. The opportunity to stay there also gave me an example of how sustainability works through community, and part of the way communities function is that everyone shares in the more tedious work so that it gets done.

At the same time, I’ve never simultaneously felt so present and so exited to return home. Interactions with and observations of the community told me that these were good people who really care and work hard all day, every day.  Efforts like theirs are those that change the hearts and minds of the people they come into contact with and create a positive impact on the world, in this case benefitting the natural environment here in Costa Rica. There was also mosaic art everywhere we went. Naturally, I was excited to be there. Adding to the experience for me were the surprising similarities between Altamira and Kentucky in terms of  the weather, landscapes, and even the scents in the air, making me feel at home and also excited that I would soon be home for real.

                                Mosaic floor and counters in the restaurant.

Finally, my host family was nothing short of amazing. Tommy and I stayed with the Valdez family for the two weeks we were at Asaprola, and they made us feel so welcome. It seemed like they really wanted to hang out with us and share their home, so instead of feeling stressed about what I could possibly say to them, I actually looked forward to come home at night. That made any challenge I might be presented with during the day infinitely easier to face. So for me it was an ideal site for our last couple of weeks, helping me to feel happy with the trip as a whole and prepared to leave.

Sammy Meador

Kekoldi Overview

Hello friends and family!

The sunshine is the root of all happiness here in Costa Rica. Every person you meet greets you with warmth and smiles. We were fortunate enough to spend about two weeks with indigenous people of Costa Rica in a place called Kekoldi.  Every morning we awoke to beautiful bird songs and fresh bread/doughnut things that we covered with as much nutella as you could imagine. We awoke in paradise, and fell asleep to the pitter patter of rain on a tin roof. Although sometimes it was much more then a pitter patter, the essence of a nighttime lullaby never ceased. Our days were full of adventure. We hiked through the tropical forest to a hidden waterfall oasis. The locals told us the water would be cold but compared to the Maine coast, lakes, and rivers I am used to, the water was quite warm.  Never in my life have I felt anything so naturally powerful. When the waterfall beat upon my back I had to make sure I didn’t loose my footing and plunge into the white water below. We hiked back to be greeted with a feast fit for kings.  Kekoldi fed us way too good. They stuck to traditional Costa Rican food, but flavored it like a bold Emerald Lagassi and a comforting Paula Dean. Rice, beans, veggies, palm hearts, and pasta never tasted so good.

            Our guide Pablo, a Costa Rican Biologist and Forester, was so passionate about nature he dedicated his life to studying birds, focusing on birds of prey. His ipod is not filled with artists and albums but instead 4 gigabytes of different bird species and their songs. Kekoldi is the bottleneck for aviary migration, and is the 2^nd best place in the world to watch the raptor migration. They have a 5-story look out tower in which well known biologists visit to study various species of birds and their migration. We were lucky enough to witness these bird tornadoes. Birds of prey are soarers. This means they fly using the hot air thermals. They soar from one hot rising air mass to another, spiraling in circles up so high in the sky they have enough momentum to soar down to the next to repeat the process until they get back to North America. At one point, we saw a fleet of 10,000 migratory raptors spiraling into the sky. Words cannot express what an amazing site this is. Kekoldi is also home to native birds of every color, brightly colored poison dart frogs, Katy-dids (which look like flying leaves), Central American Bush Masters (the most venomous snake found in all of the Americas), Scorpions, Bullet ants (holding the most painful sting of any creature on earth), Boas, 3 inch hornets, giant June bugs (and yes they suck at flying here too), Beautiful butterflies (Blue Morpho being my favorite), 2 toed and 3 toed sloths, and tarantellas (Which I was “lucky” enough to get up close and personal with… I had one IN MY HAIR!! Yeah, hands down the most scared I’ve been in my life. I sure as hell will never forget that).

                                  Pablo introducing us to one of his reptilian friends.

            On the flip side, relaxing on the beach of the Caribbean Sea and stepping foot in a warm ocean made everything okay. Kekoldi has it all. It’s a shame these indigenous people had to fight for land that has always been theirs. Fortunately, we have a reason to go back. Everyone in the group planted their own tree. I made a promise to mine that I would come back and see how it has grown. Sorry guys, my tree is going to be bigger than yours.

I’ll be seeing you all soon!

Pura Vida! Leeann

p.s. Love and Miss you Mom and Dad

Visit to Yorkin

So the faithful crew begrudgingly left the beaches of Gandoca to head to the remote community of Yorkin on the Costa Rican and Panamanian border. While the two communities are less than 10 miles apart as the crow flies, the journey took about 5 hours.

            We piled into a couple 4x4 taxis and headed down the long dirt road through banana plantations to get to the main road. At about the midway point, we reached the precarious twisted bridge, which we were all hesitant to cross. The driver thought it would be a good idea for us to get out while he drove across, so we jumped out and walked over the bridge before the taxi passed. Amazingly, the bridge did not give out when he crossed and we all hopped back in and continued on our journey. We finally arrived at the main road to catch the bus to Bri Bri.

