When we returned from our trip, it was back to the gardens as usual. We have been going up to 5 communities in the mountains, and they’re all starting to blur together because they’re all in the same general area and most of them have really similar names--Paquip, Pasaquim, Panyebar, Palestina and Montecristo. So, it’s hard to keep track of what community we’re in on what day--and sometimes we go to more than one community in a day.
The garden project continues to go really well--we generally visit between 5 to 7 families per day and plant a garden with them at their home. Ami San Lucas decided it would be best to do it this way because they had tried to make communal medicinal gardens before, but nobody took responsibility for them and they didn’t last long (because no one was tending them). Thus, we are planting the gardens with individual families because then we when we go to check on them, we know who is responsible for the gardens and who has been maintaining theirs so we can decide where to take the project next year (ie continue with families, or try a new method).
Basically, we go around the day before we’re going to plant the gardens with a family and ask them if they would be interested in a garden and then instruct them to get a plot of land ready for us--2 meters by 1 meter of earth that is raised in some sort of garden bed and protected by a fence or something if they have animals (like chickens) wandering around. Somehow Lorenzo, the person we work with from Ami San Lucas who is awesome (and VERY helpful because he is trilingual in Spanish, Quiche and Tz’utujil...which I will get back to later), knows his way around all the communities. I know that he has been working in them for a while, but even so the way he navigates around is quite impressive. (For those who haven’t been to rural communities in Latin America, there are not streets and house numbers and all that stuff like in the US, basically people just build there houses wherever and they’re not on any sort of grid, just small dirt paths going every direction and occasionally a cluster of houses, sometimes about a 15 minute walk between them, so, when someone can navigate around, it seems quite impressive to me. Of course, for all I know, we could be going in circles, so really they don’t know their way around...just kidding, I think.)
Anyways, when we show up in the morning we go around to the different houses that we talked to the morning before (we usually split into two groups). We explain the garden and why we are interested in planting it (I’m getting good at that spiel)...basically we say we want to plant a garden with your family that’s small and easy to maintain, but in which you can plant a lot of different kinds of vegetables. Our hope is that with this garden the children can get the nutrients the need to grow up healthy. (All the families have kids, most have kids under 5 years old). Then we divide the garden bed the made into little squares and explain the that in each little square a different vegetable will be planted (with some repeats because we only have 11 vegetables). Then, we plant cilantro around the outside of the box because it acts as a natural insect repellant and they can also use it in the food. Then, with the help of the family, we plant the vegetables--cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, onion, beans, beets, radishes (which is the favorite vegetable of everyone), cucumber, and squash (plus the cilantro around the outside). Depending on the size of the vegetable, you can plant a different number in each square (for example broccoli is one per square, carrots are nine per square). As we’re planting the garden we make a “map” saying which vegetables are where and how many are in each square. At then end, we give the family the garden map, the seeds and a brochure about garden boxes. We explain that we are leaving them with the seeds so that when the first harvest comes then can plant the garden again--but in the same garden-box method. Or, they can also make another garden box so that they have more vegetables. We have been able to go back to a few families, and the gardens are starting to sprout a little bit already!
So, all in all, the project is going really well :) So, of course, I was having a great time in Guatemala, excited for the weekend and doing something fun, and I had to get sick. I started feeling a little funny Friday evening but figured I was just tired. I went to bed early, then woke up about 1 am and felt super nauseous--a very strange feeling for me. And, well, it didn’t go away so you can guess what happened next. Luckily, I only threw up a couple times, then I was able to go back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I felt awful though. I went upstairs for breakfast--we were supposed to have corn flakes, but I told me host sister I couldn’t eat that because I had been sick and my stomach was still feeling really weird, so she sent my host brother to buy me some plain french bread. I had that for breakfast, then came back down to my room and slept until lunch. For lunch they made chicken soup, so I was able to just have the broth. Then I slept some more. When my host mom came home she brought me some tea and asked what I wanted for dinner. I told her something plain, like rice or pasta with nothing on it. She also told me a remedy they use in Guatemala is putting potatoes on your forehead because it’s supposed to help with the chills. So, she cute up some potatoes and a tshirt and tied the potatoes to my forehead--at that point I was willing to try almost anything because I still felt a bit queasy, it felt like someone had hit me over the head with a bat (but I couldn’t take advil for fear that it would come back up) and I had the chills and essentially just felt like....well, you know, really terrible. Somehow, I think the potatoes actually helped, or I just started to get better. My big excursion in between lunch and dinner was to go the tienda that’s about 15 paces from my house and buy some gatorade to help rehydrate. I had plain past for dinner and went back to bed--I think I slept for basically 36 hours, but it paid off because Sunday I was able to get out of bed. In the morning I still felt pretty bad, but at lunch time I was able to go out and get some food (because we don’t eat with our host families on Sunday, my family was nice enough to give me bread and coffee this Sunday since I was sick). After lunch time I started feeling better, I think eating real food again was really exciting. By Sunday evening I felt like I could work the next day, but I still went to bed really early. I have to say, I hate being sick, and when you’re not in your own bed, it’s even worse. Hopefully I’ll stay well now!
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