Today, I was inspired to start a Science class for Nik and some of the Fellows. Will start by studying viruses and bacteria, partly because they are interesting and partly because they are such a large part of our reality here and good to be well informed about. Nik is currently recovering from some kind of intestinal parasite…
As a former Agricultural Peace Corps Volunteer, and a current vegetarian, it is appalling how few fruits and vegetables are available in the local market here. I’ve had thoughts about starting a community garden or some kind of gardening project here, and on election day on the way back from observing the voting we passed a large parcel of land growing sugar canes. I said to Timmy that maybe that would be a good place to start a community garden.
Today, we went to visit the former Robertsport mayor, and lo and behold, she is a gardener and actually owns the parcel of land growing the sugar canes. She was very open to the idea of gathering some women together who might be interested in a community garden. One of the main problems here is that the young people do not want to do work (according to the former mayor)…so we are brainstorming ways to overcome that obstacle…like maybe somehow coercing the local soccer team to help us. A work in progress, but it was an exciting contact. The former mayor reminds me of my recently deceased grandmother…wise and willing to be quite frank about her critique of the current culture. And also, she’s a gardener like my grandmother and seems to derive a lot of pleasure from growing her peppers and eggplant and bananas. And sugar cane. Which Nik and I are sucking on this very moment. Delicious.
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