            The town of Bri Bri is the developed hub of the Bri Bri tribe and territory. It has a few amenities including a grocery store, a motel, and a rather dilapidated bathroom (which you needed to pay for, by the way). The group trudged down the streets in the rain to the alternate bus stop for the more local bus. Picture your average municipal bus lumbering through the busy streets of your favorite city. Now, picture that very same bus, driving on unmaintained dirt roads that you wouldn’t dare take your mother’s ‘Camry’ down.  That is the exact bus we found ourselves crammed into, trying to maintain balance. At every dip in the road, the bus would slowly scrape along its rear end and we would all cross our fingers that it didn’t get stuck and require our manpower. At one such happening, Leeann, cranking away on her disposable camera, found it an opportune moment to throw herself over me to take a picture of one of the hundreds of small trickling steams along the way. But after what seemed like an eternity (probably 45 minutes), we had reached the launch point for our next mode of transportation.

            We walked down a path through a large valley to come upon a river with three slender looking riverboats afloat. Each was carved out of a single tree trunk with a 20hp Yamaha mounted on back. After the drivers bailing the vessels, we climbed aboard, about 5 in each, and headed down the Rio Yorkin for the ride of a lifetime. With the motor in back and a ‘poler’ up front to push us through the shallower sections, we slowly glided upstream through dense and remote rainforest. The Rio Yorkin lies on the border of Costa Rica and Panama, and snakes in and out of each country. Within minutes, a torrential downpour began and the low, foggy clouds blanketed the peaks. It was an unforgettable ride. We passed small cliffs spotted with dozens of sleeping bats, and heard screeching Mealy parrots flying over the canopy. Trees leaned over the river, dangling vines that would occasionally brush our jacket hoods. Once in a while, a kingfisher would swoop right past the boat and make a dive for the water. It was an experience I had wanted the whole trip and one that I will remember for a lifetime.

            After about an hour, the boats slid up to a steep, grassy slope where we scurried ashore to find ourselves at the remote river village of Yorkin. After a day of what seemed like travelling half the world, I plopped down into the soggy grass and stared into the distance. Oh, the miles we had covered. When our friend/guide Alex arrived, I couldn’t help but ask him how far Gandoca was from there. He pointed to a peak a few miles away and said, “Oh, Gandoca is just over that mountain.”

-Zach

Chocolate making in Yorkin

                                       Boat ride to Yorkin, Costa Rica, site of an ecolodge 

                                     run by indigenous Bribri people and of chocolate making         

                                        

Chocolate

Me: Let me tell you about the wonderful and mysterious process of making chocolate. This amazing plant starts out in an unexpected form, which few fellow chocoholics even know. A pod. Unlike money, it really does grow on trees!

Pablo: But wait, didn’t the ancient Mayans actually use Cacao seeds as money?

Me: Uh… yea, but that’s a whole other story. Anyways, chocolate, or cacao, is a pod which grows on a tree. In each pod are rows of seeds covered in a slimy membrane.

Pablo: Ewww!

Me: No, it is really tasty actually, but the seeds are what are  sought after.  People harvest the seeds, and go through a process of fermenting and drying in the sun giving a deep flavor which is emphasized by a final roasting.

Pablo: And then it’s chocolate?

Me: No. Then you have to remove the husk of each seed, which resembles a peanut skin.

Pablo: Sounds boring.

Me: Yes but here they use an old technique of laying the dry seeds in a wooden platter and use a huge round rock to grind them up.

                                                       Neal grinding the cacao beans

Pablo: A rock?

Me: Yup.

Pablo: You’re kidding.

Me: Nope. That removes the husk and then they toss them up in a swift motion allowing the lighter husks to blow away, leaving behind crushed cacao nibs.

Pablo: Sounds magical alright.

Me: Then they use a hand-crank mill to grind the nibs even further into a dark creamy paste.

Pablo: Chocolate!

Me: Well… Sort of, 100% chocolate! Then you mix in other tasty things like sugar and banana. I like it with cayenne, coffee beans, ginger, or shredded coconut, but there are lots of things that go really well.

Pablo: Wow. So…. Where can I get some?

Willow Beier

What makes something spectacular?  A “You don’t know what you’re missing” kind of event?  Does it need to be flashy: fireworks on New Year’s Eve?  Should it be well advertised and highly anticipated: the Super Bowl?  Could it be in the middle of the night when we’d all rather be in bed?

In Gandoca, Costa Rica our traveling community spent two sleepless nights with the rangers and researchers of a sea turtle conservation crew.  Countless kilometers of Caribbean shoreline have been preserved by the government so that wildlife projects such as this can protect the livelihood of inhabitants much too soft spoken to protect themselves.  And so, with those inhabitants in mind and at heart, we found ourselves aroused from snooze with the news that a Leatherback Sea Turtle had surfed her way on shore from the depths and had begun her seasonal egg laying ritual. 

                                  CELL students walking Gandoca beach during daytime

In two parallel lines we walked behind our guides with all of our flashlights flicked off and only the cloud-filtered grey light of the moon to make out the silhouettes of the beach wood and each other.  Down the way one could see the brief illumination of a red light, as if cautioning on comers to slow down for what was ahead.  Coming still closer, doing our best to twinkle-toe away from the playful impact of the torrent’s rolling white foam at our sandy but still dry shoes, the only silhouette worth noticing now was surreal. 

A few paces away, sprawled on the shore, head facing the coconut trees that were bowing towards the ocean further up the bank, was something spectacular.  There were no new year’s fireworks, but in the slurry of those coconut trees hovered thousands of fireflies like free-floating ornaments celebrating the arrival of new pearl-colored spherical hatchlings.  Or they could have been insect-sized photographers flashing in the peripheral of the tropic stadium that was erected as we all surrounded this leather-hided creature swaying its hind fins back and forth, left and right, over and over again like two pendulum line backers digging away at a salty chamber beneath the sand; yet another of nature’s many incubators.  She went on like this for, I was told, an hour, but what amount of time can measure a prehistoric event such as this?  And it really was pre-historic.  A happening that precedes history.  It was like watching an aquatic dinosaur coming back to the same stretch of beach that she emerged from as a palm sized Tortuga millions of years ago… 

And I wish you could have been there.  You don’t know what you’re missing.  It’s so hard to miss something when you don’t know what you’re missing.  This thought was given to me, which is to say, it was not my own, while we witnessed the leatherback swirl back around and in no rush whatsoever (it is a turtle, remember) pull her way back towards the unbounded pool that binds us all.  Head flat on the volcanic sands, front fins forward.  Slap, slide and pull.  Waves crashing.  Slap, slide and pull.  Crash.  Slap.  Slide.  Pull.

Foam.    

Tomas Newman         

After parting ways with our host families in Sabana Grande, we travelled to Selva Negra, literally “Black Forest,” a scenic, self-sustained ecolodge and organic coffee, veggie, flower, and livestock farm in the Nicaraguan cloud forest. During our one and a half week stay, we received a tour of the grounds, including explanations of the coffee production process, an encounter with some excited baby goats, and a view of their on-site vermicomposting operation, which is part of a system that produces seven million pounds of compost annually. We talked about barriers to communication, spent time being one with nature by doing a solo in the woods, and shared our feelings about each other in the gifting circle. Mausi, one of the owners of Selva Negra, gave us a history of the place, complete with explanations of how they once fled to the United States after being chased by the Nicaraguan government, and of how she came about her expansive comic book collection. We discussed how to make a living, what constitutes a healthy appetite, how to form and improve communities, and the Universe Story; and we also got schooled by Willow and Tommy about belly dancing and the history of hip-hop, respectively.

                                    Selva Negra children helping prepare the vegetable garden

 Most notably, though, we spent roughly half of our time designing and building a school playground and organic veggie and herb garden for the children of the coffee pickers employed by Selva Negra. After the tour of the grounds on day one, we got to have a look at the site, and then Karen, one of Mausi’s daughters, and her husband Don debriefed us. We set to work the next day sharing ideas and mapping the possibilities for a layout. The following morning, we presented our plan to Karen and Don. We worked hard Tuesday through Friday, and Saturday morning we finished the project by painting our tire creations with the kids. The final product included a lochness monster (which we named Larkspur, after Neal’s mysterious wife), a music center, an underground telephone, the gardens, and a tire island in the center of it all.

                                                Kids and Leeann testing the new tire fort

 For me personally, building the playground was the most rewarding project we’ve worked on thus far. I think the difference was that we had a hand in the decision-making. The creative process of designing the playground was enjoyable in and of itself, but it would have been less so if we didn’t know that we had the authority to bring our ideas to fruition. We really were going to build this playground, at a site we had seen and felt, for kids we would soon meet. We talked about the importance of giving workers an understanding of the complete operations of a company, accompanied by some degree of executive clout, during our discussion on making a living. I saw that sentiment come to life in myself and in our community. It was so very gratifying on Friday, when the kids ran out of the classrooms and went wild on their nearly complete new playground, to see what started as a problem converted into laughter and exhilaration. For our group, it became a realization of what we can accomplish together, and we did it without spending any money or consuming any new material. I love it. It was a powerful demonstration that there’s hope. We didn’t save the planet by building a playground and a few raised beds, but we certainly made a step in the right direction, and that’s created a ripple effect that will continue quite possibly forever.

                                                     The completed playground project

Sammy Meador

CELL Group Travels to Costa Rica

Our bus journey to Puerto Viejo from Selva Negra took us through Granada, Nicaragua, a tourist community founded in 1529 by the Spaniards and located on Lake Nicaragua next to the extinct volcano Mombacho.  We toured the volcano’s peak reaching it by land cruiser and then hiking for several hours around the summit viewing the beautiful vistas of the valley communities and lake blow. 

Granada offered a nice respite in a simple but pleasant hotel, a good restaurant and Internet connections.  The next morning we departed on a 7 am bus with a muffin and juice in hand for an 8 hour bus ride across the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border and up through the mountains to the capital city of Costa Rica, San Jose.  The difference between Nicaragua and Costa Rica’s development was evident in the first miles of our ride, noticing almost no litter along the roadways, the houses and farms more tidy and as we entered towns and cities the obvious more modern buildings, cars and businesses.  We stayed at a very nice hostel and stuffed ourselves at dinner, before leaving early the next morning for the bus station. 

The three-hour trip to our roadside drop off was uneventful except for a 20-minute bathroom-snack stop at a local restaurant in Limon.  In that short time, I met an old Costa Rican friend from Peace Corps days, Juan Coward, who worked as an Associate Peace Corps Director in Costa Rica for many years.  Juan greeted me, with bags of bananas and Mamon chino, a spiky, hard-covered fruit outside with a delicious, sweet core, both from his farm.  There was hardly any time to talk before the bus driver began to honk his horn for departure.  Given that we would be in the area for 2 weeks Juan might be able to visit me another time.

Pablo Camacho Varela, a young and leading ornithologist accompanied us on our bus trip to Puerto Viejo and he will be one of our tour guides and technical experts during our two-week stay.  When we got off the bus on the roadside, Pablo pointed us to a path into the jungle and said our destination was only 400 meters away.  We arrived 45 minutes later, tired, having walked a half mile uphill, rising in elevation about 1500 feet through muddy, slippery, paths. 

Once here, we’ve seen the wisdom often expressed in a football practice, “no pain, no gain” because we were delighted to find our accommodations in a huge tree house constructed by its owner, Sebastian, and his family who are members of the Bri Bri indigenous population. The lovely designed building was made all from local wood sawed with only a chain saw and carried by hand over the same terrain described above.  It took one year to accumulate the materials and eight months to build. 

Our first morning we hiked to the top of the hill and to the top of a viewing tower, also constructed by the locals.  They claim this location is the second best place in the world to view migration of North American Raptors, second only to the River of Raptors in Veracruz, Mexico.  This narrow flyway between the Serro Del Congo Mountains of Southeast Costa Rica and the Southern Caribbean provides the perfect thermals for raptors to rise high and then glide to the next thermals.  Yesterday from the tower we waited to no avail to see this phenomenon but today as we walked through the rain forest to go play at the beach for the afternoon, we were amazed at the hundreds, if not the thousands, of birds spiraling upwards in graceful circles and drifting onward.

We have had lectures about Costa Rica's people and economy and a talk about the Bri Bri indigenous people and how important and challenging this ecotourism project is to their livelihood. Our hosts are extremely bright, creative, industrious and generous.

Over the next four days we will take a leave from the tree house and visit a Sea Turtle Conservation Project and return on Friday for four more days here. Stay tuned for more CELL adventures...

As the days turn into weeks

The new places become the old

Strangers become family for me

Sabana Grande a home

From the solar cookers

To the plastic bottles

We made a difference

If not to many

At least to one

Picking up leaves

Or in my case

Putting manure in a latrine

Every day was a new adventure

A time to learn and grow

So thank you Sabana Grande

For making me feel at home.

Katie Schober

Herbal Alternatives of Sabana Grande

Along with sustainable practices in food and energy, this community is looking to the world of plants in healing as well. In attempt to bring back the knowledge of natural healing, women of Todogalpa are relearning herbal remedies. Not only does this bring them closer to their medicine and the natural world around them, but also limits their dependency on expensive health care. It brings the resources within the community to its members, creating a self-sustaining system instead of spending it on outside health.

Many rural communities depend on local herbs and “Naturalistas” for healing due to lack of access to doctors and modern medicine. “Muchos mujeres no pueden pagar por la medinina moderna y usan las hierbas por todo” as explained to me in Spanish. This information is passed from generation to generation but has been lost recently to bursts of “medical assistance” where communities are given massive supplies of antibiotics. Natural remedies are then discredited due to lack of research (thanks to pharmaceutical companies) and antibiotics become the “all-healing” drug.

                                    CELL student Willow Beier with Dona Alejandra

But communities are finding the value of plants as doctors turn away “fatal” conditions and people resort to older remedies. Many of these include common “weeds” such as plantain leaf and culinary herbs like rosemary and oregano. A large variety of fruit is also used, including lemon and papaya, which are incorporated into daily diets. Many of these can be taken in large doses over a long period of time, whereas some, like Mugwort (Artemesia) are powerful in small doses. Some are common knowledge passed down but it can take years of practice and study to become a professional.

Small groups of women here are beginning to join and uncover the vast world of plant healing. With small steps like these, they are walking towards a healthier, more sustainable community.

Willow Beier

 Five-Gallon Bucket

There are women who live in a small pueblo off a slice of highway just outside of Ocotal, Nicaragua.  They awake with the sun and the roosters.  Durable five-gallon buckets are filled at a hand cranked well and carried away, one after another, on the swiveled t-shirt-topped heads of the women who awake with the sun and the roosters in a pueblo just outside of Ocotal, Nicaragua.

                                           Sabana Grande woman carrying morning water

Passing one of these women along a barb-wired dirt road warrants a soft smile and an “ey hombre,” but not if the five-gallon bucket, filled to the brim with hand-cranked well water is on her head.  Not then.  She is focused.   You understand. 

Her husband may be tending to herds, milling wood or at harvest; so also may her sons and daughters.  Or they may be at school harvesting literacy and other fruits of knowledge.  Seeds for replanting.

                                          Sabana Grande man carrying crops from the field

She takes in and feeds and cares for the needs of foreign - American foreign - chicos and chicas and permits they witness that steadfast commitment to her way of life and her way of community.  Her expectations are not warped nor out of proportion to her lifestyle, so long as she and her place and her people remain healthy, who she works hard for and who works hard for her. 

Emptied.  Replenished.  She cranks the well and the water comes out.     

Tomas Newman 

The Solar Life in Sabana Grande

Fresh drinking water, electricity, cooked food and more all through the power of the sun, potentially our greatest and most overlooked source of energy. For thousands of years the ancients glorified this object for its life giving qualities, for they knew that with out the sun there would be no plants or animals and our earth would not sustain life.  Hence they personified the sun into major religious figures and gods to promote its significance.  Finally our admiration of it is coming back around in the form of solar pumps, water distillers, dryers, ovens, cookers and electricity producing panels.  Education and construction of these uncomplicated technologies have the potential to make major impacts on impoverished communities, primarily due to their inexpensive and easy construction methods.

                                         Building a solar cooker with women of the cooperative

Compared to various other impoverished communities that lack the utilization of solar technologies, the community here in Sabana Grande seems to have an optimistic atmosphere about it.  The people seem more welcoming and happier than many than previous communities we visited.  My guess is that it’s because they have a hopeful future for their community due in part to the their growing use of solar technologies and the empowerment this has brought to the women who are building them.

                                                              Solar cooker in action

                           

Although they are living in the second poorest country of the western hemisphere, their lives are enriched by the appropriate technologies provided by a united effort between Groupo Fenix, Mujeres Solares. Groupo Fenix offers technical assistance and teaches members of the local women’s cooperative, Mujeres Solares, and Suni Solar supplies local resources to construct the solar technologies that change the lives of residents of Sabana Grande.  It is an empowering process to learn to construct something that was once thought of as dauntingly complex and overwhelmingly expensive. The residents here have also empowered themselves economically, for they are finding ways to produce new or improved products and services available almost exclusively through such methods.

Once I go home I hope to use the wealth of knowledge provided here, to try and build my own solar panels in order to give off grid electricity to my place of living.

Remy Decoster

Some poetry from our time in Brisas del Mar, Aramecina and La Tigra National Park:

Brand new places
Unknown smiling faces
Planting pineapple on hillsides
Between bumpy truck rides.
Counting all the coffee yields
After working in corn fields.
Three days of trying to dry wet clothes
And waking up with ice cold toes.
Hikes to waterfalls
Kicking butt with soccerballs
Camp fire flames
Salad bowl games
Helping to clean dirty dishes
While trying to fulfill hopes and wishes
It's funny how time flies
And we're left with teary eyes
And sad goodbyes

                    Katie Schober

     A wrinkle in time
Our squinting eyes match
the sunburned cheeks
as we
traveled from dried up streams
to cloud covered peaks.

The bumpy road takes its toll
on the tire popped by a deep pothole.

As the adventure continues
the stares never cease
but it doesn't mater
these gringos come in peace

A hike for the soul
and a disappointing Superbowl
remind us of home
and the driving we actually condone.

Ants in our pants
and sewage streams
we all got closer
crammed like sardines.

A lesson we've learned
as we've traveled along
speaking spanglish
our conjugations are wrong.

Plants living on plants
and trees covered by moss
shows us something
in the U.S. we have lost.

Being happy with less
and loving more
is just the beginning
we have much to explore!

          Leeann Reid

The following is letter that our guide, Aaron, sent us after we had finished our time in Brisas del Mar:


La Pandilla CELL,

That little coffee bean. Seems to have taken on a radically new meaning in my life. I am pretty confident that there are thirteen others that would feel the same way. While a simple expresso or latte would have drawn perhaps a sliver of my attention in the past, now it seems to have instigated a flood of images, memories and recuerdos.

I am certain, like many of you, that I will first think of Chico’s smiling face. That’s probably unavoidable. Then there will be a glimpse of Obed leaning on my shoulder on the car ride down the mountain and perhaps Evelyn letting me hold her for a very satisfying 60 seconds. While these mental pictures will undoubtedly push a smile on my face, I hope they also prompt me to remember the invaluable lessons of our Honduran teachers: extraordinary generosity, admirable humility and appreciation for the great opportunities that each and every one of us receive.

At the same time, it is inevitable that other images will not also appear in my head. Farm plots on unimaginably sharp slippery hillsides, 100 pound sack after one hundred pound sack carried on the backs of los corteros, and a voice of struggle and constant exertion that seems inherent in the story of just about every small scale coffee farmer. These particular images will have  another purpose. They are a reminder of our commitment and obligation, as was stated over and over again, to “take the community members with us.” Live differently, carry the message home and make a difference. I think we owe that much to our cloud forest amigos of Brisas del Mar.

As I said before, buen trabajo amigos! Your terrific attitude, willingness to absorb everything around you, and tremendous effort to get to know a rural Honduran family on such an extraordinarily personal level is nothing short of maravilloso. I wish you all the very best on the rest of your journey of learning and hope all that is taken in and learned will be converted into teaching, sharing and action in all that you do.

Hasta otro dia,

Aaron

Brisas del Mar

From start to finish, Brisas del Mar was a remarkable experience for all of us.  Trip Leader Aaron Banas, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) who served two years in Honduras and two years in Ecuador, organized and coordinated the entire program together with SHI Field Trainers Salomon and Juan Carlos.  Aaron was tireless, insuring that every detail was complete, offering, each work activity and meal happened as planned, and gave Spanish/English translation any time it was needed.  His instant rapport with every farmer and family member was amazing.  He was the glue.  Unfortunately he probably won’t be around next year but SHI has hired another RPCV to fill his spot.  Salomon and Juan Carlos will probably be there and they too were very good both with the technical training and helping with our relationships with the farmers and host families.  All three were with us for the entire week.

 

Brisas del Mar was a special site because it was a community that probably never had a non-Honduran, let alone an SHI group, visit their communities before. According to Aaron they were anxious to have us come and see how they lived and farmed in this remote mountain setting.  He also said that our visit helped encourage and motivate the farmers to follow through with the sustainable agriculture training they are receiving from SHI.  It was clear from the comments from the farmers after each work day that our efforts had helped them develop or expand a plot and instill a sense of pride in their work.

Day One – the group split, four women and Remy going to help install a watering system.  This was the only work site during the week that didn’t go very well, the women feeling that they were ignored by the two older men farmers.  After lunch this group joined the larger group to continue to continue to dig and fertilize about 100-120 holes and plant plantains in between pineapple rows. 

Day Two – we stood on the edge of a steep slope which the farmer, Don Chepe, had recently clear cut with his machete in preparation for staking out contour lines to construct terraces for planting corn.  The hillside was so steep and littered with the clear cuttings that we couldn’t believe anyone could plant, or walk, on this site.  But six hours later we had completed eight long terraced rows ready for Chepe to refine and plant corn on.

Day Three – we picked coffee on the farms of our two host families, Don Chico and Don Esbin.  Before starting, Chico instructed us in how to pick the coffee beans.  He also described the challenges of being a single small farmer who when bringing his unprocessed coffee to market had little choice but to sell to middlemen or “coyotes” who had the cash on hand and set prices low.  At this point we could now see the advantages of a farmer’s cooperative like the one in Copan who avoid middlemen by processing their own coffee ready to sell it directly to buyers for big retailers.  At the end of the afternoon we watched the beans we had picked be run through a de-pulping machine in preparation for bagging and selling to the “coyotes” in the market.  A 100 lb. bag sells for $220 to the retail buyer but Chico only receives $110.  We roughly estimated that at the end of the day Chico would make about 40 cents a lb. in profit for his coffee that later might sell for between $5 - $11 a pound in the US.

Day Four – we arrived at a newly cleared slope even steeper than the slope on Don Chepe’s property.  Don Jose and his 14 year-old son were still placing stakes to mark contour lines where we were to dig holes and plant new coffee plants.  Salomon gave a short lecture on how the coffee seedlings were planted and raised over a three-month period and that it would be two years before coffee beans could be harvested.  Some of the group very carefully made our way down the slopes, avoiding occasional bee and ant hives, to dig holes while others even more carefully transported baskets of coffee seedlings down the slick clay hillsides and placed them at the holes.  After lunch we planted about 70 or more new coffee plants.  As we departed, the 69 year old Don Jose expressed  sincere gratitude for our help.  His family lived in a very meagerly constructed home without even bathroom facilities.  This small plot of new coffee would eventually be a big boost to his family’s income.  

Day Five – we split into two groups and went to two different houses to assist SHI field trainers Salomon and Juan Carlos construct fuel-efficient wood burning stoves with vented exhaust pipes that will greatly improve the air quality over previous cooking methods.  The stoves’ brick base, about thirty inches high, three feet wide and four feet long, were built before we arrived.  We helped build the stove top, adding three additional layers of brick held together with a mortar mix of thick red clay and water.  Three interior spaces were left open for heat chambers, one for the wood fuel, a second and third filled with large rocks and pebble-sized stones successively, which absorbed and held heat from the wood fire.  A large rod-iron top (about 20”x 30”) was placed on top of the brick and secured with mortar.   The students really enjoyed getting their hand dirty in the clay and setting the bricks.

Each of the hands-on activities gave students a real taste of farming and their homestays gave a taste of this very modest life in the mountain communities.   A real bond was established between the families and students.

Chuck Wattles

We spent this past week in the Honduran mountain community of Brisas del Mar working with Sustainable Harvest International. This organization teaches families how to live more sustainable and nutritious lives, with the hope that when they graduate from the program they will pass on their new knowledge to other community members. In this community, SHI has helped families through the implementation of new things like chicken coops, family gardens and fishponds.  Our facilitator, Aaron, introduced us to the community and coordinated our service projects throughout the week.

Navigating the steep and muddy roads up the mountain in the back of pickup trucks was scary but fun, thanks to our SHI field leaders and drivers, Solomon and Juan Carlos. For the next five days we lived in the clouds. Brisas del Mar is so high in elevation that the clouds often make it very misty, but when they clear you are surrounded by green mountains for miles in every direction. The roads are made of bright red clay, but just off the path the atmosphere quickly turns into a steamy jungle, full of  countless tropical plants, animals, and hidden waterfalls.

We spent a lot of time getting to know the families of our host fathers, Don Chico and Don Esbin. All of the women in Don Chico’s family spent hours preparing great meals for us throughout the week. Our group also enjoyed the company of the children at our houses, and the family dogs provided much entertainment (except for Peluche, who is an excellent guard dog jaja). The family members delighted in watching us play games, and one night they even gathered in the doorway of the kitchen to watch some of us put on a shadow puppet show while others shared dishwashing duty by candlelight.

This is a coffee farming community and for our host families, coffee harvesting is the main source of income.  For a product that we consume so much in the U.S., we knew surprisingly little about how it is grown and processed. Our families taught us how to plant, harvest and de-pulp the coffee. We also tried our hand at planting plantains and clearing a hillside in preparation for corn planting. We concluded our trip by helping a couple of families build fuel-efficient stoves. We were exhausted at the end of each day, and we learned that it takes a lot of hard work for the farmers here to produce their crops from start to finish.

Last night we had a closing ceremony with our host families and the SHI coordinators, which included a bonfire, a feast complete with cake, and a surprise visit from a local guitar duo that led us in an impressive variety of both Spanish and English songs. Thomas, Zach and Tommy kicked off the sing-a-long session with an enthusiastic rendition of Hotel California, and soon everyone was joining in. The ceremony ended with speeches from everyone about what we would remember from this week, and finally…we performed a song and dance routine to the Macarena, to everyone’s amusement.

We’ve certainly had our share of challenges this week. We’ve hauled tools and plants down steep inclines, pushed trucks stuck in mud up mountainsides, and spotted tarantulas while digging holes. We will remember being chased by angry dogs, stung by unidentified insects and pricked by thorny pineapple plants. But what will stand out most in our memories are the impressions left by the people we have met in Brisas del Mar. They live simply, work hard, and place much value on their families and farming sustainably. They have been an inspiration to us and taught us that hard work and passion are key elements in meeting the challenges of sustainable living.

Lia and Juliet

CELL Group Working with Sustainable Harvest International

The CELL group completed their language immersion and home stay experience in Copan and traveled tothe highlands of Quimistan (Honduras) on Friday, January 27th.  They took part in an orientation with trip leader Aaron Banas and then headed to the rural community of Brisas del Mar to meet their host families and get an introduction to Sustainable Harvest's (SHI's) program.  SHI is a small non-profit organization providing farming families in Central America with training and tools to improve quality of living while restoring the environment.  We have been working in Honduras since 1997 and the group will get a chance to see the impact of our programs while working alongside Honduran agronomists and families on a variety of volunteer projects.

Aaron sends saludos from the group and says that they are enjoying the time with the families and over the weekend helped to plant organic pineapples and cassava.  Quimistan is known for producing delicious coffee and the group will get a chance see how SHI is working with farmers to inter-crop coffee with spices under a canopy of native hardwood trees.  In addition to providing families with nutritious and marketable crops, these multi-story forest plots mimic the natural forest, protect watersheds and provide important wildlife habitat.  The group will also likely get a chance to see how coffee is planted, harvested, depulped and roasted - so as you sip your morning cup this week, think of them in the coffee highlands of Honduras!

The village of Brisas del Mar doesn't have electricity and cell phone access is limited so I don't expect another message from the group for a few days...  They'll be departing the rural communities on Thursday of this week and then traveling on to their next program site - Fundacion Simiente in the South of Honduras.

Hola again! Yesterday was our wonderful endeavor of empanada making where we toured the process of making fuel-efficient stoves! This scrumptiously educational experience was supported by Stove Team International, which is an organization combating indoor air pollution and severe burns produced by inadequate stoves. Many people cannot afford safe conventional stoves and resort to open cooking fires. This results in burns, excessive use of trees, and respiratory illnesses that cause the deaths of around 2 million people! Stove Team International establishes locally-owned sustainable factories producing safe wood burning (Ecocina) cook stoves. The Ecocina reduces wood use by 50%, carbon emissions by 70%, and provides jobs for locals. After seeing how they make these safe yet portable stoves, we headed over to the cooking station where we got to try them out! Local women illustrated their culinary techniques of making empanadas out of corn (maiz), beans(frijoles), and cheese(queso).  After multiple (somewhat successful) attempts and developing our own unique styles, we sat down for a fiesta de felizidad!

            Willow

Well I think I speak for all of us when I say that Copan was a feast for the senses, a bath for the soul, and a fitness gym for the mind. We experienced a pleasant introduction into the culture and lifestyle of Honduras while the little seed of our community germinated into a small sprout (with no shortage of sunlight to grow of course).

For those of you who have not heard, Copan Ruinas is a picturesque little Honduran town with a big personality. The elegant central park and cobble stone streets attract tourists from all corners of the globe, while the countless rampant dogs and roosters crowing at 4:00 am remind us of the genuine, salty culture that is still very much alive in Copan.

While in Copan, we racked our brains in Spanish class 4 hours a day, visited an organic coffee farm, made empanadas with fuel-efficient stoves, toured a large vegetable farm, and suffered through 2 hours of soaking in the natural hot springs.

But even with all this excitement, the experiences that will stay the closest to our hearts is the unmatched hospitality we received from our host families. They treated us as if we were their own, and accommodated us above all others, including themselves. And I’m sure we can agree that most of the host families made us better food than our own (no offense guys).

However, we must all move on now to our next adventure with Sustainable Harvest International. We are all anxiously awaiting morning in the hotel when we will jump into pickup trucks and head to the remote mountain village of Brisas Del Mar. There we will work with local farmers on their coffee plantations and experience the life of a village that exists by simpler terms. Wish us Luck!

Hasta Luego!

Zach 

¡Hola de Copån!

We’ve been learning really hard, and you’ve been waiting really hard, so here it is: Our first blog entry! Our adventure begins in the Nordic climate of Rutland Massachusetts, where the crew spent a mystical few days at Heifer International’s Overlook Farms. The days were spent getting to know each other through conversation and games, taking in inspirational stories and videos, and devouring platefuls of delicious food grown right outside our windows (Happy Birthday Courtney whoot whoot 22!).

     After an early morning breakfast and 15 hours of travel, we arrived to the scenic pueblo of Copán, Honduras, a whirl of cobblestone hills and noisy mototaxis and children and dogs and un poco of trash.  We were graciously welcomed into the homes of our host families, and after the initial realization that we’re not in Kansas anymore, we found that it was easy to make an instant connection.  We spent the first two days getting to know the town and the Spanish language via lessons at Ixbalanque Spanish School.  If you were Tomás, the first days were spent being pensive and throwing up, while Willow enjoyed cataloguing a host of new fruits and explaining the term “gluten-free” to her host family. En español. Courtney, Leeann, and Zach are having a great time despite only being able to respond with “sí” and “gracias” (Hac helps), and Juliette is quickly becoming best friends with her mama Mimi.

    This weekend we explored the Mayan ruins, once the most powerful community in all of Mesoamerica.  Our spunky guide Saúl told us all about the mysteries of la Ceiba tree, the ancient equivalent of the Super Bowl, and the first congress build North of the Rio Grande. Katie and Tommy took multiple wrong turns during their walk in the rainforest, and Sammy enjoyed some extra time soaking in the atmosphere of the ruins. Lia watched her host sisters fly this way and that on their really, really, quiet ATV, and Remi got to chat it up with some Brits and discuss the intricacies of revolution.

   After a dip in the hot springs, looking up a few more palabras in our Spanish/ English dictionaries, a crash course in empanada cooking, and a tour of a local coffee farm, we’re off to Sustainable Harvest International.   ¡Hasta luego compadres!

Spanish lesson of the week: Repite por favor (repeat please);

¿Qué hondas muchacho? Neal es muy guapo esta noche, ¿no?

CELL Central America Sustainability through Community Program 2012

On January 15, 2012, a group of 11 students and 2 faculty begin an educational adventure focused on a theme of "sustainability through community" in three countries in Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica). During the semester program, students will:

*  Immerse themselves in other cultures
*  Learn how sustainability is achievable through community 

*  Learn through service to others

*  Wrok with inspiring community sustainability organizations and individuals

*  Receive 15 college credits while integrating theory with real-life applications

*  Take a leadership role in sustainability once they return home. 

Who are we?

The Center for Ecological Living and Learning (CELL) offers unique sustainability education programs for students who believe that they can make a difference in the world: students who would like to play an active role in creating long-term solutions to problems facing our local and global communities and environment. During the course of a semester program, students learn about the concepts of sustainability while living in home stays with village families and learning from internationally recognized partners who are modeling how a “small group of committed people” can make a big difference in achieving local and global sustainability. At the end of a CELL program, students develop action plans that empower them to return home and employ what they have learned in their own lives and through implementing sustainability initiatives in their own communities. This individual and collective action is at the heart of what CELL is all about!  

For more information on CELL's programs, check out our website at: www.cellonline.org.  Stay tuned for updates on our CELL activities.